Tips for Hiring Novice Employees and How to Help Them Grow and Succeed in Your Organization   

Junior talent, whether in age or capability, can be an extremely cost-efficient way to grow a business and create future leaders. There are two core types of junior talent that appear in the workforce:

• Right Out of School. Once people complete their education, college or otherwise, they begin seeking employment. These candidates have likely studied or participated in an apprenticeship or internship in their field of interest, but they have yet to execute their skills in the real world. While these candidates typically have little professional experience, they have a strong desire to learn and grow. Furthermore, these candidates likely have experience working in groups and as individuals, making their work product strong in both environments.
• Making a Professional Transition. In recent years, numerous programs have been established to support career transition for individuals. These candidates may or may not have applicable professional or real-world experience for their new job path.

The most significant difference between these two groups is how they adapt to an office environment. Candidates coming right out of school may need guidance on how to align their particular habits to the workplace, while those coming from other professional careers may have habits that need to be adjusted. In either case, there are five key ways you can help junior talent grow their skills and be successful in your organization.

Establish a Career Path
It is critical to establish a growth and expectation path for your junior talent out of the gate. This involves:

• Identifying the next steps on their “ladder” and making it clear to them how they will grow so that they can target focus areas for their time with you.
• Providing a clear job description with outlined expectations of deliverables, capabilities, and activities. This helps establish expectations that they can measure themselves against.
• Crafting nurturing programs based on their skill set where they can learn from other individuals with similar skill sets. These can be reading groups, centers of excellence, or coordinated “lunch and learns.”

Create an Accommodating Culture
An organization that fully supports junior talent will see significant return on that talent. Without acceptance by all, junior talent will feel out of place and unsupported, and may quickly depart the organization. A few ways to perpetuate a culture of support include:

• Creating frequent (monthly or every six weeks) events to introduce junior talent to the whole organization so that the entire organization has a chance to interact with the people who are joining the team.
• Introducing mentoring opportunities for senior talent. These opportunities do not have to be based on skill set or job title; instead, they can be general professional development or industry mentorship.
• Promoting the programs that are available to support junior talent. Use wall space, elevator walls, or other areas to announce and explain the programs your organization has in place. During the interview process, inform all candidates, regardless of their professional maturity, that this is a part of your organizational culture so that you set the expectation early on that their support is necessary and important.

Support and Train Junior Talent
More senior, or professionally mature, individuals have developed the capability to learn through observation. Junior talent does not have the experience to know what to look for or how to apply what they see to their own behavior. That’s why it is very important to provide purposeful training and senior talent support. This can be done through:

• Straightforward training on general company culture and etiquette. This should be simple, documented education on office basics: how to write an email, how to set up a meeting, when to copy vs. not copy, etc. While these things may seem simple, you cannot take for granted that junior talent knows the specific procedures for your organization.
• Peer mentorship assignments. 1:1s are critical for everyone’s growth, but they are especially crucial for junior talent. These meetings can be structured in a variety of ways, but a balance of professional and personal development is recommended. In addition, you must ensure that these mentorship pairings are a good fit for both the junior and senior member. Without a cohesive, trusting relationship between the two parties, mentorship can be seen as bullying.

Find Opportunities for Growth 
Identifying the right projects for junior talent to take on is key to ensuring their professional growth. If your organization is constantly supporting projects in “fire-drill” mode, you may not be the right organization to take on junior talent. Long-haul or brown-field projects are typically better for junior talent, because they can be given tasks and direction to ease them into the projects. Consider:

• Product development-type projects. Junior resources can take on small, repetitive tasks that can be easily reviewed by senior talent and do not impact overall functionality.
• Internal projects. These can be a great way to train talent on how to complete their tasks without the pressure of client feedback and review.
• Research projects. Opportunities for junior talent to do some of the base work required in producing a deliverable allows them to learn the process surrounding it while freeing senior talent to take on work that produces greater efficiencies. 

Understand Their Capability
Knowing the skill level of junior talent is key to their success. While you can only guess at where their talents truly lie when you first hire them, their ability will become evident as they are asked to execute work. To help you determine whether someone is struggling because he or she needs more practice at the task or because it’s not the right task for him or her at all:

• Measure velocity. In any deliverable, the senior employee is responsible for measuring the number of times revisions are required, identifying if the work is getting better each time, and evaluating if, on the next project, the assigned talent can apply what he or she learned out of the gate. Ultimately, someone with the right skill set should get better and faster at the tasks, while someone with the wrong skill set will continue to fail and not be able to take on tasks without significant oversight.
• Listen to questions. Much more subjective than measurement, listening to the questions these individuals are asking can provide significant insight to their core capability.

Regardless of the programs and support systems your organization may have in place, there may be times when junior talent is not a good cultural fit, or the work you intend for them to complete may be outside their skill level. It is as important for your organization to understand when you may need to separate from junior talent as it is to be prepared for them.

Once you’ve helped junior talent succeed in your organization, it is important to accept that they may leave for other opportunities. While you may want these individuals to grow and stay, there is a strong probability that they will move on once they feel they have learned and accomplished as much as they could within your organization. Even in this case, the work they’ve done to help grow your organization makes hiring the right junior talent a good investment.