There is one big benefit to strengths-based recruitment that our clients and their interview candidates always mention to us. They say that strengths-based recruitment is a “human approach”. In this piece I want to explore what that means and why it’s important. And, I’ll reveal ‘the biggie’ – why your customers will like it!
With our strengths-based recruitment approach with its strengths-based interviews, interviewers get to see the real person. Candidates know the interviewers get to really know them. Candidates contrast this with the rehearsed answers that competency-based interviewing almost forces them to give, in a process where interviewees become indistinct from each other. With a competency-based approach, interviewers often don’t remember individual candidates and they certainly can’t claim to really know them. In its quest to bring rigour to the interview, the competency approach loses the person.
With the strengths approach, candidates are enabled to be, and feel it’s OK to be, who they really are in the interview. By the end of the interview they are in no doubt that the interviewer knows them well and, therefore, knows whether they would be right for the role in question.
Those who are successful are those who will be ‘round pegs’ in ‘round holes’. They will be in a job in which they will thrive. Fantastic for them.
But, why, if they could choose, would your customers want you to use strengths-based recruitment?
We all feel inspired when we encounter someone who loves their work, whether they’re a shop worker or a surgeon. Your customers are like you:
- They want to deal with whole human beings, who are themselves at work, not with watered-down or slightly faked versions of people.
- They want to deal with people who are really good at their job and love doing it.
- They want to deal with people who are passionate, energised and who care.
So, if you want to inspire and delight your customers, hiring people who are naturally good at, love doing and are energised by their job is a very good start. That’s strengths-based recruitment!
Watch our short (3 minute) video of our clients talking about how strengths-based recruitment benefits organisations:
Sally Bibb’s book Strengths-based Recruitment and Development: A Practical Guide to Transforming Talent Management Strategy for Business Results (the first on the subject) is published by Kogan Page. Find the book at the Kogan Page website.
