Skills-Based Hiring and What it Means to Recruiters

Jun 8th, 2023 | Hire Wire

As hiring remains challenging and retention becomes ever more important, organizations are looking to ways to improve in both areas. One of the changes taking place in the workplace is skills-based hiring. Skills-based hiring is not a new idea or practice, however it has seen new life in recent years as companies try to combat tight employment markets, improve their workforce, and reduce costs associated with hires, as it relates to the search itself and costs of a “mis-hire or bad-hire”. The two biggest areas impacted by skills-based hiring are lightening the requirement for a traditional 4-year degree and forgoing the minimum years of experience for a given role. Much like when building a team, it is not just about a player having been in a position before, but more about them having the skills required to fit the system they will be playing in.

What exactly is skills-based hiring then and how does it change how recruiting takes place? In short, skills-based hiring is switching the focus from one’s education and job history, to their actual knowledge, abilities, and experience in a given field. Again, this is not a new concept as organizations have been employing this to some degree during their hiring/interviewing process, but to a far lesser degree. For the recruiters, this means going beyond resumes and LinkedIn profiles, digging into potential candidates’ skills, and even looking into hobbies and interest, to see if there are untapped skills unrelated to resume.

Benefits of Skills-Bases Hiring

• Decreases hiring time by increasing the potential talent pool, as it eliminates barriers such as 4-year degrees and minimum years of experience.
• Decreases costs associated with hiring, by not only decreasing hiring time, but also decreasing the likelihood of a “mis-hire or bad-hire”, by ensuring that a candidate’s skills are more closely aligned with the job requirements.
• Increases employee retention by putting them in positions with work that they find more rewarding, fulfilling, and in-line with their skills and interests.
• Creates a more diverse workforce, reducing the chances of “groupthink” and presenting opportunities for creative solutions.

Implementing Skills-Based Recruiting

• Recruiters must dig deeper with hiring managers when initially reviewing the job descriptions and requirements, ensuring they have a grasp of the day-to-day tasks and skills required.
• Recruiters must also work to get hiring managers on board with the idea of overlooking a lack of degree or of not having the specific number of years of experience.
• Recruiters will need to go beyond the basic details of a resume or LinkedIn profile to get more information on a candidate’s day to day tasks, special projects, and hobbies and interests.
• The hiring process may require skill-based testing, to allow potential candidates to demonstrate skills not clear in their day-to-day job functions.

Skills-based hiring is another step towards organizations treating candidates and employees more like unique individuals and not just cogs in a wheel. The more organizations embrace skills-based hiring, the better off all parties will be, organizations will have reduced turnover and increased productivity and employees will perform more rewarding work and enjoy their work more.