How do you spot singular-but-non-obvious talent?

If you're facing this issue and struggling with it, you're not alone.

It comes up every day in our meetings with business teams and organizations. It's a challenge every business leader faces.

Hiring is hard. Spotting the right people is even harder. Most leaders and managers fail to spot the-stellar-but-non-obvious talent (even if, at first, they believe they “got it right”).

Why is that?

If you come to think about it, most of us — as most job-seekers — are non-obvious talents. Each of us is unique and special in many different ways. We each have our unique “constellation” of superpowers and strengths.

But constellations, astronomers will tell you, are nebulous. It’s hard to zero in on them.

To make things even worse, jobseekers lack effective and credible tools to communicate and signal the various ways in which they are talented and special—and the ways in which they could add value to your businesses. Demonstrating this is one of the hardest things jobseekers face.

When a jobseeker articulates his/her unique attributes, most hiring managers might treat it with knee-jerk skepticism.

It is never about how smart you are. But, rather, about how you are smart. Notice the difference. Think about it: it’s not semantics; it’s a revelation.

It’s a losing situation that can be predicted ahead of time: the jobseeker and the organization don’t match, even though there’s a perfect match that’s just waiting to be made.

On the flip side, it doesn't have to be this way. We can turn this losing situation into a win-win.

First, we’ve got to open our minds to accepting and acknowledging the diverse ways in which people can manifest their talents.

Second, we need to acknowledge that most of what people are capable of doing now and in the future is not visible or known to us right now.

Once we get on board with this line of thinking, all we need is the right tool to help us spot singular talents all around us.

Get the right tool

🧠 Reach out at hello@knackapp.com

If you want to learn more, do reach out to us. We love meeting with teams and organizations, learning about the challenges they face, and sharing what’s coming down our innovation pipeline.