Placing Top Candidates in Other Open Positions: An Alternative Hiring Solution

Today’s labor market is booming for many employees, but employers may struggle to find the right workers for their open positions. However, there’s one hiring solution you may not have considered. Are you considering your top applicants who aren’t a great fit for the role they applied for into another position? 

Using great candidates for alternative positions benefits job seekers, hiring managers, and recruiters alike—here’s what you need to know about this hiring efficiency solution. 

Finding the Right Fit for Applicants 

It happens all the time: an applicant for one of your open roles would be a great addition to your organization or team, but they aren’t perfectly suited for the role they applied for. Maybe there’s a stronger candidate you want to hire, or perhaps this applicant needs more experience to fit that role. 

It is a shame to turn them down and lose them—but there’s another solution. 

You can direct them to another position that would be a better fit for them right now. They can join your organization and grow with you, and fill that current need. 

However, this hiring solution requires quite a bit of organization to make it happen. Recruiters and hiring managers might not know of all the open roles at a larger organization, or be aware of all the skills a candidate possesses. 

Pre-Hire Skills Assessments Are the Answer

Skills assessments are the answer, as long as they’re comprehensive and accessible. Skills assessments that test only specific hard skills won’t give you a full idea of a candidate’s potential that could blossom in another position.  

With Cangrade’s Pre-Hire Assessments, all applicants are scored on both hard and soft skills so you can accurately gauge their current capabilities and future potential with your organization. Soft skills are particularly essential to screen for because training for them is much more challenging than hard skills (although it can be done). 

Identifying job applicants who are resilient, have strong communication skills, and collaborate well will help your organization fill talent gaps with great employees. 

Cangrade’s Pre-Hire Assessment allows you to find those applicants and score them across all of your organization’s success models. This means you can immediately check to see how their strengths match up with the development priorities for all open positions, not only the one they applied for. 

The Hiring Solution Employers Need

Instead of losing these qualified, high-potential employees to another company because they weren’t right for the role they applied for, you can look for a better fit within your own organization. You get the benefit of holding on to a talented candidate who is already engaged with your employer brand and filling open positions with more ease and flexibility. 

What does this hiring alternative look like in real life? Let’s take the example of a person who applies for a marketing role on your team. They score well on their Pre-Hire Assessment and ace their video interview, however, you find a candidate with more experience who will excel in the role. 

But the candidate you didn’t choose would be a great addition to the organization—they have critical thinking skills, sharp creative thinking, and are a good culture fit as well. Since you used Cangrade’s hiring solutions, you can simply run their Pre-Hire Assessment results through the criteria for all open positions and find them a communications role that suits them perfectly. 

They get the job that’s right for them, and your organization gets a great employee in an open role. In a challenging labor environment, that’s a big win. 

Want more help finding the best employees for your business with a fast and equitable hiring process? Explore Cangrade’s hiring solutions today.