Skills vs Attitude Vs Potential: The Great Hiring Debate in Legal Costs

October 10, 2024

Hiring the best Legal Costs talent isn’t easy, particularly when skill shortages are increasing. The cost of making the wrong decision can be huge. Not only do you waste time and resources onboarding and training the wrong employee, but your team’s productivity can suffer, too.

So, how do you ensure you’re making the right hiring choices? Focusing on skills is common, particularly for companies trying to avoid unconscious bias. Prioritising skills over attributes ensures you can hire team members with the right abilities to thrive in a specific role.

However, while more than 80% of employers say they take a skills-based approach to hiring, focusing on skills alone may not be a good idea. After all, the skills Legal Costs team members need are constantly changing, and while you can teach employees how to leverage new skills, it’s much harder to shape a team member’s attitude or potential.

Here’s what you need to know about hiring for skills, vs attitude, vs potential.

The Current Job Market Landscape: Hiring Challenges

The Legal Costs job market has changed significantly in recent years. The competition for top talent is increasing in an environment where every company faces significant skill shortages. Worldwide, more than 75% of companies struggle to find skilled workers.

Additionally, employee priorities are changing. Following the “Great Resignation”, candidates focus more on finding roles that offer the perfect blend of work balance, development opportunities, and a strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

To attract and retain top talent, companies can’t afford to rely exclusively on scanning resumes for evidence of the right education or experience. CVs offer a stunted insight into a candidate’s potential, focusing solely on their achievements.

A more comprehensive approach to analysing a candidate’s “potential matrix”, based on their hard and soft skills, personality traits, and ability to adapt to changing situations, ensures you can hire more resilient, successful employees.

The Case for Skills-Based Hiring

Skills-based hiring, which involves prioritising candidates based on their abilities, does have value. Deloitte research found that companies that take a skills-based approach to hiring are 63% more likely to achieve the results they need from their teams.

Evaluating the skills of your potential employees ensures you can look beyond how many years of experience a candidate has in the Legal Costs sector or which certifications they’ve earned to focus on how well they’ll be able to carry out specific responsibilities at work.

This can reduce the risk of unconscious bias in hiring and lead to benefits like:

  • Quicker hiring decisions: Skills are often relatively easy to verify through portfolios, certifications, and practical tests, accelerating your hiring decisions.
  • Immediate productivity: Employees with the right skills can instantly contribute to your workforce without additional training.
  • Reduced costs: Because your candidates will already have the skills they need to thrive in their role, you can spend less money on training, mentoring, and development.
  • Improved retention: Some studies show that skills-based hires have a 9% longer tenure at their companies than traditional hires.
  • Competitive advantage: Focusing on emerging skills, such as digital literacy, can help you give your organisation a competitive advantage in the Legal Costs industry.

Focusing at least partially on skills is often crucial for virtually all roles and positions. Ensuring your team members have the right competencies to complete the tasks essential to their roles means you can hire more efficient, productive team members.

However, there’s a risk to focusing on skills alone, particularly in a world where experts predict employers will need to reskill more than 1 billion people by 2030, thanks to changes in the workplace. That’s where a focus on attitude and potential becomes a priority.

The Benefits of Prioritising Attitude and Potential

Skills are undoubtedly important in any role, but they can’t accurately predict a person’s chances of success in your organisation alone.

They’re either missing motivation, don’t have the resiliency to adapt to changes, or can’t thrive in the culture your company offers. Technical skills can be easily taught in the Legal Costs industry with coaching, training, and mentorship. Adjusting someone’s attitude is much harder.

Focusing on attitude and potential by examining a candidate’s personality, soft skills like communication and adaptability, and work ethic drives incredible results, such as:

  • Greater resilience: In the fast-moving Legal Costs industry, companies need adaptable employees who can adjust quickly to changing challenges. Hiring employees focusing on continuous learning, improvement, and a growth mindset improves resilience.
  • Improved retention: Studies show that 90% of new hires lose their job due to their attitude or personality. Hiring for attitude improves your chances of retaining critical team members who mesh well with your team.
  • Enhanced performance: Candidates with the right attitude and soft skills are more effective at collaborating with team members, serving customers, and solving problems. This can significantly improve the performance of your teams.
  • Diversity: By hiring for attitude and potential over technical skills, you can improve your chances of building a more diverse workforce, boosting your employer brand.

Of course, hiring for attitude alone also has its setbacks. If you focus on personality over skills entirely, you’ll need to invest more in training and development programs and spend more time evaluating candidates for personality traits.

Balancing Skills and Attitude: The Hybrid Hiring Approach

Ultimately, the best option for improved Legal Costs hiring strategies isn’t focusing on skills, attitude and potential independently – it’s taking a holistic approach.

When hiring a new team member, focusing on certain essential skills, such as proficiency with certain software or exceptional communication and customer service skills, will help streamline the recruitment process and reduce the cost of future training.

Skills-based hiring will also ensure you can hire team members who are immediately productive in their role, improving the ROI of your hiring strategy. Plus, it can reduce the risk of unconscious bias in your hiring decisions, ensuring you can assess each candidate objectively.

However, focusing on attitude and potential by evaluating a Legal Costs candidate’s soft skills, personality traits, and work ethic ensures you can choose diverse candidates who can contribute to your company culture and remain resilient in a shifting landscape.

Here are our top tips for hiring for skills, attitude and potential.

1.    Identify Essential Skills Carefully

Assess the roles you need to fill carefully and determine which skills are crucial to your candidates’ responsibilities. Focus on prioritising skills that would be difficult or time-consuming for staff to learn on the job.

For instance, while it’s easy to show a candidate how to use a new piece of Legal Costs software, delivering comprehensive skills training for things like accounting, analytics, or customer service would be much harder.

Once you’ve identified the most crucial skills your employees need, search for those capabilities consistently across all applicants. Take additional steps to minimise unconscious bias in your hiring decisions, such as using structured and standardised interview questions and blind resume screening.

2.    Determine Valuable Attitude Traits

After assessing the most essential “technical” skills your candidates will need, consider the attitude and personality traits that will make them a good fit for your business. Focus on things like:

  • Soft skills: Great time management or communication skills.
  • Mindset: A growth mindset and commitment to continuous learning.
  • Personality traits: Such as proactivity, intrinsic motivation, and flexibility.

Identify how you’ll examine these indicators of “potential” in your candidates. For instance, competency-based interviews with situational questions, behavioural interview questions, and personality tests can offer valuable insights.

Peer interviews can also be extremely useful, as they allow different team members to understand how well a new Legal Costs employee will fit into or contribute to your workplace dynamic. You could even consider hiring employees on a “trial” period for insights into how well they integrate with your team and their effectiveness in their roles.

3.    Commit to Continuous Development

Finally, ensure you have a strategy for continuously developing your new Legal Costs team members. While you might not be able to change their attitudes, you can improve their potential and enhance their integration into your workforce with group training and coaching sessions.

You can also look into options for improving your staff member’s soft skills, such as offering communication and collaboration training resources.

Regardless of the technical skills your team members already have, make sure you’re constantly offering access to new development opportunities. Think carefully about the future needs of your business, and offer access to a range of solutions to boost skills in digital literacy, technology, and niche-specific capabilities.

Take a Balanced Approach to Legal Costs Hiring

Ultimately, neither skills-based hiring nor focusing entirely on attitude and potential will ensure you can hire the right employees for your Legal Costs team. The right results require a holistic approach, focusing on skills, attitude, and potential in equal measure.

With a holistic strategy, you can ensure you’re hiring employees who contribute to your company culture, respond well to changing circumstances, and perform well in their roles.

Contact Everpool Recruitment today to learn how we can help you make the right hiring decisions based on skills, attitude, and potential.

How to Become an Employer Of Choice in the Fashion Industry

April 11, 2024

The hiring market in the Fashion industry has been candidate-driven for some time.

Countless companies are now competing for candidates with critical skills to help their organisations thrive in a challenging economy. This means talented professionals have more freedom to select positions that align with their priorities and values.

Positioning yourself as an “Employer of Choice” (E.O.C.) in Fashion is critical to reducing the costs and complexity of the recruitment process, as well as accessing the right talent.

How do you develop a reputation as the “ultimate” business to work for?

Here, we’ll look at some of the most valuable strategies business leaders can use to position themselves as an employer of choice.

Attracting Top Talent: Why It Matters Now

Rampant skill shortages and increasing competition for talent have led to a complex recruitment environment for Fashion companies. Up to 80% of businesses in the U.K. are having trouble persistently filling roles, and the issue extends worldwide.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports that there are currently 9.5 million job openings in the U.S. and only 6.5 million unemployed workers.

Simply put, the number of talented professionals in the job market is dwindling, and these candidates are becoming more discerning about which companies they choose to work for.

Employees now expect organisations to offer a combination of diversity, equity, inclusion, a supportive company culture, a commitment to the environment and sustainability, and exceptional growth opportunities.

All the while, they’re still searching for flexibility and compassion from employers.

This trend will only continue as Gen Z enters the workforce, prioritising ethical behaviour, wellbeing, and workplace perks ahead of higher salaries.

Hiring the wrong candidate isn’t an option, with a poor hire costing companies from 30% of a hire’s first-year salary up to £240,000 for senior hires. This means companies must invest more heavily in positioning themselves as the ideal employer for their intended workforce.

Becoming an employer of choice:

  • Increases productivity and profitability: Well-supported, satisfied, and happy staff members are more productive and profitable.

    Companies with a positive people-first company culture achieve four times higher profits than their competitors.

  • Simplifies recruitment and retention: Passive candidates and top talent are more likely to apply for a role with a company considered an “employer of choice”.
  • Enhances brand equity: A satisfied workforce is likelier to speak highly of their employer, refer new team members to the company, and deliver excellent results.

Key Strategies to Become a Company People Want to Join

Becoming an employer of choice in the Fashion space requires a multi-faceted approach to addressing the needs and expectations of your candidates. Several strategies in today’s hiring market can boost your chances of attracting and retaining talent.

1.    Cultivating a Strong Company Culture

Culture is increasingly crucial to top talent in the Fashion landscape. Employees want to work with a supportive, empathetic, and flexible company. According to an Inc.com survey, winning companies consistently demonstrated a more significant commitment to building a culture that delighted and engaged employees.

Building a strong culture in the current environment involves:

  • Concentrating on employee engagement: Look for ways to consistently engage employees, delivering feedback, recognition, and rewards for their work. Enable consistent collaboration and communication between teams, and invest in team-building exercises.
  • Offering flexibility: 93% of candidates say they want a flexible role. While remote and hybrid working might not be an option for every Fashion company, there are other ways to offer flexibility, such as giving employees more ownership of their schedules.
  • Supporting work balance: Wellbeing and work balance are crucial concerns, particularly for younger Gen Z employees. Encouraging team members to use their paid time off or allowing them to manage their work schedules around their lives is becoming increasingly essential.

Additionally, employees are searching for more ethical employers committed to protecting the environment, supporting different communities, and treating people compassionately.

2.    Offer Competitive Benefits and Compensation

While many Fashion candidates are looking beyond salary in the search for the ideal role, the right remuneration is still crucial to attracting candidates. A complex economic environment and cost of living issues are prompting many employees to leave their old roles for better income.

A Gallup study found the importance of a higher salary had risen in priority from no four to no one since 2015.

Ensuring your remuneration packages align with or exceed the industry standard will help you attract more loyal, engaged employees.

However, it’s crucial to look beyond direct remuneration, too. Gen Z and X members say they would quit their jobs tomorrow for one with benefits supporting their wellbeing. Consider which benefits are most likely to appeal to your target candidates.

Many standard drivers for many employees are flexible, remote, and hybrid work. However, access to other benefits, such as mental and physical health support or the ability to spend time volunteering for causes they care about, will be valuable to some Fashion candidates.

3.    Invest in Employee Development and Growth

A strong employee development program has always been a priority for the best Fashion candidates. Every employee wants to expand their skill set and become more valuable to their employer. More importantly, they want to see a future with your company.

This is particularly true in recent years, as employees continue to worry about the growing issue of job insecurity. With this in mind, invest in your employees’ development and look at opportunities to help them enhance critical hard skills (digital literacy) and soft skills, such as communication, collaboration, and resiliency.

Explore options such as:

  • Online learning and courses: Online learning initiatives can give Fashion employees more freedom to choose and manage their development path. They can explore a range of courses related to their role in their own time.
  • In-person training: Empower employees to attend in-person classes or workshops. Allow them to visit events and conferences where they can expand their network.
  • Mentorship: Consider creating a mentorship program where your high-level employees can provide consistent guidance to newer staff members.
  • On-the-job development: Create opportunities for team members to participate in additional projects or lead a project. Delegate tasks to them that will stretch or develop
    new skills, or build their competency.

4.    Embed Inclusivity and Diversity

Fashion candidates, particularly in the Gen Z and millennial landscape, believe inclusivity and diversity is critical to building an enduring company culture. They’re looking for employers who deliver supportive, equitable environments to team members from all backgrounds.

Reports from analysts like McKinsey also show that companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, find top talent, and address the needs of an evolving customer base.

Communicate clearly with your employees about your diversity and inclusion efforts and how they relate to your organisation core values. Introduce training initiatives focused on diversity and inclusion. Explore cross-team collaboration exercises that encourage people from different backgrounds to collaborate and share perspectives.

You can also demonstrate your commitment by ensuring you’re taking an unbiased approach to hiring. If this is an area you can develop further, working with a specialist recruitment company like us at Everpool can help.

5.    Embrace Transparency and Open Communication

Today’s world is plagued by confusion and uncertainty, making it more critical than ever for Fashion employers to demonstrate transparency with their staff members. Employees want clarity, not just when it comes to identifying their roles and responsibilities, but also regarding understanding their purpose and impact on the company.

Open communication is crucial, which means sharing updates (both positive and negative) with your employees about the direction your business is moving in and what it means for them.

Remember, open communication is also about listening.

Gathering feedback from team members about what you can do to give them a better work-life balance or experience will improve your prospects of retaining staff and enhancing your employer brand.

Becoming an Employer of Choice

The shift to a candidate-driven, skills-short market means Fashion companies need to work harder than ever to attract and retain top talent. Developing a strategy to improve your employer brand and value proposition through flexibility, diversity, inclusion, and empathy is crucial.

Perhaps the easiest way to start this transformative journey is to work with a Fashion recruitment company that can guide your business.

The right recruitment company will help diversify your talent pool, guide you through creating an exceptional company culture, and offer insights into the priorities of your candidates.

At Everpool Recruitment, we have been helping firms acquire talent, and Fashion job seekers find their ideal roles. If you want to find out how we can help, call us at 0151 556 2090 or email us here info@everpoolrecruitment.com

Assessing Cultural Fit When Building Your Office and Commercial Team This Year

February 29, 2024

Assessing Cultural Fit When Building Your Office and Commercial Team This Year

Whether you’re re-entering the workforce after a short break or ready to take the next step in your career path with an exciting new role, a Office and Commercial recruiter can be a valuable resource.

In today’s skills-short landscape, studies show it can take six months to find a new job.

The more competitive your industry, the longer the search for the right role can take. Working with a dedicated Office and Commercial recruiter doesn’t just improve your chances of finding a great position fast. It also gives you the guidance, expertise, and direction to achieve your career goals.

Recruiters can help you refine your personal brand, ensure you stand out to the right employers, and offer access to opportunities you can’t find yourself. The challenge is in finding the right recruiter to work with. Today, we’re covering the top ways you can ensure you choose the best recruitment partner for your career goals.

1. Alignment with Your Priorities

When an employer starts working with a Office and Commercial recruitment partner, the first thing they do is define the talent they need, their available job openings, and their requirements. Similarly, when looking for a recruiter to assist in your job search, you need a clear understanding of your priorities and specific needs. Think about:

  • The type of role you want: Are you searching for a temporary or permanent position? Do you want a remote role, hybrid flexibility, or a position where you work in-house at a specific location? Are you going to work part-time or full-time?
  • Your ideal company culture: What sort of culture do you want to be a part of? Do you want to prioritise diversity, equity, and inclusion? Do you need an empathetic and flexible workplace that adapts to your needs?
  • Values and requirements: What will most influence your decision of where to work? For instance, 88% of job seekers say a healthy culture is vital to success. Some people focus more on benefits and salary, while others look for growth and development opportunities.

Clearly identifying your priorities will ensure you can find a recruiter who adheres to your specific needs and expectations and shares your values.

2. Specialist Industry Knowledge

While any recruiter might be able to enhance and simplify your job search, you’ll always get better results from a recruiter who understands your industry, field, or sector. Specialist recruiters with a deep knowledge of the Office and Commercial landscape can give you an edge over the competition.

They know what hiring managers are specifically looking for in a candidate, from the required soft and hard skills to the credentials that will make you stand out. They know which challenges you’ll face in your job search, how to overcome them, and which channels they can use to find job opportunities for people with your skills.

Industry-specialized recruiters are better equipped to match you with the right opportunities. They can help you with everything from optimising your CV and cover letter to boosting your impact during interviews.

3. A Proven Track Record

The best Office and Commercial recruiter should be able to demonstrate evidence of their success in placing candidates like you in the right role. When you are looking for a good track record, don’t just pay attention to how many candidates your recruiter placed. Find proof that your recruiter can match the right candidate to the correct role.

Up to 30% of new hires leave a position within 90 days simply because the culture, benefits, or workplace doesn’t match their needs. A great recruiter should help you to find a Office and Commercial job you can thrive in for as long as you choose.

While you can usually read client and candidate reviews on a recruitment companies website, it’s worth diving a little deeper. Consider asking for case studies and success stories from previous clients. Ask questions about how your recruiter defines a “successful” placement.

4. Clear Communication

An excellent Office and Commercial recruiter should always be able to offer an exceptional candidate experience. That starts with a commitment to clear, consistent, and transparent communication. Your ideal recruiter should be able to answer any questions you have about how they select roles to suit your needs and how they measure and report on their results.

They should be clear about their pricing structure, the terms and conditions of their contracts, and the level of support they provide. For instance, does your recruiter direct you to Office and Commercial role opportunities, or do they also function as a guide and a coach?

Find out whether they can help you prepare for interviews, optimise your CV and enhance your professional brand. Find out how easy it will be to get responses to any questions you might have through your preferred contact method. Prioritise recruitment agencies that keep you informed and supported every step of the way.

5. Broad Networks and Relationship-Building Skills

The best recruiters don’t just save you time searching through job boards for the right Office and Commercial roles. They specialise in giving you access to opportunities you can’t find yourself. Studies show that only around 33% of job openings are filled through posts on job boards.

Many of the best opportunities will never be listed publicly, and the right recruiter can help you access these opportunities. They’ll have pre-existing relationships with industry-leading brands, forums, and groups that give you access to new opportunities.

Recruiters can use their network and their relationships in your industry to point you towards difficult-to-find openings. They can even help to place you in a company’s talent pipeline, so you’re the first to know when a competitive job opportunity emerges in a specific business.

6. A Personalised Approach

Though many Office and Commercial recruiters will use similar methodologies and proven strategies to help place candidates in the right roles, their approach should be customised to your needs. The best recruiters understand every person in the Office and Commercial industry has aspirations, skills, and challenges to overcome.

They’ll take the time to discover what matters most for you when searching for a role, and they’ll adapt their services accordingly.

Some can even offer specialist support for those who need help with specific things, like optimising their professional brand or preparing for interviews.

Find out, in advance, how your recruiter can tailor their services to your requirements to ensure you always get the best results. It may even be worth asking whether they can work with you long-term to help you pursue promotions and growth opportunities in your space.

Choosing the Right Office and Commercial Recruiter

A specialist Office and Commercial recruiter is one of the most valuable resources you have in today’s competitive job market. More than just a solution to help streamline your job search, the right partner will act as a coach, guide, and constant source of support as you work towards your career goals.

Choosing a team or individual with a proven track record, shared values, industry specialization, networking skills, clear communication, and a personalised approach will boost your chances of success. With the steps above, you should be able to identify the best recruiter to help you secure the role you’ve always wanted in the Office and Commercial landscape.