When it comes to effective hiring, many HR professionals and hiring managers prefer to choose candidates who know their company’s industry inside and out. However, while industry experience is beneficial, hiring candidates from outside of your field can often provide unique value to the team.
Exploring candidates with potential rather than an exact match can provide a great opportunity to develop the employee and grow your organization. So, if you’re thinking about hiring someone from a different field, consider the following advantages:
1. Increased Motivation
Candidates who’ve been in the same industry for a while can become comfortable with their own way of doing things. On the other hand, hiring candidates from outside of your industry can breathe life into the team. Those new to the industry tend to be more motivated and open to new ways of working. Since they won’t have a “been there, done that” mindset, they won’t have any bad habits to break. This can lead to smoother processes, market share growth, product innovation, revenue and profit improvements, and much more.
2. Great Potential
Exploring candidates with potential rather than an exact match provides a great opportunity to develop the employee and grow their career. It also keeps the employee engaged for longer and helps to increase your company’s retention rate.
Valuing potential over industry experience expands your talent reach too because it means you’re looking outside the box. By focusing on factors outside of your job description checklist, you increase your chances of hiring someone who fits perfectly within your team dynamic.
3. A Product Specialist
A great source for employers is to reach out to candidates who work in an industry where they currently are a customer of the hiring company’s product or from a competitor. While this candidate technically has industry experience, they can provide fresh insight not only into what they like or don’t like about the product but also about competitors’ products. This enables you to tap into real-world competitive intelligence that may be challenging to find elsewhere.
4. A Proven Idea Person
Great ideas can come from everywhere. For example, a candidate may know technology, and they’ve repeatedly applied their IT expertise in new and changing spaces in the past. In many cases their ideas have culminated into revenue- and profit-generating processes at their companies. While they may not have true “industry” experience in your field, they have shown that they’re sharp thinkers. For hiring companies finding themselves in increasingly competitive waters, the proven big idea candidate may be a good solution.
Final Thought
As shown above, looking outside of your industry comfort zone for great candidates has its advantages. In addition, you may have reached the limit of your current talent pool. If this is the case, partnering with an experienced staffing firm can help find candidates outside of your industry and introduce you to fresh potential employees with transferable skills that are perfectly suited to the job you’re hiring for.
Lanmark Staffing provides over 40 years of combined human resources, recruiting, temporary placement, remote hiring, sales and management, and temp-to-hire services. Visit our website and learn how our team of local, experienced professionals can help you find the right employee for the job.