Dive Brief:
- Voted one of the top 50 "Best Places to Work" by Glassdoor for two years consecutively, SpaceX takes a different approach to hiring, CNBC reports.
- Rather than focus on resumes, recruiters at the aerospace company look primarily for three key qualities: passion, drive and talent.
- SpaceX VP of HR Brian Bjelde told CNBC in an interview that the company has found that resumes aren’t always an arbiter of success. Bjelde even suggests that candidates make resumes more personable by including failures and explaining how they overcame them.
Dive Insight:
SpaceX is one of many companies taking an approach to hiring that is driven less by resumes and more by a holistic view of the candidate. Recruitment based solely on credentials is losing ground to skills-based hiring in many top U.S. businesses. In tech, particularly, the four-year degree has met competition from bootcamp-style learning and from apprenticeships, even in traditionally white-collar fields.
In a thin labor market, employers are looking for candidates who can hit the ground running with work-ready attitudes. Some companies are even looking to train candidates on the technical side if they are strong on soft skills, like leadership and innovation. L&D professionals have taken notice, as the rise in leadership, time and change management training modules have grown in market share.
