Recognise transferable skills to widen an applicant pool

The Toowoomba region is brimming with recently redundant employees of the mining boom, each seeking new opportunities as the construction phases of the Surat Basin’s developments wind down.

While many may see the negative connotations, this presents a profound opportunity for employers to reassess the genuine requisites for roles they seek to fill and take a broader view with respect to who is considered for vacant roles.

It is tempting to only interview directly-experienced personnel, however, in many roles there are traits and general aptitudes/abilities that form the bulk of a candidate’s suitability, rather than specific qualifications.

When there are no mandatory qualifications, an alternative approach would be to critically consider the core traits and general skills that make your best employees valuable. Position Descriptions can be tailored to attract suitable candidates with transferable skills  whom can be trained into specific roles. With such a wide-spectrum of candidates in the region currently, the time spent on training a new employee can be offset by a slightly lower salary offer which will naturally be revisited as a new employee grows into their role and increases their productivity and value to the business.

The morale-boost of being offered a cross-industry opportunity in a tight and highly-competitive market could provide the groundwork to secure a genuinely loyal employee who, if only seeking directly-experienced candidates, your enterprise may have not considered.

Examples of cross industry placements might be a construction site supervisor transitioning into a white-collar team-leader role; a site administrator transitioning into a compliance role (there is a surprising amount of legal compliance in a construction site administration role); or a gas field security guard entering an administrative field on the back of their administration and documentation tasks in their past work.

Professional assistance by qualified HR consultants can be beneficial in identifying the core requisites of roles within your business and formulating recruitment campaigns designed to attract suitable candidates from alternate industries.

There are many high-quality personnel seeking new opportunities in our region, ready to gain new experience in new industries and willing to learn new skills to do so – this is your opportunity to look wider afield to secure the best employees for your business.