What To Consider When Vetting Learning Candidates

A recent survey by Open University on The Challenges of Global L&D clearly outlined the uphill struggle many Learning and Development professionals face in getting support for their programs. The results “revealed that half of L&D decision-makers think learning is not seen as important and 42% lack direction from the top.”1  At the same time, however, global businesses are recognizing the importance of L&D for their growth and competitiveness. 

This has placed L&D at a crossroads where departments must step up to meet these challenges, while at the same time convince decision makers precisely how and why L&D initiatives will contribute to the company’s bottom line. 

According to the same study, the top three reasons that executives state L&D is not viewed as a senior partner are 1) L&D people often lack confidence and clarity about what they contribute to the business, and it’s not always about retention and investment. 2) There are not enough entrepreneurial individuals in the L&D teams to carry out an agenda. 3) L&D is often treated as just a delivery entity for training. 

We have an additional item for this list: many L&D professionals lack expertise with technology. Digital learning is transforming the industry with a greater variety of learning content formats, as well as the way results are measured. The best L&D staff today also need to have some serious technology chops. 

Penny Asher, Director of Executive Education at Open University Business School, stated “We are experiencing a fundamental shift that will affect every L&D department. Tighter margins and the increasing expectations of candidates and employees mean there has never been such pressure to get it right; those that do so stand to make great global gains.”¹

With these challenges facing Learning and Development departments, vetting the right candidates for all roles has never been more crucial. The right people will be able to help bring L&D initiatives to the next level and truly impact business goals. This should help influence decisions being made by the C-suite and gain L&D a seat at the decision-making table of any company.
 

There are several considerations and important steps that can be done to ensure you hire the right candidates. Your internal staff can undertake the process, or you can also work closely with a trusted partner to source next-level L&D talent. A sourcing services provider is especially beneficial and helpful to small teams or fast-growing organizations. They can help lift the load for over-stretched managers and reduce the risk of hiring candidates who were not fully vetted. It’s natural when a manager is under pressure to bring on talent to meet deadlines directly tied to key strategic initiatives or market opportunities, it can be tempting to skip parts of the vetting and validation processes. However, failing to vet and validate L&D candidates thoroughly can have dire consequences for the enterprise.  

Verify and validate candidates thoroughly to ensure you are bringing on a professional who is data savvy, has the right skills with the needed industry experience, a good work ethic, and an assertive project management background that will mesh well with your team.

 

 

Skills and Credentials 

Finding a good match for a position requires that the organization clearly identify and articulate the skills needed. An L&D Talent Sourcing Services provider can help you by understanding what it is you are trying to accomplish and using that to filter the resume repository.

Make sure candidates have the right skills and credentials to begin adding value to the team rapidly. Certifications can be an indicator of expertise, but the professional’s experience working on customer-driven projects and solving real problems using the specialized skills of interest is a better indicator of how well they will perform on the job. Don’t ask yes/no questions. Ask for the candidate to tell you a story about how and why they took a particular approach and to quantify the results. If nobody on your team has the needed skill, it can be very hard to vet accurately. A Talent Sourcing Services provider will have vetted the skills and validated project experience for you. 

Team Experience  

For augmented staffing professionals to quickly become as productive as possible, they will need to be matched appropriately to the team. Organizations looking to bring on temporary skills may choose to allow the professional to work remotely or may require that they work on-site. If a candidate works remotely, it’s important that they have demonstrated their ability to work and deliver results as a distributed team member. This requires a combination of soft skills and technical skills--experience with remote teaming applications, such as chat applications, video conferencing, remote desktop and others. Additionally, if working remotely, you’ll need to consider the candidate’s location, time zone, and language skills. As Talent Sourcing Services providers know the candidates well, they can provide recommendations or feedback to organizations when a client selects a candidate from a portal of profiles organized by skills. 

Cultural Fit 

It’s also important that the candidate is a good fit for the corporate culture. Cultural fit is the likelihood that someone will be able to adapt to the core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of an organization.²  A recent survey of more than 1,800 North American CEOs and CFOs indicated that 90% believe that the success of their business is tied to their culture.³  According to the Cubiks International Survey on Job and Cultural Fit, more than 80% consider cultural fit to be critical in bringing on new people. L&D Talent Sourcing Services providers have vetted the professional’s experience and are familiar with the individual, which enables providers to make recommendations regarding the cultural fit of candidates.

Rates
 
With Talent Sourcing Services, rates are established up-front based on experience, expertise, results, and demand for the professional. There may be discounts given for longer term contracts. Organizations will be able to view the rates and profiles, and then decide if they are interested in sourcing a particular candidate. The process reduces the time and effort spent on negotiations.

Background and Social Media Checks

Of course, performing the standard background and social media checks is also important to vetting and validating candidates. According to a survey by CareerBuilder, the number of employers who use social media to screen candidates is now 60 percent, a 500 percent increase over the last decade. 49 percent of hiring managers who screen candidates using social media have been influenced not to hire a candidate. Inappropriate photos, information about drug use, discriminatory comments and poor communications skills are among the reasons they chose not to hire a candidate.⁴

Managed Learning Service providers take on the time and cost of evaluating candidates before they are included in the profile database and/or submitted to a client as a potential match.

By following the steps and procedures to hire the best candidates, Learning and Development leaders can begin to address some of the many challenges they face today. Shifting demands and fundamental changes caused by technology advancements, have placed L&D at a crossroads where their roles are increasingly important, yet decision makers in the C-Suite are skeptical about how essential L&D is to the company’s bottom line and growth. Vetting the best candidates, and displaying how investment in L&D teams, or talent solutions providers, drive growth and competitiveness, is important to earning L&D a key role at the decision-making table.  

Read more about how CGS Learning Solutions could help your company hire and train the best candidates here.

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^{1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenhigginbottom/2017/05/05/learning-and-d...}

^{2 https://hbr.org/2015/07/recruiting-for-cultural-fit}

^{3 http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news_events/news-releases/corporate-culture/#....}

^{4 http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?ed=1...}