If innovation is drying up in your organization, maybe it’s time to shake up your hiring process. Also: a new suite of 3-D printing options.
Let’s say your association recognizes it needs new ideas. What comes next? Brainstorming sessions? Task forces? You could land in a cycle of call to action, meetings, and reports that keep hitting on the same points. What if ideas that venture outside the box require employees who are made from a different mold?
PGi marketing and sales executive Jeff Perkins shares thoughts on that very question today in a LinkedIn post. Though he writes with marketing departments in mind, the same employment principles apply in all kinds of departments in all kinds of organizations.
As Perkins points out, ads for open positions often contain boilerplate requirements like “X years of experience,” background in so-and-so field, and a degree in Y.
“Here’s the problem: These ‘requirements’ actually screen out the kind of big thinkers that companies want to recruit,” Perkins writes. “So you end up seeing the same kinds of candidates. And then guess what happens? You end up hiring the same kinds of people with the same old ideas.”
So if you’re finding that your association is just treading water—buoyant thanks to past successes but unable to find that next big idea—consider breaking out of the hiring box and pulling in people from more diverse, nontraditional backgrounds.
