Leaders who have a say in hiring, its time we learn from DVLA
We can all agree that most of our jobs that we are hiring for, are not as critical as what DVLA ‘recruits’ people to do – DRIVING on public roads.
It’s a matter of life & death.
For selecting ‘candidates’ fit for the job in this life & death matter role,
Do they ask how many years experience you had driving? NO.
Do they ask how many years experience you had doing things like driving? NO.
Do they care whether you had driven before and had a break and is wanting to drive again now? NO.
Everyone is given a chance, as long as you know the basics of the rule – via a test and then THEY ASK YOU TO DRIVE & WATCH. They look at whether you are doing the most quintessential behaviours – prioritising safety, being considerate to others on road etc. If you STALL the engine when you do the emergency break test, its considered OK actually. The belief is that you will learn it easily, GIVEN A CHANCE.
So then WHY do we – in business, FILTER people based on no. of years of experience?
WHY do we ask them how many years of experience in the role required for the job?
WHY do we care about Gap years because LIFE happened differently for them?
A better approach might be to screen with an ASSIGNMENT & a chance to explain thinking behind their work in assignment in written or verbal or both forms. Assignment is a real look into what they would typically need to do OR an assignment that will test decision making & skills needed for the real work. Then assess their ‘decision making’, ‘behaviours’ & the ‘care’ they have taken in completing the work using their current skill levels. This way, whether they have 0, 2 or 10 years, they are tested based on their ability, passion & potential to make the team proud WHEN GIVEN A CHANCE!
You have given people ability to surprise you irrespective of their background and where they are in life.
Now, don’t tell me that this is not used for screening because it’s not scalable or practical. We had a time when one person used to sit & read every CV manually to find out the no. of years of experience, find gap years etc. In todays world, we can make almost anything scale/practical if we want to.
Take time to figure it out for your business and thereby give yourself a better chance to get the best people!
Anyone who has been in a real workplace for 2 minutes knows that experience matters. Having said that – Ability to use what you know, problem solving, decision making, passion, willingness to learn and potential matters more – whatever the age or experience, have gaps or not. Its high time we all learn from DVLA about how to recruit on evidence based potential.
What do you think? Why are we limiting our people based on an arbitrary no. of years that are – let’s be honest – guesstimated as required for a particular role?
If you are thinking at this point, I wish these guys were hiring,
Great news – We are hiring! – for a role opening in the new year. If that timeline looks good for you, we would love to hear from you. 🙂
Much Love,
Aarathy
Founder & CEO
Being Cloud
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Broken Links corrected and updated. 27 Oct 2019.