Hiring Strategies For Growth: Finding Innovators

As an HR professional, you have to be strategic. You hiring strategies need to align with the goals of your organization to find the people that will help achieve those objectives.

If the goal of your organization is to grow, then your hiring strategies should focus on finding innovators.

Why innovators?

In order to grow, your organization will need to change its ways of doing things. Innovators are the ones who introduce these new ways.

If all of your employees cannot see beyond the status quo, then the organization will remain there. And an organization that is stagnant will get left behind.

A hiring strategy focused on innovators will keep your organization competitive.

Defining Innovation

Forbes says that “one of the biggest problems in hiring for innovation (and other similarly abstract concepts) is that every company defines innovation a bit differently.”  They recommend to “Start by formalizing your company’s unique definition of innovative as it applies to both high and low performers.”

When defining innovation for your hiring strategy, consider appetite for risk, preference for deadlines, and amount of direction required. It will be helpful to analyze existing employees in developing your definition to look at examples of how these aspects play out in day to day work.

Assessing Innovation

How will you know if someone is innovative?

Well, if they have been innovative before, it is likely that they can repeat their success! And the way to find out their past experiences is with behaviour based interview questions. Well-crafted questions and training on how to probe for in-depth responses are an essential component of any successful hiring strategy. For more information on behaviour based interviewing to uncover innovators, check out our blog on this topic. 

Innovation leads to greatness and you want your organization to be on that level. Adjust your hiring strategy to focus on innovators and your company will get there.