5 Hiring Tips Every Company (and Job Seeker) Should Know | Nithya Vaduganathan | TED

So there's an interesting thing happening in the labor market.

On one hand, there are a whole lot of job openings.

And on the other,

there are a lot of employers really struggling to fill them.

Now we get this in part because we're experiencing

an unprecedented rate of change in the nature of work.

So many jobs today require new skills.

Ten years ago, companies didn't need entire teams of data engineers

and social media content producers and sustainability experts.

But now they can barely compete without them.

But this isn't the whole story.

Part of what's causing this disconnect

is the fact that we're using outdated practices to fill 21st-century jobs,

and it's just not working.

The consequences are real.

My job is to help executives rethink how they attract and retain talent.

And more so than ever, leaders are telling me

they just cannot find the people to do the work.

For some, this means their strategic priorities are put on hold.

And for others, their products are delayed to market,

and their revenues take a hit.

But I think there's a fix.

We just have to find a way to unleash the talent that is hiding in plain sight.

And by doing so,

we can help our leaders and managers shift their focus

from stressing over unfilled positions

to helping their teams deliver value.

And we can help employees and candidates

find the opportunities to advance their careers.

So here's how I think we do it.

OK.

Leaders and managers, step one's on you.

Before you post your next job opening,

or your next hundred,

do us all a favor and figure out what work actually needs to get done.

I've seen many job openings

that look like they should belong in some kind of comedy show

because the list of requirements is so ridiculous.

The ideal candidate must be able to: manage a billion-dollar P and L,

code like a 20-year Google veteran,

build advanced forecasting models,

design beautiful PowerPoint slides,

directly engage with the board of directors and oh, of course,

do all of their duties as assigned.

So as leaders write down every single thing

that their ideal candidate must be able to do,

there's really only one kind of candidate that can do all those things.

A Pegasus.

(Laughter)

So if you want to find the right real-life person to do the job,

perhaps try a different approach.

Figure out what work needs to get done and design the profile based on that.

OK, now we know the work that needs to get done

so we can start screening candidates in instead of screening them out.

I'll be the first to admit

that going through thousands of resumes for a single job opening

is intimidating.

So it really doesn't bother me that companies design processes

to quickly filter out unqualified candidates.

But what does bother me is the criteria that they use to screen,

which is often archaic,

easily identifiable things, like time in role

and degree requirements,

that are not always predictive of success in the job.

You know, I bet you there's someone listening to me right now

who hasn't applied to a job

because the requirements section said you needed five years of experience

and you only had four.

Lucky for us, there's some big-name companies working to address this.

IBM, for example, has removed degree requirements

from 50 percent of their US job listings in order to widen their talent pool.

But I think we can do more.

BCG recently worked with a wealth management firm

to figure out what predicts success for incoming financial advisers.

And the results were kind of interesting.

High GPA?

Important.

Top school?

Not important.

Past client and sales experience?

Not important.

Past call center experience?

Not important.

Past experience working on a team of any kind?

Important.

So of course we have to remember

that great candidates don't need to check every single thing on the list.

And that's OK.

In fact, hiring managers at companies like Seagate Technology

look at internal candidates first,

and they focus on the 70 to 80 percent of skills that matter the most.

And then their upskilling programs help candidates get from 80 to 100 percent.

One word of caution here, which is to check your own biases.

If you've only hired people that have fit a narrow mold,

you're going to have to look outside your team in order to get this right.

All of this is a little bit like dating to me.

You know,

you may think that you need someone who's handy and who can cook

and who loves camping and who wears designer clothes

and, well, nowadays plays pickleball.

But in reality,

perhaps the ideal partner is actually someone

who can make you laugh and gets along with your family.

The dating metaphor is actually perfect for my next piece of advice,

which is this:

to up the odds of a good match, start with coffee.

If you're a manager or a candidate,

don't feel like you need to jump into marriage or even commit to dinner.

Why not start with coffee?

This is the concept behind micro internships,

which are small-scale paid projects

usually completed by college and graduate students.

And for companies,

they actually provide a lower-risk path to hiring

and allows them to reach students in schools

that they otherwise might not have looked to.

Talk about finding hidden talent.

And amongst those experimenting with micro internships

are companies like Microsoft and PepsiCo.

We've talked a lot about talent hiding in the hiring process.

But surprise,

there's so much talent hiding in your organizations.

So my recommendation to everyone, managers and employees,

is to look beyond your floor.

I recently worked with a large company going through a reorganization and they,

you know, designed logical groupings of job postings

and drafted responsibilities for each role.

But when it came time to staffing, interestingly enough,

not one single person suggested an opportunity

for a candidate outside their team.

Now, more often than not,

the talent you need actually does exist in your company.

You may just need to look to a different floor.

In fact, in the early days of COVID,

Unilever moved 9,000 people to new internal rolls.

So if they can do that,

I'm pretty sure you can find the person

for your one job opening somewhere in your company.

And if you're listening to this and feeling frustrated

by the lack of opportunity in your current role,

perhaps it's time for you to start to tell people outside your team

you're ready to try something new.

Now there’s a flip side to looking beyond your floor, and it’s this.

And here's my ask of managers and leaders.

While it’s very natural to want to hold on to your rock star teammates,

doing so may actually keep them from their dream job.

So please let your people go so they can grow.

Sixty percent of people who left their jobs recently

cited the lack of career advancement as one of the main reasons for leaving.

So leaders, please don't think you can keep someone in the same role

for years without expecting them to leave.

That's called talent hoarding, and it's not OK.

(Laughter)

And on the other hand,

companies that actively support their talent to move internally

report more diverse, innovative and effective project teams.

So while it might be hard to support someone who's ready to move on,

trust me when I say you absolutely should.

I know there's a lot going on in the labor market,

and these five tips are not going to address everything.

But we're never going to discover something new

if we keep using the same lenses we have for decades.

So perhaps the way to discover hidden talent

is as simple as taking a fresh look.

Thank you.

(Applause)