In many organisations, recruitment still prioritises polished CVs, confident interviews, and traditional career trajectories. Yet these markers often reflect access — not potential.

Confidence can be coached. Exposure can be expanded. But opportunity gaps are often invisible to those who have never experienced them.

Individuals from underrepresented or under-supported backgrounds may not always present with traditional signals of “readiness.” What they often bring instead is resilience, adaptability, cultural intelligence, and lived problem-solving skills.

When employers broaden their understanding of talent to include context — not just credentials — recruitment becomes more equitable and more effective.

Talent identification must move beyond performance in a 45-minute interview. It should consider growth capacity, environmental barriers, and identity-informed experiences.

Because potential is not always packaged conventionally.

And when organisations learn to recognise it, everyone benefits.