Smart moves: Need an equities trader? Then hire a salesman

It has long been recognised that the so-called skills shortage is one of the key issues facing the recruitment industry, writes Roger Trapp.

Increasingly, though, the debate has centred on the nature of those skills. Are they, for instance, technical skills in such areas as information technology and finance or are they less tangible capabilities, such as interpersonal skills?

Last week, Jeff Grout - UK managing director of the financial recruitment consultancy Robert Half International - suggested that many employers were failing to match candidates to jobs because they put too much emphasis on areas such as personality when interviewing. While assessment was often used for hiring graduates and senior executives, it was not prevalent for the majority of middle management positions, he added.

Carol Mote, director of the IT practice at Maidenhead-based MKA Management Consulting, says she increasingly has an open mind about what skills people need to have in order to qualify for a vacancy. This is partly a response to the fact that certain industries, such as telecommunications, are changing so fast that past experience is not necessarily a qualification for future success.

But it is also a recognition of the important facets of a job. The traditional way of finding equities traders might be to look for people who have experience of the financial services industry. But, says Ms Mote, if the real skill is selling, a highly effective salesman in a completely different area might be a better bet.

If employers are becoming more keen to take on people with a "can-do" attitude, the way a person works can take precedence over what a person knows. Indeed, as Ms Mote adds: "It's a skill in itself picking up what's relevant."