Experience is an Achilles’ heel when seeking that next step in your career. I very recently felt the full brunt of that reality when I learned that, following a hiring process that went a month-and-a-half–taking me from a single candidate among many to “the championship final” as one of the final two–the company elected to hire the other candidate due to her experience performing the exact same job at a different company. Even long before that, I was denied an opportunity to move up within my current company due to the non-negotiable requirement of possessing a specific certification, rather than allowing the possibility of earning that certification as a condition within a certain timeframe after being hired.

In my last piece, “Non-Carbon Copies Need Not Apply”: Poor Recruiting Communication Kills Recruiting, I dove into a recent experience with a recruiter who sent me the LinkedIn profile of the person vacating an internal communications position, believing it would be helpful to see the experience that person brought to that job so that I may understand why they are seeking candidates specifically with specific internal communications experience.

Reading through that profile, I discovered the person came into communications by way of a career change, having earned a degree in criminology and criminal justice and working as a college-level teaching assistant in juvenile justice before switching to communications a couple of years later. She most recently completed several certifications through LinkedIn Learning in preparation for her transition from internal communications to marketing, while likely accepting opportunities for others to guide or coach her along the way.

After being told to require very specific experience and reading the story of this person’s jump from educational and criminal justice to communications, I have this one question: is coachability no longer a desired or highly sought-after attribute, especially if candidates have the raw skillset to perform the duties of the job?

In professional sports–let’s go with soccer–a player may have developed into a superstar early on. But when it’s time to change clubs, both the player and the clubs that are interested need to sit down to not only negotiate compensation, but also analyze both parties’ abilities to adapt: to a new system of playing, to a new club, to a new culture, how will the player address all those elements, and what will the club do to help the player in thriving in those elements.

When it comes to entry-level positions today, there is a similar expectation for candidates to bring at least some on-the-job professional experience performing the tasks that the job is to perform, as well as supplemental education to back that up. Today, though, it seems that managers want to be able to coach a new recruit, but won’t, and try to seek out the perfect candidate that checks all the marks on the job description 110%.

They may think they are playing it safe, but they are taking just as much of a risk as they would with the candidate who matches the description only 50%, 70%, 99.9%.

“As all experienced HR professionals know, the fact that a candidate meets job qualifications is no guarantee of success,” said business author Jathan Janove in the article Hire for Coachability. “There’s still a great deal of uncertainty as to how this person will turn out. What will their actual behavior be? What results will they produce? What level of self-accountability do they possess? How open are they to changes in direction or approach? All of these questions are critical to the success and retention of talent.”

At the store level, my current company has a system of coaching its workers on various selling practices that work not merely to turn customers away from a product, but to add it during their shopping. In today’s changing business world, coachability in workers is becoming more and more of a highly sought-after trait. Having the courage, humility and determination to try new things, step out of a comfort zone and drive to follow up and follow through so that change occurs is a trait in the kind of leaders we need today. It is the trait that can make lasting positive change stick.

“My most important challenge as an executive coach,” said New York Times bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith, “is working with clients who have the courage, humility and discipline required to achieve positive, lasting change. If so, our coaching process will work—if not, it won’t!”