I have been a strong believer for some time that we just have to challenge ourselves to look at what we currently do and ask whether we should change and improve based on wanting to be more successful and grow.

In my roles I have been involved in building new teams and introducing new disciplines into organizations. This requires forming a new team and having the right skills, and more importantly, the right teamwork and collaboration to make it successful. This in turn requires the ability to meet and talk to people in the hope of finding out more about them and for them to discover more about you and what you want to achieve.

One of the challenges is the need to get out of the old way of recruiting and start to focus more on soft skills recruiting and recognize those are the skills of the future for leaders in an organization. We have tended to focus on a job description, listing experience and skills required, and try to be data driven i.e. number of years using certain skills, experience in managing people etc. And really all they show is that someone held a job for so many years and that a team they use to, or currently, manage is a certain size – but does that mean success?

The way to find out about soft skills is to meet someone and chat to them for a start – that requires making it a priority in the job you do – and what i mean by that is getting out regularly (regardless of whether you have open positions) and meeting people for coffee, lunch or drinks just to chat. Again how things have been done is to only go and look for someone when you had open positions. This just wont work – we cant be so focused on open positions and must be more focused on what our teams and our organization needs in terms of skills. We will live by FTE numbers but won’t focus on whether we have the leadership and subsequent skills to drive the organization forward. It is a skills gap we need to recruit for and not a gap in our FTE numbers.

What I have done in the past is work with trusted recruiters and made myself available to meet people and go in with an open mind and chat. Wanting to find out more about the person and always looking about whether the fit would be right but not focused on a Resume/CV. In doing so I have met some great people and also passed on recommendations to colleagues if I saw a fit in some other parts of the organization.

Now I find myself out looking for my next adventure and challenge, looking for like minded people wanting to just meet and talk, who want to find out about me and let me find out about them and see if there are ‘fits’ in terms of skill gaps and whether I want to work within that culture. But there is still that gap….

…let’s stop the checking of boxes and become more human – lets chat.