Our idea of what hiring was solidified around the 80s, a decade with a fast-paced corporate culture. In the 80s, screening candidates was all about filtering through the waves of under-qualified and over-confident resumes. It wasn’t a struggle to find good people with the right qualifications. However, it was a struggle to sort them from everyone else. But it’s been a long time since the 80s hiring market and, needless to say, the market has gone through more than a few transformations, including the newest “No Experience Necessary.”

The first is that the war for talent and millennial priorities have turned the hiring market on its head. Companies have been competing for qualified employees and the poaching has been intense to try to build the best team. With the great retirement wave already upon us, many senior positions are going unfilled and even mid-level specialists are in high demand. But before you say “I can’t find good talent to fill my open roles,” step out of the 80s hiring mindset for just a minute. Are there not enough talented workers, or just not enough people with exactly the right degree and on-paper background?

Right now, there are 11 million open jobs and 8 million people looking. It’s true, we’re in a hiring crunch, which means it’s time to get creative about the hiring pool.

Think Outside the Qualifications Box

More and more employers today are casting aside the typical job requirements and marketing roles as “No Experience Necessary” and “No Education Required.” This creative approach is not a fallback to entry-level but rather an approach to finding the right talent beyond on-paper qualifications. What qualifications does an employee need for each job role? A specific college degree? X number of years in your field? How many people do these hard requirements exclude from your hiring pool?

When you send out a call to talented, interested individuals with related skills, the current job market has made it more practical to exclude the hard requirements. This opens up your workforce pool drastically to include the self-taught, professionals switching careers, and the brilliant yet untrained raw talent.

The Shift in Workforce Potential

Another serious consideration is that the workforce is also more self-directed and multi-talented than we were in the 80s. Today, most young people can work a computer, troubleshoot a program, and learn new software with little effort. People are more adaptable, and more able to look up and learn new skills independently. In other words, an “underqualified” person today is just a month or two of onboarding away from skill in many entry and mid-level roles. The retirement of the Boomers leaves many senior positions open and with the innate skills the millennial and Gen Z workforce brings to the table, it means your new hires have greater potential to add value to your bottom line within a few months of on-the-job training.

The Experienced but Not in Your Industry

Many, from talented professionals to senior-level managers, are willing to take a lateral step into a new industry. These people have many of the on-the-job skills you need but may be unfamiliar with your client base or internal process. People changing industries are often eager to learn new skills and dive into the requirements of a new role. Sometimes, they are kept from great-fit jobs by requirements for specific experience inside the industry.

The Talented but Not Formally Educated

Millions of millennials, and now Gen Z, did not go to college for their technical and professional skills. Instead, they learned them solo with home computers and their own projects. These professionals emerge with more skills and abilities than their formal history can justify. The resume is no longer a great way to tell what a person can do based on the jobs or education they’ve had. However, hard requirements keep the self-taught out of many hiring pools.

The Skilled With No Leadership Experience

Then there are people with skills and potential, but they’ve never held a serious role before. They don’t have the mid to senior-level experience you may have required and don’t know how to get that experience in their current circumstances. When you eschew experience requirements, people who love your work and know some of the skills already can apply to become your new rising stars.

The Raw Untrained Talent

Last but not least, is the always-present pool of untapped raw talent. These are people who are enthusiastic, who have a passion and a knack for the work your company does but have no previous on-paper professional background, or not a background in your field.

Tapping the Untapped Workforce by Thinking Outside the Box With “No Experience Necessary” Hiring

It’s time to embrace No Experience Necessary hiring to access great future employees who are being kept away by formal requirements – perhaps formal requirements that aren’t as relevant as they used to be. For more insights on smart hiring today and a partner in your next wave of candidate seeking, contact us today!