Learn more about why Natalia uses value-based hiring, and why it is so important to hire graduates.
Graduated
Attract: Why did you start Graduated?
I have this passion for helping people, and helping them achieve their true purpose in their career — inspiring them. All of the people I met had similar stories to me, they’d come in from overseas or wanted to start something new and I could see this gap in getting early careers and graduated talent connected with tech roles. Not only because of visa requirements, but they’re not accustomed to understanding how Australia works, or how employment works and there’s nowhere to find out.
The whole point of studying and going to university is being given a helping hand in getting your first role. But there are a lot of information gaps between the universities, the workforce and the market. It really baffles me. What I still can’t believe is that even if you have a degree, it’s just as hard.
We’re going into the next generation of talent and workforce with the emerging Gen-Z talent, who are becoming leaders in the industry. They’re completely changing how we work and hire, yet there’s no one there to connect graduates with employers.
We should actively be employing graduates throughout our businesses. They bring in amazing insights. People who have been working for a while don’t see what graduates see, we’re too far removed and too immersed in our projects or goals to see the world through their lens.
Value-based hiring
Attract: Why do you use a value-based hiring method, rather than a skills-based one?
Skills-based hiring can be very biased. You could hire someone just based on their skills, but they might be completely wrong for the company, the culture and the job itself.
The majority of university graduates do not have hard skills and barely any soft skills. The reason that I do value-driven hiring with Graduated, and within my career, is that I genuinely believe that if you hire based on shared values you’re going to have the ultimate return on investment for the candidate, their career and the business.
Value-based hiring for leaders
Attract: Do you get pushback to value-based hiring from leaders?
As an education piece, I don’t get as much pushback as I thought I would. There’s no one else in Australia that value matches on job searches. It’s exciting, but also scary because I worry about why people haven’t been adopting this already. This has been a part of my hiring as a talent leader for the last 8 years. I’ve always thought about culture, values and transferable skills first, and then the hard skills.
When I speak to business leaders or founders I go in with the lens that it is a revenue conversation. What are you willing to put in to grow the best team for your business? What does that look like? We’re building diverse teams with people that want to be a part of your business. If you’ve got long tenure, people who are committed and who love your brand it will be so easy to share and grow that.
If you start hiring the wrong sort of people you’ll start bleeding cash and start losing culture. It’s a detriment for everybody.
Assessing value-based hiring
Attract: How do you assess for value-based hiring in a way that’s fair?
I don’t think it’s in testing, I think it’s in practices.
One thing I loved to do as a TA leader was build personas to understand what the persona looks like for that role. Building a persona allows us to visualise those amazing people for our business, based on the skills they have holistically. You can give examples of that person in your business so your team can truly understand what it means to hire the right person.
If you’ve got a good, stable team, the majority of the team will live and breathe those same values. You can determine value-based hiring with a scorecard, or in an ATS, or you might have a review sheet. As long as your hiring team is on the same page and understands the goal and the outcome of your hiring practices on a higher level, those practices will form a complete hiring experience. The important thing is that you’re all talking the same language. Whether you’re doing a phone screen or a tech interview, every person who is part of that hiring experience knows exactly the hiring processes that go with hiring the right fit, and the right team for your company.
If you want to hear more from Natalia, follow her on LinkedIn, or follow the Graduated page.
If you’re a grad looking to make connections, check out the Graduated website to discover what employers have the same values as you.