Recruiters are often accused of being too narrow minded in their candidate search, not "thinking outside the square". I certainly do agree that we tend not to deal in left field candidates, but there's a number of reasons for this:
(1) When a client is paying for you to find x, y and z, you don't then go and send them a, b and c. Imagine if you paid the premium of going to a restaurant, ordered the fish and the chef brought out some chicken. You'd be rather annoyed, in spite of the fact both are white meat, both are healthy and both are tasty. Same goes for recruitment - if they want a great C++ developer, don't send them a Java Developer and talk about both languages being similar unless you want to piss them off. Just send them good C++ developers.
(2) Candidates generally over estimate how (a) how good they are, and (b) how quickly they can adapt. It's probably worth taking a punt on your top 3 or 4% of people cross skilling into a new domain, but are you actually one of those 1 in 25 or 30 people who will make the leap quickly and successfully?
(3) Left field is a euphemism for "don't have the required skills and experience". And while people can indeed learn and grow, chances are they have a bunch of people internally who want the role yet don't have the background to fill that seat. Why would you go external to find someone who doesn't fit your brief?
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