In today’s tight job market, businesses increasingly find value in looking beyond the obvious candidates. Embracing non-traditional routes and prioritising skillsets over institutions and formal qualifications has multiple benefits, including increasing diversity and providing a more reliable approach to evaluating applicants than traditional methods.
Skills-based hiring offers an evidence-based approach to recruitment. Many organisations start by removing unnecessary degree requirements from job advertisements, but there’s so much more to a skills-based approach. Hiring on skills incorporates targeted questions and testing to reveal competency in specific skills rather than relying on institutions, background experience and certifications as signals of talent. In doing so, skills-based hiring recognises the value of diverse and non-traditional learning paths, self-taught skills, and entrepreneurial experience and opens up new talent pools for sought-after skillsets.
Research shows that a skills-based approach can increase diversity and improve retention. However, 2 in 5 HR leaders acknowledge they are struggling to adopt a skills-based approach to hiring and don’t have a complete picture of the skills of their current workforce.
Matt Sigelman, President of Burning Glass Institute
It’s important to remember that while degrees may not be required in the job description, this is only the first stage of the hiring process - and there is still much in the hands of the hiring manager, who in turn is often under pressure to fill an immediate resource need cost-efficiently. There are also considerations in terms of software, testing and alignment on competency levels that further complicate a full skills-based approach.
For more details, access our complimentary guide to Skills-Based Hiring and the Internal Talent Market, where we dive into the benefits, challenges, and potential future of skills-based employment.