Raw Talent Vs Job Experience—Who Will Give Your Dubai Business Greater Competitive Edge?

As an HR manager of a successful Dubai-based startup, do you often find it difficult to decide when should you hire whom—raw talent or an experienced professional? Well, you’re not alone.
The ‘raw talent or job experience’ conundrum troubles even the most experienced HR managers at Fortune 500 companies. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way out of this maze. You can solve this riddle once and for all—and we’ll show you how.

In this post, we show you when to hire raw talent and when to go with experience, along with common pitfalls you must avoid. So, let’s get started.

Why You Need the Right Person at Every Job

For a startup company in Dubai, it is important to hire the best talent because your loss will be your competitor’s gain. With business environment here being highly competitive, you must do whatever you can to gain an edge over competition.

Understanding when to hire which type of professional will give your business a competitive edge and help you outperform other startups like you and also quickly narrow down the gap between you and the leading players.
Hiring Tips for Dubai-based Startups
Follow these tips to give yourself the best chance to hire the right person for every job opening.
You should go for experience when:

• You’re looking for a manager – Although this seems to be common sense, many a time startups in Dubai hire a promising professional with an outstanding track record as a team-member for a manager’s position. And more often than not, they repent their decision later. An outstanding individual contributor doesn’t always make a great manager. This is because the skills required for both jobs are different. Someone who’s never led a team before might find it extremely challenging to create and lead a team in a working environment that’s alien to him.

 

• You’re looking for a specialist – If you’re interviewing for a job role that’s totally new for your business, you should pick an experienced professional. Likewise, if you want to fill a job role where you’ve struggled to excel before, you should bring in an experienced player. Professionals with experience not only possess the relevant job skills but also process knowledge. That’s why experience is always a better option for new or difficult job roles.
  

 
You should go for raw talent when:

• You’re hiring for any job other than the two mentioned above – Are you looking to add new members to a clearly-defined and smoothly-functioning setup? For instance, you might be looking for web developers to join your well-performing web development team with clearly marked out standard operating procedures and other guidelines. Well, in this case, and all other situations similar to this, you should bring on board the person with maximum promise, irrespective of his previous experience. Professionals with raw talent can offer much to you if you give them a chance. They might find new ways to overcome existing hurdles or create new products/services. On the other hand, experienced professionals might be less inclined to do things differently. The other advantage of hiring raw talent for startup Dubai companies is that they are usually more adaptable, loyal, and hardworking.

Watch out for these pitfallsYou must decide in advance who is better suited for the open position—an experienced professional or a professional with raw talent and little, if any, experience?
Before you start interviewing candidates, take a call on this. Otherwise, you might just end up wasting your and candidates’ time. Worse still, you might bring on board a person who’s not suited for the job.

Experience doesn’t always amount to talent.
A candidate’s experience is not a measure of his talent. As a matter of fact, there are many experienced professionals in Dubai who are just mediocre. Precisely for this reason, along with an inspiring track record, you must value traits which showcase the candidate’s ability to be proactive, work in a team, and stay self-motivated. HR experts believe such employees add a lot of value to their organizations over time.

A list of impressive past titles and employers is good—but it is not everything.
Don’t think that a candidate would add great value to your team just because he has done his masters from a premier college and worked with some impressive names. What you must focus most on is his achievements. That—and not other things—will give you a fair idea about what that employee will bring to the table.

For more information on how to hire the right candidates for your Dubai and UAE based startup, feel free to contact us. Our hiring experts will get in touch you and help you hire the best talent in the industry.