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Once, a student came up to me and told me that his resume kept getting forwarded. Downcast, he said, “It seems as if my resume is vanishing into the black hole.” Reason? He attended a not-so-famous college and worked for a lesser-known company.
I was taken aback by this, to say the least! A recruiter will always look for ways to find that one needle in the haystack. Oftentimes a CV is one solid place to begin the shortlisting process. Fast-forward to 2022, technology has made sure that we sleep better, eat better, think better and also hire better! Are you sure you still want to be basing a hiring decision off an A4 flat paper to gauge a human with a myriad of skills and abilities?
A recruiter, now more than ever, needs to think beyond traditional ways of feeding the talent funnel. Let me start getting a bit more direct. Would you shortlist a 400th rank holder from an Ivy League college or the top ranker from a non-Ivy League college?
Now that I have asked the million-dollar question, let’s continue on the quest to answer it. Asking this question has been long overdue, and it is key to all our organizations’ growth that we ask it over and over again.
Related: 3 Ways to Rethink Your Hiring Process
But why go beyond resumes?
Resume-based hiring is a broken process. If it wasn’t, then we would all be working with a dream team churning out one product/service after the other. Hear me out!
Talent is in every nook and cranny:
Premier institutions are outnumbered by the mislabeled tier-2 and 3 ones. The pedagogy, students and rigor vary, but only to a slight degree. Access to ad hoc learning tools and the vigor to be better are in abundance. Do the math! Bedecked marble hallways may not be open to all, but the knowledge that flows through them is!
Imagine a scenario where you could know how good a coder or a problem-solver is before knowing where they studied. Once they are a part of their organization, their skill is what they will bring to the table and not the name of their college.
Question yourself: Do they have a mine of fresh ideas that could give solutions to real-world business problems? Do they strive to perfect their skill daily? Do they wish to understand current business scenarios? Would such shortlists have the ability to infuse zeal and energy into the office? These factors are highly important and should be given equal weight during the hiring process.
Your team needs a hustler, not a shiner:
Imagine a candidate who had everything stacked against them and still managed to reach your table and engage in a conversation with you and your team. Now, wouldn’t you want to hire this candidate? Not denying the fact that even the premier institutions have hustlers. But the ability to hustle, to perform, to grow — is it a trait that’s restricted to a certain set of colleges?
Related: 3 Prudent Hiring Practices to Acquire the Best Talent
Level the playing field and transform your hiring funnel
Now that the light is on this new idea of hiring based on demonstrated skills and abilities as opposed to an A4 sheet with bulleted versions of a candidate’s hard work, let me illuminate the whole path leading right up to the right candidate.
Built for meeting the demands of modern teams, online hackathons, case challenges and gamified challenges are wowing the recruitment industry. While all things new become the talk of the town rather easily, these new kids on the block come with heavy artillery.
They simplify the hiring process by giving you access to every eligible candidate. Float one online coding challenge or a case competition that is specific to your need and gauge candidates more objectively. This way you get a much more realistic sense of their caliber.
It sure does sound simple, but the bounty it offers you is boundless! You get to:
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Traverse geographies and tap into every little fold
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Level the playing field for everyone
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Save time and money that you would spend on sourcing
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Skip excels and fire fighting involved in the traditional hiring process
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Build and maintain a talent pipeline
Related: Recruitment Is Changing and Companies Are Wasting Resources Without Realizing It
The grass is about to get greener on your side
We all want to be the next big thing! Our business strategies may be groundbreaking and a direct route to becoming the newest industry leader. However, without the right team, strategies are nothing but detailed plans.
If you want to grow like the most beloved search engine that our lives are incomplete without, or like the phone which has a bitten-into fruit as its logo, we need to look at their hiring practices as well. Just learning from their business strategies and ideologies will be like making a pie and leaving out the butter. After all, butter does make everything better! Organize your first online hiring challenge today and ensure that your grass is green, too.
