By Sian Bennett on Oct 24, 2024
Erling Haaland's performances in 2025/26 serve as a vivid reminder of what happens when talent is identified early and developed with precision. The Manchester City striker has now scored over 260 career goals across all clubs, including 107 Premier League goals in just 126 appearances, and continues to average close to a goal per game across all competitions. Clearly his talent was identified early and nurtured to create the incredible footballer he is today. Every organisation has talent, but finding hidden talent is easier said than done. Fortunately, there are accessible tools and strategies that can help you identify it, develop it, and retain it.
Why Finding Hidden Talent Matters
The business case for internal talent identification is compelling. Only 29% of employees feel their organisation does a good job of helping them understand how their skills match the roles available internally. Meanwhile, companies that excel at internal talent mobility retain employees nearly twice as long as those that do not. The cost of missing talent that already exists in your organisation, and losing it to a competitor who recognised it sooner, is significant both financially and strategically.
Using the right combination of assessments gives you a structured, evidence-based way to see beyond job titles and tenure, and identify the people who have the potential to grow into your future leaders.
Six Ways to Find Hidden Talent in Your Organisation
1. Personality Assessments
Tools like the Occupational Personality Questionnaire or the Hogan Personality Inventory reveal employees' strengths, work preferences, and behavioural styles. They help identify the roles in which individuals are most likely to excel, not just those they currently occupy. For talent strategy, these tools are particularly valuable in succession planning and in spotting employees who may be underutilised in their current position.
2. Skills Assessments
Using business skills assessments that measure specific capabilities relevant to a role or industry gives you objective data on technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and other competencies that are critical for your business. Where performance reviews are often subjective and shaped by visibility, skills assessments surface capability regardless of how well an individual is known to senior leadership.
3. 360 Degree Feedback
Collecting feedback from peers, line managers, direct reports, and clients gives a comprehensive view of an employee's performance, potential, and blind spots. The benefits of 360 degree feedback extend well beyond a single data point: it highlights strengths that may not be visible to a direct manager, surfaces development areas before they become performance issues, and provides a far more rounded picture of an individual's readiness for greater responsibility.
Research from Zenger Folkman shows that structured 360-degree programmes can improve leadership effectiveness by up to 23% when paired with proper follow-up and development planning. For organisations looking to identify and grow future leaders, few tools are as effective.
4. Cognitive Ability Tests
Ability tests measure critical thinking, logical reasoning, and verbal and numerical problem-solving skills. They are one of the strongest predictors of job performance across a wide range of roles and levels, and can identify employees who have the potential for more complex positions or leadership responsibilities, even where their current role has not given them the opportunity to demonstrate this.
5. Soft Skills Evaluation
Technical ability alone does not make a future leader. Using structured interview techniques such as Behavioural Event Interviews, you can assess communication, teamwork, adaptability, and other interpersonal skills in a consistent and comparable way. These methods uncover employees who are strong in the areas most essential for leadership and collaborative performance, often people who would not have surfaced through traditional performance management alone.
6. Performance Reviews and Development Plans
Regular performance reviews combined with personalised development plans provide a continuous thread of insight over time, tracking progress and identifying emerging talent as it develops. The key is ensuring that these conversations go beyond backward-looking assessment of what has been delivered, and focus explicitly on future potential, development goals, and the support needed to get there.
Putting It All Together: Building a Talent Identification Strategy
The most effective organisations do not rely on a single assessment or a single data point. They use a combination of tools, matched to the level of the role and the purpose of the assessment, to build a picture of each individual that is objective, rounded, and development-focused.
When the benefits of 360 degree feedback are combined with personality profiling, cognitive testing, and structured development planning, organisations gain something genuinely powerful: a talent strategy grounded in evidence, not assumption. That is how hidden talent gets found, developed, and retained, rather than left undiscovered until it leaves for a competitor who saw it first.
The parallel with elite sport is instructive. Haaland was not simply born scoring goals. He was identified, supported, coached, and placed in environments where his specific strengths could flourish. The same approach, applied with the right tools, works just as powerfully in any organisation.
Talk to GFB About Your Talent Strategy
If you would like to know more about any of the tools, or to get guidance on building a talent identification and development strategy for your organisation, get in touch with the GFB team. You can call us on 0333 038 6354, email info@gfbgroup.com, or explore our 360 degree feedback tools to find the right starting point for your business.
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