Originally published to NEDAS.
In the contemporary era, the strongest hiring strategies are focusing on one vital trait: grit. Unfortunately, this crucial criteria is often displaced by the desire for a purely skills-centric hiring process. While pursuing only highly skilled individual has worked in the past, it is no longer feasible in this new landscape of disquieting labor shortages and widening skills gaps. By limiting hiring considerations to individuals with certain skill sets or types of experience, businesses overlook and underestimate a potential employee’s character, which is often their most critical asset. In fact, studies like the one by Leadership IQ show that, on the whole, new hires most often fail due to issues of teachability, emotional intelligence and lack of motivation, not lack of skill. Businesses are beginning to understand that while they can teach necessary technical skills, they likely cannot instill in someone an innately hard-working mindset or a natural indomitability. As a result, choosing employees based on their character strengths remains as the most promising solution to the industry’s costly and inhibiting lack of suitable workers.
The global talent shortage was just one of the discussions on tap at the NEDAS 2018 NYC Summit. Carrie Charles, President of the wireless industry staffing firm Broadstaff, gave a presentation on the challenges of hiring and how businesses can successfully capitalize on the tight job market by “hiring grit, training skill.”
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