Hiring career changers is a great way to access an untapped talent pool. Career-changers provide you with an opportunity to bring employees into your business with diverse experience and a wide range of skill sets.

Looking at candidates who want to shake up their careers, start fresh and are ready to learn, provides you with an opportunity to think outside the box when building out your team. So, what should you look for when shortlisting participants to interview and how do you know if they’re right for your company? Here are some things to consider when assessing profiles.

Transferable skills

Also known as a candidate’s ‘portable skills’ are the qualities we have as humans that can be transferred from one job to another. These are often professional or ‘soft skills’ and they happen to be highly sought after in a workplace, as they can often provide insight into how a person will work, and what they are like to work with.

Some key transferable skills to seek out in a participant’s profile may include:

• Time management
• Sales and business development
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Communication (written, listening)
• Research and analytical thinking skills 
• Personal and professional development
• Creative thinking
• Project management
• Empathy and patience

Complementary skill sets

It is human nature when we’re hiring employees, that we tend to hire people that remind us of ourselves — shared previous experience or roles, common interests, or similar ways of working. We often want people who can fit into the ‘mould’ of the company fabric from the get-go. But this way of thinking can harm diversity and limit fresh perspectives being brought into your company.

When looking at candidates to hire, step away from the status quo, and seek out candidates with complementary skills and experience to those that already exist in your business. Career-changers bring a wealth of knowledge and experience that can only be gained when moving from one industry to another, some will have 10+ years of experience already under their belt.

An eagerness to learn

Great hiring managers recognise the potential — showing a capability of further development and even greater success. Career-changers recognise that they are making a huge change and thus are highly motivated with an appetite to learn, having shaken up their careers to move into a brand-new skill set.

This fantastic eagerness to learn should be nurtured, and your company has an opportunity to continue their professional development through further on-the-job learning. If you think your company has something to share with and further teach a candidate, then this is a fantastic mutually beneficial opportunity to grow together.