The primary aim of every business is to grow within its industry and market(s). This expectation can, however, not be achieved if a key component (the human being) of any business growth and sustainability is not given the needed attention. Thus, talent remains a key growth factor of an organization. Talent is the skills and other qualities one brings into the job to perform. Identifying and selecting a best-fit for any job must be done meticulously by considering the underlisted basic factors.

1. Organizational Culture Fit

key to consider in any candidate selection for a job is how the candidate’s demonstrated behaviours and values fit that of the hiring organization. Culture is casually defined as the way a group of people live. But culture is more than just the way people live to giving identity, determining the behaviours that shape their values, as well as, defining and determining what success means to them. It is, therefore, necessary that an organization looking to hire must consider persons with behaviours and values that fit those of the organization. This act ensures that an organization hires people who would help to entrench the organization’s acceptable behaviours and values, as well as, provide an enabling environment for the candidate to effectively work and succeed. Culture provides a safe place for people to live and grow, hence, the right fit is likely to stay longer to help the organization deliver its goals and objectives.

2. Experience and Competence

it is the common practice that organizations would always hire persons with knowledge, experience and competence for most jobs. Where required, organizations would hire persons with some or none of the qualities listed above. This happens where the job is of a repetitive but no judgement required nature or where the hiring is for development of talent for future key leadership roles. Usually, the latter are young persons with special attitudes and level of qualification but with little or no work experience. The key ingredient sought for in this exercise is potential. This should, however, not be the same where the job requires demonstrable experience and competence in similar or same job with corresponding outcomes. It is advised that potential should not be taken for experience or competence when hiring, as the consequences for doing so can be dire resulting in waste of performance time and money since the candidate may not deliver in the role and therefore, call for a repeat of the hiring processes in search for a right fit. Leadership roles especially must be hired with focus largely on demonstrable experiences and competences rather than potential. This is due to the crucial nature of the role and high risk associated with poor judgements.

3. Global Awareness

The fast-paced business environment has necessitated minds that can think for solutions beyond their immediate qualified fields only. A great talent in today’s business environment is one that is curious about the happenings around the globe. This attitude allows for deeper understanding when finding solutions, making or taking decisions and their anticipated impact on the organization. Hiring persons or teams, should therefore, include systems and processes that elicit responses that demonstrate candidate’s knowledge and appreciation of how global events impact his or her areas of specialty and the business environment. One can also determine global awareness by a candidate’s interest demonstrated in subject areas other than in what they operate.

4. Complementary Skills

It is becoming increasingly important that employees possess other skills apart from those ones that are core to delivering in their jobs. This is due to the rapid transformation technological advancement is bringing to the workspace. Technology has permeated every facet of business operation demanding from employees, as part of their core skills and abilities, to know how to use some of these technological tools to enhance delivery of results. It is becoming imperative for HR organizations to identify and develop a list of skill sets (both primary and complimentary) for each role in an organization. Once done prospective employees could be assessed in line with these skill sets to identify the skill gaps and the interventions to address same. The exercise can also be applied to existing employees when identifying capability development interventions to deliver the talent needs of an organization.

In order to ensure sustainability in today’s business environment an organisation cannot afford to do business as usual. Thus, the search for talent which has been identified as a key driver for sustainable business cannot be underrated. An exercise for the search must be treated with the seriousness it deserves. Talent, therefore, must not only be considered on the basis of conventional factors like experience and competence only but identified complementary skills, and in recent time the global awareness of the candidate. These factors put together elevate an employee above his or her peers when finding solutions to problems on the job. The inability for organizations to keep great talent result from many factors key among which is the candidate’s fitness into the larger organizational culture. It is, therefore, paramount to determine the fitness of a candidate in a given organizational culture before progressing any further with the recruitment processes. This is key as a non-fit candidate may hurt the organization by either introducing behaviours that are not sanctioned by the organization or exit the job very early causing a repeat of the recruitment process for a new candidate costing additional time and money.