Unicorn employees possess every skill and qualification you could ask for—so why might it be a bad idea to hire one?
Searching for a unicorn employee can stall your hiring process
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could find a new hire who had all the skills, education, training, experience and personality traits indicated in the job description? If an applicant could just turn up who was a fit in every particular, that’d be great.
Or… would it?
Such a candidate—dubbed a ‘unicorn employee’—could actually turn out less amazing than you might expect, says Caitlin Weiser, aPHR and Consultant at Red Clover.
“A unicorn employee is someone who checks all the boxes on a job description,” says Weiser. “They have the right amount of experience, the perfect industry background, an ideal college degree; they’re exactly who you’re looking for. You visualize this employee as a self starter; jumping right in with little to no training and melding seamlessly with team members to start achieving results quickly.”
Unfortunately, this is not always how it turns out. Even if you do somehow manage to locate such a paragon, there are several pitfalls that can result in a negative outcome. In my recent email interview with Weiser, we discussed why it’s such a temptation to hold out for a unicorn employee, what happens if we do and why it’s not settling for less to hire someone who doesn’t check all the boxes. Here’s the gist of our conversation.
Unicorns are rare—and in demand
According to Weiser, there are three big reasons that hiring a unicorn employee could backfire on you:
1.) A long search: Like the unicorns of legend, unicorn employees tend to be extremely rare. If you’re determined to find someone who matches your job description one hundred percent, you may be searching forever. “Finding a perfect candidate is usually an impossible task,” says Weiser. “When you become married to the idea that you will only accept a unicorn employee, it opens the door for potential bias by eliminating candidates who otherwise could have had the ambition to bring your business to the next level.”
2.) The poaching risk: What’s more, discovering and hiring such an employee comes with its own risks—poaching being one of them. Weiser notes that if you do find a unicorn employee, it is highly possible that other employers have their eye on them as well. “This means you may have to pay a premium salary to get them on board, and the probability of them getting swiped away from your organization by a competitor increases,” she says.
3.) Bored too quickly: Finally, while hiring a unicorn employee may seem like the best possible outcome in your recruitment efforts, “the reality is you may not be able to support their long-term growth and development,” Weiser observes. “It’s hard to provide rewarding and challenging work to someone who already has all of the skills needed to do the job. Employees are more likely to leave a job if they are not being challenged and unicorn employees are no different.”
Dodging the unicorn trap
According to Weiser, the first step is to understand that great talent can be built. “You can avoid falling into the unicorn hiring trap by focusing on transferrable skills and identifying what skills can be taught on the job instead of looking for someone who fits the job perfectly,” she says.
It starts with a good hard look at your current job requirements, with an eye to determining which ones are inarguably necessary—and which ones can be learned along the way. “If you’re hiring for a position that uses specific software, a potential employee may need to know that to be successful, making it non-negotiable,” explains Weiser.
“However, if the position combines the use of that software with a less crucial skill, the latter is something that can be taught with on-the-job training. Being open to skilling-up new employees increases your candidate pool, allowing you to fill the open position with a qualified (but maybe not perfect) candidate quickly.”
Ditching the degree
Employers are increasingly becoming aware that outdated degree requirements are a hurdle preventing many otherwise qualified candidates from moving forward in the screening process. So how can you determine if your open positions really require a college degree or not?
“The decision to require a college degree depends on your business specifications and industry requirements,” says Weiser, noting that it’s perfectly realistic to require a degree for highly specialized roles such as finance, marketing or engineering.
“While there are plenty of positions that should require a degree, there are equal, if not more, positions that can be done successfully by someone who doesn’t have one,” she says. “Many skills can be learned through hands-on experience and a candidate who has years of relevant experience may end up being more qualified than a candidate with a degree because of this.”
So if, after reviewing your open positions and their descriptions, you decide to ditch the degree requirement, what should you be looking for instead? “Online courses, certifications, boot camps and years of professional experience are all things that can stand in place of a college degree,” says Weiser. “The credentials you accept in place of a degree differ between positions and should be determined when scoping the role before going to market.”
Skills that transfer
Alongside the potentially unnecessary college degree, requiring highly specific skills upfront can also be prolonging your search. And that’s why you need to learn to recognize the types of skills that transfer easily from one field to another.
“Transferable skills can be divided into two categories: hard skills and soft skills,” explains Weiser. “Hard skills are objective, quantifiable skills that are gained through education, training, or hands-on experience. Soft skills are non-technical personal attributes and social skills that affect how someone works and interacts with others. All jobs use a combination of hard and soft skills that make up their daily responsibilities.”
The realization that soft skills (or as I call them, professional skills) can be developed through on-the-job experiences can open up a whole new talent pool.
Finding the best non-unicorns out there
If unicorn employees are indeed the stuff of legend, how do you find the best possible non-unicorn hires for your organization? Weiser suggests a less traditional form of interviewing called ‘behavioral interviewing,’ which focuses on a candidate’s past experience in order to predict their future behavior.
“Behavioral interviewing allows the candidate to share their accomplishments in a way that gives the interviewer insight into how they will perform once hired,” says Weiser. “This can drastically reduce the potential of making a bad hire by focusing on the specific attributes and real-life examples that make a person successful in your organization.”
One way to introduce a more behavioral-based approach, says Weiser, is to avoid canned questions like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” “That is not going to tell you if the candidate is able to plan and prioritize and you’re likely to hear similar responses from multiple candidates when asking these questions,” says Weiser.
Instead, you should hand-pick questions that help you determine whose demonstrated skill set would be the best fit. “Keeping core skills at the forefront of your mind when asking behavioral-based questions can help you understand how their previous experience would be transferable to your organization, especially if your candidates are trying to pivot from a different industry,” says Weiser.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, we’re all a work in progress. There are always new skills to master, new areas to expand our expertise. The rise of learning & development is ample proof that today’s workforce is not only changing and growing, but wants to.
If you’ve ‘arrived’ in your current role, either you’re bored—or you’re going to be soon. The same goes for unicorn employees who appear to possess every skill and qualification that hiring managers dream of. For such employees, a career they can’t grow into isn’t attractive in the long run.
And that’s why the non-unicorns out there might just be the best bet to take your team to hitherto unimagined heights. Give them a shot—and watch them rise to the challenge.
