Hiring candidates without work experience is tricky, but HRM speaks with two experts who believe the payoff is worth it.

Last year numbers released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics put youth unemployment at 11.6  per cent (as of October 2019) with over 275,000 15 to 24-year-olds out of work. With such dire statistics working against them, it’s no surprise so many young people are applying for jobs with little to no prior work experience. So what should recruiters keep in mind when hiring candidates with no or little job experience?

Ask the right questions

Michael Berger is the director and founder of Brisbane based recruitment company Talent Blueprint. He and his team have the unenviable task of sorting through applications from recent graduates. 

Berger says you need to look past candidates’ experiences and focus on their transferable skills.

“A lot have a lack of work experience that’s relevant [to the role they’re applying for],” says Berger, “So we ask, ‘what are they doing with their lives?’ ‘Are they raising money for charity or an event?’ What picture are they painting of themselves and what value is that going to add for us?”

Candidates who clearly apply themselves outside school or university are usually going straight to the shortlist pile, says Berger. A study from the Dutch Institute of Labour Economics demonstrated that even if the work was unrelated to their area of study, graduates with some form of work experience were much more likely to get an interview than students without any experience.

“You can say to the candidate, ‘I can see you haven’t had any experience in this industry before. What’s going to prepare you for the challenges of this job?’” says Berger. “Whether it’s in the CV or not, they can then present their transferable skills.”

These transferable abilities should include the skills most professionals use every day, such as time management, self-direction and strategic thinking. 

“I’d go down the line of behavioural based questioning like, ‘tell me about a time when you’ve had a tough deadline?’ or ‘how have you gone about managing yourself?’ This is their chance to say ‘this is how I manage my time’ etc.,” says Berger.

Transferable soft skills

Without professional experience, Berger says recruiters need to focus on a candidate’s interpersonal skills which demonstrate how they will function within your workplace culture. Better known as ‘soft skills’. Doing this can lead to better performance down the line.

Some US research shows that high school students’ soft skills were a better indication of their likelihood to gain tertiary education than their academic results. Of course, this doesn’t directly transfer to the workplace, but Scott Quinn CPHR – who deals with high school students all the time – agrees measuring soft skills is the best approach when recruiting recent graduates or those without work experience.   

Quinn is the group HRD manager for Retzos Group, a franchisee of KFC, and the majority of his workforce apply with zero formal work experience.

“I would say 95 per cent of them don’t have any experience at all,” says Quinn. “Because of that, we have to go on character.” 

Since applicants’ resumes are fairly sparse, Quinn says the biggest identifier of potential lies in their interview. 

“The biggest part is what we call our Structured Interview Guide (SIG) which is geared towards an individual’s integrity, honesty and character. You know, what kind of things have they done at school? [Do they have] any leadership qualities? Teamwork is important… we look at things like if you’re part of that aerobics team, what part did you play?”

Quinn says their recruiters take candidates through scenarios and assess how they respond. Although the inexperienced applicants have probably never dealt with seeing a colleague steal money or handled an irate customer, they’re asked to consider these scenarios during the interview. 

“We’re not expecting anyone to come out and give us the answers to everything.” But how they answer says a lot about who the candidate is, says Quinn.

Working with a blank slate

Berger says there is a real benefit to hiring people who are new to the workforce because they’re a blank slate.

“Sometimes employers go over these things quickly, like ‘let’s just get them in! They’ve all got no experience anyway. It doesn’t matter.’ But I think if you select the right person at the start they can grow with the company and you can actually mould these individuals to exactly what you want.”

Retzos Group has a similar approach. They never hire managers externally, preferring to train up those who come in at entry-level positions. 

(You can read HRM’s previous interview with Quinn detailing Retzos Group’s succession planning strategies here).

“We get employees that have celebrated 50 years with KFC because they started as 15-year-olds. One thing we tell our managers is: they have to be a role model. They might be the first role model this kid ever sees in the workplace and it’s really important we reiterate that.

“It’s all character-based and ‘does this person fit the culture’. Everybody’s different. You might get a recruit who’s really quiet but you just see something in them.” 

Final tips

Hiring candidates without work experience can be a tricky process but Berger says if you look out for these five things it can really pay off.

• Customising their CV – Did the candidate address their cover letter to you? Is it clear they read your job ad? Or are they applying everywhere with the same letter and CV?
• Transferable skills – Look for teamwork, leadership or community values. What life skills do they have that fit your role?
• Informal work experience or internships –  Have they tried to gain experience by helping a local or family business?
• Extra-Curricular activities or achievements – Do they volunteer or raise money for a charity?
• Flexibility – what are their availabilities? And if they’re a graduate, are they willing to relocate?

Do you have any go-to questions to ask candidates without any job experience? Let us know in the comment section below.

Stay up to date with the latest recruitment and retention strategies with AHRI’s short course, Recruitment and Workplace Relations, designed to help you ace the talent management process.