Major Legal Services®: Employers: Hiring in a Tight Market

When good experienced talent is hard to find to fill a job, it may be best to shift priorities in what to look for in a candidate. Most hiring officials look at experience and education first, and give them the highest priority in their screening and hiring decisions.

Instead, consider examining personality traits, past accomplishments and work habits, and giving them higher priority than experience, education and other similar credentials.

We have had several employers hold out for months, and a few for well over a year, waiting to find a person with just the right experience to step in and fill a job. While I am sure there are circumstances in which it is necessary to do so, there is a growing wave of opinion that many of these situations deserve reevaluation of candidate search criteria.

One of the greatest concerns about bringing in less experienced people is that someone in the company with the experience needs to spend the time to train them. The immediate response is usually “well we don’t have the time to do that!” While this may be true, the alternative is for the current experienced employees to take up the slack, and usually work extra hours to get the work done. Of course this additional time is spent day after day while the company waits for the “experienced” person to come along.

What if the company was to revise the search criteria to include candidates who have personality traits and a record of work habits which would render them a quick study, and capable of handling the work once learned. Such traits, confirmed by past accomplishments and references, might include that they are bright, capable, conscientious, diligent, responsible, efficient, and effective. They should be resourceful, a “go-getter”, and not afraid to make mistakes. Of course, they must also have a strong interest in learning the areas that need to be taught. Could not these people be excellent alternatives to candidates with experience?

Often, the time that truly would be invested in training these individuals is not as great as is imagined. A person who is capable will begin assuming responsibilities very quickly. The time they free up for the current employee, who would otherwise assume the tasks, quickly escalates and surpasses any “teaching time” expended on the new employee.

There is also the added benefit of the new employee learning the processes and procedures in the manner in which the company likes to have them done. A new employee with experience in the practice area might come with the baggage of having learned a different, incompatible, way of handling the business of the firm.

Finally, I should note that we recommend to our clients that they generally, for any search conducted, give much higher priority to identifying what needs to get done, and the character traits and performance track record necessary to accomplish these tasks well. Even when the pool of candidates with the “right” education and experience are available, the candidate that will perform best in the long run may be the one who is a better match on the level of what they can “do," versus what they “have.”