Weekend exclusive: Kill off the CV to safeguard London’s workforce, argues recruitment guru
Despite the Levelling Up agenda from the government, London remains the economic hub of the country.
Home to the UK’s finance, legal, technology, and creative industries to name a few, it is the barometer for the activity, attitudes, and aspirations for UK plc.
While City PM reported extensively on the risk of finance jobs leaving the City on account of Brexit, the actual number is a long way short of the mass exodus that was predicted at the time of the referendum.
In fact, London remains as attractive as ever. According to the 2021 edition of the Global Talent Survey by Total Jobs, the UK capital remains the most desirable city in the world to work.
For a city that has established itself as a leader on the world stage, the issue now is how it safeguards its future and this starts with people.
But, in an era of progress, standing still means going backward, a City recruitment veteran discussed with City PM today.
Skills crisis
One of the narratives surrounding the UK employment market at the moment is a skills crisis. Something that has been referred to as a ‘catastrophic digital skills shortage disaster’ by the Learning & Work Institute.
“What we’re actually experiencing is the genesis of jobs, skills, and talent,” said Robert Newry, CEO of Arctic Shores. “New technologies are transforming how, where and why people work at an alarming rate and this is just the start.”
According to the World Economic Forum’s recent Future Jobs Report, there’ll be 97m new digital-first jobs by 2025. What’s more, 85m existing jobs will disappear entirely.
Indeed, The WEF advises that 50 per cent of all employees will need to reskill by 2025.
In the UK, the figure is even starker. McKinsey analysis reveals that if workers are to realise the full benefits of reskilling over the next decade, more than 90 per cent of the UK workforce will need to be retrained.
“What we are faced with is a skills crisis where the skills of those whose roles are disappearing do not match those of the new roles being created by the digital economy,” said Newry.
He told City PM “this needs addressing now with the innovative and bold thinking that London has been synonymous with for centuries.”
“In a rapidly changing world, what individuals have done before is becoming less and less useful as a gauge for the future.”
Robert Newry, CEO of Arctic Shores
“What is required is for businesses to embrace new ways of doing things to unlock future potential,” Newry said. “In fact, defaulting to past experience alone is placing unnecessary shackles on the talent pool.”
Scrap the CV
Newry shared the results of recent survey by his firm, which found that 88 per cent have screened candidates out based on their experience, yet 67 per cent say screening for experience reduces the size and diversity of their talent pool.
“This is why we’re calling on employers to scrap the CV. It’s increasingly becoming a blunt and analogue instrument in a sharp and digital world.”
He added that “by design, it looks back and not ahead and the world we are moving to will bear little to no resemblance to what has come before.”
Newry stressed he is not suggesting recruiters and HR teams totally disregard candidate history – employment, education or personal.
“All of which remain a credible part of selection. But moving forward, this should be a secondary element of screening – not primary, or only, which it is today. Businesses need to see beyond the CV and select for potential. That means using alternative methods to find candidates.”
So how to go about this?
One such way is behaviour-based assessments and other psychometric tests. These methods have a string of benefits, Newry said.
“Aside from helping employers deal with the volume of applications they receive, these assessments also address unconscious bias and are more accessible to neurodiverse candidates.”
They are also designed to bypass candidates’ efforts to appear socially desirable – in other words, giving the answer they think the interviewer or company wants to hear, he added.
“This enables organisations to establish a more complete and transparent picture of the talent pool.”
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Robert Newry, CEO of Arctic Shores
The result? “The ability to create diverse teams on the basis of potential and transferable qualities, mitigating an otherwise inevitable mismatch between the skills that are required in the future and the skills they have today,” Newry said.
Scrapping the CV in favour of selecting for potential might seem like a maverick move, “but if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got,” he said in conclusion.
Newry firmly believes that future competitiveness will be predicated on hiring people with the potential to learn the skills and pick up the knowledge that will be required in a digital economy.
“That’s why discovering and selecting for potential needs to become a defining strategy for London businesses,” he concluded.