For many positions, there are no substitutes for industry experience. The skills and knowledge gained cannot be replaced or taught easily.
However, with talent shortages making hiring difficult in many sectors, companies are increasingly looking to other verticals when hiring talent. By searching outside of specific industries, companies can look beyond their limited pool of candidates and find talent that will bring a fresh perspective to their team. If done correctly, cross-industry recruiting can be a solution to your talent search.
Attract More Candidates
The first, and arguably most useful advantage of looking outside your vertical for talent is that it allows you to gain access to more candidates. When faced with a shrinking talent pool or a growing skills gap, looking at other verticals may be the only option. The key to success lies in identifying experience and skills that translate into your industry.
For instance, 93% of call center and customer service employees expressed interest in moving to a different industry. Companies that can offer a better career outlook, better status, or a better culture are a large draw for many candidates. Culture is especially good for convincing employees to change industries, even to industries with a social stigma attached.
Diversify Team Skillsets
Have you ever been a part of a team that all had the same skills? Or maybe your team has all built their career in your industry, and you all have the same biases and habits. Bringing in new talent from a different industry can bring diversity to your team’s skills.
Adding new skills to your team can increase your overall performance, but it also offers a fresh perspective on the challenges you face every day. Candidates who have spent all their time in the same industry can form the same habits and blocks. Patterns that restrict thinking limit problem-solving in a team. Talent from other industries hasn’t formed the same habits, allowing them to see other pathways to solutions.
What to Avoid
Just as candidates from other verticals can bring a new perspective, they can also bring bad habits. When looking at other industries, understand that you are getting the skills you want but also avoiding cultural disruption. In the end, you’re working on building a team, but you also need to protect the culture you’ve worked so hard to create.
What should you look for? The easiest skills to pivot into your industry are soft skills. Not only are soft skills useful in any team, they are also highly sought after for management talent. By building these skills into your team, you have high-performing employees who have a pathway to management.
When faced with limited talent pools, looking outside your vertical can help fill your open positions. At Crelate, we provide results-oriented CRM and ATS solutions for the recruiting and staffing industry. Contact us today to add these tools to your organization.