Non-traditional hires can be a pain, yet also some of the best hires

Let’s be realistic: most recruiters and hiring managers do a good job of screening out candidates who are unconventional or, put another way, non-traditional. Why? Because they tend to be risky and hiring candidates who you know can do the work is safer.

But is hiring the safer candidate better? The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently published an interesting article by Marco Greenberg, the owner of a boutique, communications consulting firm who previously was the managing director of a publicly traded conglomerate. He has hired hundreds and wrote about his challenges in recruiting and retaining non-traditional talent.

Marco advocated for employers to embrace non-traditional talent as they bring diversity of thought and behavior. He particularly favored people he affectionately referred to as primitives as they were “always roaming, like our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago”. They’re relentless, view the world differently, adaptable, seek purpose in their work, aren’t afraid to display humility, think of new ways to accomplish goals when the old ones aren’t working anymore, and focused on the needs of their teammates.

Examples of the kind of non-traditional talent? Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and Arianna Huffington. Ask yourself, are candidates like these likely to be found in the majors and at the schools favored by most employers of students and recent grads? Unlikely.

So where are these candidates? They’re likely to be theatre majors who build apps for fun. Or they might be working full-time in a retail job so they can make enough money to volunteer part-time on an engineering project that ignites their passion and which, in your workplace, might just be critical to better serving your customers. Or they might be enrolled in a coding bootcamp after serving in the military.

How do you find non-traditional students and recent graduates? Not in through traditional channels like on-campus interviewing. Instead, you need to go where they are: online, including at job search sites like College Recruiter as that’s where they go to find jobs like yours.

At College Recruiter, we believe that every student and recent grad deserves a great career. Our customers are primarily Fortune 1,000 companies, government agencies, and other employers who hire at scale, meaning dozens or hundreds. These organizations advertise their part-time, seasonal, internship, and entry-level jobs with us to help them hire students and recent graduates of all 7,400+ one-, two-, and four-year colleges and universities.