How To Survey Your Candidates To Find Skills Gaps

Survey Your Candidates To Find Skills Gaps

Companies must hire individuals that meet the need of the job up for grabs. When a company brings in folks for a series of interviews, the idea is to see if that person is a good match for that job. You may have candidates that would fit well with the culture of your company, but do they have the skills necessary to do the job available well? One of the ways to make this determination is to survey skill gaps, a skill gap analysis, to help answer the question.

Understanding the Skill Gap Analysis

What exactly is the skill gap analysis process? Think about the job you are trying to fill at your company? What are all the skills that are necessary to do that job well? When you begin to lay out a job description, the goal should be to detail out these skills as well as possible. You want to be transparent with potential hires.

Once you have the skills necessary for a job, the other end of the coin is whether the individuals you are looking to hire meet the needs. Does their skill set match up with the skills of the job? A skill gap analysis will aim to determine if your candidates have any skill gaps that could make them less of an ideal candidate for the position.

Go Into the Interview Process With Skills in Mind

If you want to survey candidates to find skill gaps, you need to know what the skills are out of the gate. If you do not have a good handle on the skills necessary, it is unlikely you will be able to identify gaps in a timely fashion, or with any accuracy. As the hiring manager, meet with your staffing agency or whoever you are working with to screen candidates. The skills need agreement as the developers you are looking to hire should have a good chance of fulfilling many of the skills necessary.

It is not a matter of detailing the skills, you want to rank the skills in priority as well. Which skills are the most important for candidates to have? What skills are nice for a candidate to have, but are not a deal-breaker?

Craft the Interview to Uncover Skill Gaps

When you go into an interview, you want the interview crafting to help you uncover skill gaps. Having a series of behavioral questions can help in this area. You will be able to help put candidates in situations where they can show you they have the skills you are looking for. In the event they are lacking the skills, it could be in their answer that this shines through. Surveying candidates first and then conduct a live interview using a screen sharing software. Have them walk you through their answer to show you their proficiency with the subject matter.  by talking with them, getting their insight on how they would deal with work events, can help to detail out where they are strong and also lacking.

You want to dig deeper with each set of questions as well. As you get answers, if they are short, ask the candidate to go further. It could be a short answer because they are lacking in the skill you are aiming to uncover. By seeking them to go one level more in-depth, it could help to solidify that they are lacking in a particular skill.

Helping to Patch Skill Gaps

You rarely end up with a candidate that meets every single skill necessary for the job at hand. It is more likely you end up with a candidate that has the most important skills but has some gaps for some of the less important skills. This is where you can work with them to patch those skill gaps.

You can start this right during the interview process. As you survey candidates and find skill gaps, you can talk with them about their lacking areas and how you can help them develop those, should they sign on with your company. This can be a great way to show candidates you are ready to invest in their future.

Skill gaps are common when you are trying to fill positions at any company. The more you can uncover those skill gaps, though, the easier it is going to be to pick the right candidate and set them up for future success.