Recruit or train?

Assessing skills and managing risks

Evaluating competence and the associated risk remains a challenge for organizations that rely on acquiring competent personnel. To that end, is it better to choose an experienced candidate or to hire one with less experience but more malleability?

Experience vs. inexperience

Competencies are measured as much by a person's knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes as they are by their ability to sort, adapt, and integrate their knowledge toward the achievement of the contextual dimension of a competency.

Because work experience facilitates the assignment of a competency for a particular job, it is often seen as a guarantee of a candidate's success in a new position for which he or she is selected. Given this fact, trends in selection are more about establishing in number of years of experience required for applicants allowing them to decrease the level of risk attributable to a less experienced candidate, at least this represents what a majority of hiring managers believe.

Link between experience and competency

As soon as positions are posted, pre-screening can literally reject all applicants with less experience in quantity. While this practice reduces the number of applicants and makes it easier to pre-screen, the value of this practice is questionable. According to Bourhis (2017), work experience is not a valid predictive value, therefore, it does not provide a performance link to the experienced employee. The best predictive value is provided by structured interviews; as well as human resource or psychological assessment centers.

The influence of the risk factor

The human factor assessment is too high a risk and is attributable to the personality of the recruiter. His risk intolerance leads him to favor experience as a guarantee of performance. Yet, the evaluation of motivation towards a position is more risky than its inexperience, because the applicant does not know enough about the position to assert his motivation towards it.

On the other hand, motivation is not a sufficiently evaluated criterion, because the applicant is generally considered motivated. It seems that a certain caution would be advised towards the experienced candidate, because the latter can more easily bias the recruiter. Errors come to influence the latter, which are related to the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, relative :

attitudes;
needs;
interests;
stereotypes;
perceptions of one toward the other.

Other errors are added to the assessment of competence, particularly related to the decision to favor the choice of certain assumptions, which will be tested in the selection process. Unless the recruiter is very concerned about these risk factors, they may impair his or her judgment of the candidate.

Reduce or exploit the risk

Although the risk of selection errors is high in human resource management departments (on the order of 20%), it is higher in companies that do not have one (50%), because those responsible for internal hiring do not always have human resource management training.

This index of success is evaluated six to eight months after hiring, by a satisfaction rate with the candidate.

The reluctance to take risks in recruiting often leads to the choice of candidates with a similar profile and educational background. On the contrary, hiring a diversity of profiles adds value to the organization.

While for a majority of organizations, the risk factor must be absolutely reduced, a few see a clear advantage in exploiting it. Among some of them, this factor is used as a training method, with the aim of boosting performance.

Recruiting or training employees

Opting to recruit externally rather than train costs the organization significantly more. However, recruiting internally provides a good indication of reliability in addition to being significantly more economical. Since they already have a good knowledge of the company, its culture and the informal network useful to their work, internal employees are a quicker choice to achieve efficiency. Choosing him or her is also a source of motivation in terms of advancement opportunities and employer brand, which fosters loyalty to the organization.

External recruitment is an advantageous option if it is followed by training. The reasons for this option, focus on :

The integration of new employees is increased when they are trained during the months following their hiring. This practice promotes retention and adaptation of recruits, especially among those under the age of twenty-five. This type of training is different from an onboarding program because it focuses on developing the skills needed to perform the new job or training for the job. Recruits, newly trained are valued more;

Rotation also allows for skill development in recruits who hold little experience. In this way, they acquire diversified experience and increase their ability to adapt to the company;

The ability to hire inexperienced candidates, and then train them appropriately according to the needs of the organization;

The recognition of employees, towards whom the organization demonstrates its importance, thus contributing to improving the atmosphere at work.

Illustration: Geralt - Pixabay

Sources :

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Bourhis, A. (2007). Recruitment and selection of personnel. Les éditions La Chenelière, Montreal.

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