Are there reasons I should consider a candidate who doesn’t fit the job requirements?

Every hiring manager wants to find the absolute best candidate they can for an open position at their company, but is that the best approach? Here’s a few compelling reasons why this isn’t the best approach.

1. The perfect candidate doesn’t exist

Even if you do find someone with exactly the skills and expertise you’re looking for, who says they’re going to take your offer? Maybe they want a certain amount of money and it simply isn’t in the budget for the right company right now. Even if someone meets every criteria of the job posting, there’s no guarantee they’ll be the perfect employee. So why not allow for some flexibility and room for surprise in the process?

1. To diversify your pool, you’ll need to look at “less perfect” candidates

Men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, while women hold out for much closer to a 100%of the qualifications. Not to mention the survey Tara Moore wrote about in the Harvard Business Review that 15% of the women who responded to a survey said they strictly follow a job posting guidelines about who should apply, but only 8% of men do the same. When hiring managers look for a perfect candidate, chances are the pool is going have many more men and probably more white men. If you wanna increase your company’s diversity, then start looking at applicants who don’t need every single bullet on a job posting.

2. Develop and coach your employees

Effective managers help people on their team become not only better at their jobs, but develop professionally as well. If you have a manager who relies on everyone coming in and knowing exactly what they’re doing, you could be missing the bigger picture. Effective managers and leaders know how to develop people. That means when the right capacity and potential even perfect candidates can become amazing employees, rather than looking strictly at skills and experience, find ways to assess a candidate’s capacity for learning and potential for growth. Not only does this mean they’ll be able to learn the hard skills necessary for the job, but that they’ll be able to grow beyond that position as well.

If you want more information on this, Lora Patterson, Senior People Ops Advisor at TriNet Zenefits, joined our podcast to share her take on this topic. Click the link below to listen.