Today’s business climate is fast-paced, with constantly changing advancements in technology and consumer demands. To keep up with this trend and stay competitive, more businesses are investing in hiring for specialized roles rather than generic ones. However, while employees with niche skills can proffer competent solutions, they’re also quite difficult to source.
Filling specialized roles requires more strategic planning and assessments, and this can be daunting, especially if you lack experience in said role. To tackle this challenge, we’ve put together a detailed guide to show you how to test for niche skills and hire for more streamlined job descriptions. Let’s begin.
What is a niche skill?
A niche skill is a highly specialized technical skill tailored to a particular job or industry. It refers to any skill that solves a unique challenge, directly impacts a company’s performance, and usually takes some time to master. Although the exact scope of each depends on the problem it solves and the related industry, all niche skills handle high-level, complex issues.
Meanwhile, unlike niche skills, general skills are less job-specific, transferrable across several roles, and require little technical know-how. They facilitate work culture and overall job efficiency, making them fundamental requirements for most positions irrespective of the job description. Examples include communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and basic computer skills.
Examples of niche skills
There are several niche skills available today across every industry, whether it’s business, tech, healthcare, or even education. Each niche skill meets a distinct need and helps the organization satisfy its market demands. Below are a few popular niche skills to test and hire for.
- Cybersecurity
- Software engineering
- Financial analysis
- Legal services
- Business development
- Instructional and curriculum design
- Project management
- Public relations
- Virtual event planning and management
- Human resources management
Why is hiring niche talent so difficult?
Several companies spend time and money trying to fill specialized roles, draining the company’s resources. Below are four common reasons why hiring niche talent is challenging.
1. Limited talent pool due to skill complexity
A Noble Desktop article states that structured and certified IT training can cost between $5,000 and $10,000. The more complex a job is, the higher the time and financial investment it’ll require, sometimes running into years of dedicated study and astronomical fees.
While some people may be able to dedicate the time and money required to learn niche skills, for most, these demands are too challenging. As a result, there are very few experts in these areas compared to general skills, making for a smaller talent pool.
2. Industry evolution and advancement
According to a 2023 World Economic Forum report, over 85% of organizations surveyed see new technologies and digital access as key drivers of transformation in their organizations. The rate of change and modern advancements in industries is rapid and, in most cases, difficult to keep up with.
Regardless, you must adapt to new inventions to remain relevant and meet market demands. This means that you constantly need employees with expertise in these emerging technologies. However, only a few professionals stay current with the nonstop change, creating scarcity and difficulty in hiring.
3. Lengthy and costly hiring process
Due to the limited availability of candidates with niche skills and difficulty finding them, the hiring process for specialized roles can be lengthy compared to general skills. Getting a candidate with both technical ability and person-organization fit may cost a significant amount of time and money. Unfortunately, though most companies need these professionals, not many have the human or financial resources for an extended search process.
4. High expectations from candidates
Considering the time and money experts spend acquiring niche skills, it’s no surprise that they usually command higher compensation. Due to their value, specialized roles usually come with a significant salary and attached benefits.
Also, highly skilled professionals tend to have multiple competing offers, each promising attractive benefits and packages in an attempt to win them over. However, not every company can afford to meet the financial expectations niche talents may have or make competitive offers.
Best practices for hiring niche talent
Hiring niche talent is undoubtedly challenging, but certain strategies can make the process easier and faster. In this section, we’ll see six best practices that can help you attract and source qualified candidates for any specialized role.
1. Niche recruitment boards and targeted skills assessments
Recruitment boards are among the best places to advertise your open position, as they help you get candidates’ attention with minimal effort. With general skills, any reputable job board is a suitable choice, but when hiring niche talent, you need to be selective for better results.
Focus more on recruitment boards that target your exact industry, such as a tech job board if you’re hiring a software engineer. This draws a streamlined audience, thus filtering underqualified applications and increasing the chances of your job being filled faster.
Also, tailor your skills assessments to evaluate the candidate’s technical ability as related to the specific job. Generic assessments may check for overall suitability and organizational fit, but they don’t show you the level of the candidate’s knowledge in the niche skills.
2. Flexible requirements and job descriptions
As a standard, your job descriptions should be clear and concise when hiring for any role, but for niche talent, flexibility is equally essential. It’s good practice to list all the skills necessary for success in a role. But, with the limited number of candidates, rigidly insisting on qualifications that don’t necessarily affect performance further reduces your talent pool.
Deemphasize baselines like educational background and years of experience and focus more on the actual niche skills required. This will attract a wider range of applicants, giving you more options to choose from.
3. Attractive compensation and benefits
Niche talents are in high demand, so you want to ensure your offer is attractive enough compared to competitors. Their complex skills also increase the organization’s value and improve its service range significantly, so they should be adequately compensated.
Besides an appropriate salary, you should clearly include other benefits of working with your organization, such as insurance, bonuses, and access to professional training. These show the candidate that employee satisfaction is important to you and that you appreciate their input, encouraging them to join your team.
4. Referrals
Referrals are a great way to hire employees with niche skills because you can win over talents that may not necessarily be job-hunting. Such candidates probably won’t peruse job boards regularly, and recommendations from their circle are the best way to inform them of your vacancy.
Also, referrals help you hire qualified candidates without the lengthy, expensive hiring process. A 2024 Jobvite survey stated that hiring a referral saves $7,500 in productivity and sourcing costs. Employees usually recommend people whose abilities they have complete confidence in, giving you access to top talent without the rigors of traditional sourcing.
5. Career fairs
Career fairs are another way you can leverage networking to hire niche talent and bypass regular recruitment processes. By attending or organizing events that attract professionals in the field you’re hiring for, you get the opportunity to engage directly with potential candidates.
Here, you can pitch your open role, promote your company by showing the benefits of working for you, and interact with attendees to see who fits your brand. Like referrals, career fairs also help you access top talents who aren’t seeking new jobs and convince them to work for you.
6. Upskilling and training current employees
A 2022 LinkedIn report showed that 79% of L&D pros agreed that it’s less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one. Hiring managers tend to look externally when filling an open role, but sometimes, your ideal candidate is already your employee. Instead of sourcing entirely new candidates for a position, you can upskill members of your team with strong potential and train them for the role.
This is especially useful if the team members are already on the general career path you’re hiring for but lack the extra expertise needed. Empower them with professional certifications, sponsored education, or training programs, and enjoy the added benefits of familiarity and employee retention while solving your hiring needs.
How to use skills assessments to test for hard-to-hire roles
Before extending an offer, it’s important to evaluate candidates with skills assessments to help you make a well-rounded decision. Here are three simple steps to take when using skills assessments to test for specialized roles.
1. Identify key skills
What are the major skills required for success in this role? Identify these skills, noting both the technical and soft skills that the employee will need to carry out everyday tasks on the job without hitches.
Include any industry-specific competencies or tools, but remember that flexibility is also necessary to broaden your options. This means sticking to the basic requirements and allowing the employee room for growth rather than insisting on qualifications.
2. Create the assessments
Create assessments that test for the specific skills listed in your requirements. This could be a single assessment, but in most cases, you’ll need a combination of different tests. Remember that you’re not testing for technical knowledge alone; you also want to make sure the candidate will be a good fit for your team.
Vervoe is a perfect solution for this stage, as it provides a wide selection of assessments and job simulations. With Vervoe, you can check for all necessary hard and soft skills, whether they’re general skills like communication and relationship-building ability or niche, professional skills.
3. Evaluate candidates objectively
For your hiring process to be effective, every candidate must receive a fair and thorough evaluation. Check that your tests have equal complexity levels for all candidates and score them against the same skill-based criteria. This eliminates hiring bias and ensures you make the most objective decision.
Vervoe’s AI-powered grading and ranking make it ideal for this task. With the power of machine learning, it notes your preferred responses to each question on the assessment and grades your candidates’ replies against this benchmark. Then, it presents a detailed report of their overall performance, showing you the top scorer who’s most likely to get the job done.
4. Supplement with interviews
Although interviews aren’t reliable as a standalone recruitment method, you can use them after conducting assessments if you’d like direct engagement with your candidate. Ensure the interview is structured and follows a specified format to reduce bias and provide a level evaluation ground for all candidates.
Also, show each candidate that you value their time and treat them with respect. This will influence their candidate experience and likelihood of accepting your offer.
Conduct fair assessments with Vervoe
The quality of your assessments determines how fair, accurate, and reliable your hiring process is, reducing the possibility of hiring mistakes. Vervoe provides a top-notch solution for this, ensuring you always select the best candidate without relying on traditional recruitment methods.
Vervoe is a hiring and skills assessment platform equipped with features to help you hire for specialized roles. Our software accurately evaluates candidates for a job description and objectively shows you the top performers, reducing possible bias from traditional recruitment methods.
When hiring niche talents, detailed assessments that test for in-depth technical ability are a must. Vervoe boasts a robust assessment library with over 300 prepared templates and a question bank with more than 300,000 questions. This lets you choose between ready-made or custom assessments and test for a wide range of skills, whether technical or soft, that adequately represent your preferences.
Besides assessments, our software also has immersive job simulations that show you how the candidate responds to everyday scenarios on the job. Paired with our rock-solid assessments, you can make confident hiring decisions and eliminate costly mistakes.
Flexibility is important when looking for niche skills, and Vervoe’s AI optimization feature takes care of this need. This feature learns from previous hiring data to determine what responses you prefer in the candidate’s assessments.
Using this data, it automatically grades and ranks each candidate’s response, highlighting the best candidate based on your preferences. This ensures bias-free, accurate, transparent, and fast decision-making, all important criteria for filling specialized roles.
Niche skills assessment, simplified
Employees with niche skills can take your company to new heights, putting you ahead of the competition with top-notch solutions. However, sourcing candidates with these skills can be tasking, and assessing them to confirm their abilities is even more difficult.
Vervoe takes this problem off your hands, accurately testing each candidate and showing you who is the right fit for your organization. Our comprehensive assessments, job simulations, and AI optimization tools allow you to make data-informed decisions and easily identify the top candidates for specialized roles.
Ready to find your next niche talent without stress? Schedule a demo today to enjoy Vervoe’s advanced skill testing and fill specialized roles with ease.
