‘Skills-based hiring’ is a term that has received a lot of publicity in the last year or so. It’s part of a broader concept of ‘skills-based organisations’, which requires managers, recruiters and organisations to re-imagine how they obtain, develop, and use their workforce. We’ve put together some FAQs to explain:
Skills-based hiring focuses on candidates’ competencies and practical skills rather than their qualifications or job titles. This approach helps organisations tap into a wider pool of potential talent, including those candidates with the right skills (or the potential to develop them) but without the formal qualifications.
In regulated or high-stakes professions, qualifications are crucial. They ensure individuals have the necessary knowledge and have reached a certain standard of practice to be eligible for a role. If qualifications are essential, they should remain part of the hiring criteria. However, you could adapt other aspects of the selection process. For example, you could initially sift candidates based on qualifications before focusing on assessing competencies or skills during shortlisting and interview processes. This way, you meet the essential criteria and don’t exclude candidates who may not have had the same opportunities to gain additional, non-essential qualifications or skills.
A confusing part of this conversation is there is no commonly agreed definition of a skill! According to Deloitte (The Skills-based Organisation: A new operating model. Deloitte Insights, 2022.), skills can include:
Defining the skills that are important for a role can be challenging, especially if the role or organisation is evolving. It’s useful to distinguish between ‘hard’ skills (those that might have a limited shelf-life or need updating over time) and softer skills (those that evolve or stay relevant regardless of time). Emphasising the latter, and if candidates have the potential to develop new skills (they might show adaptability, willingness to learn), can be beneficial if you’re working with candidate pools that are younger, trying to source candidates from more diverse backgrounds, or if you are experiencing challenges with skill shortages.
There is general agreement that a huge variety of skills exist. Individuals combine skills with knowledge and their own values when deciding how to behave; these behaviours are then combined with specific skills, knowledge, motivations and values, and organised into higher-order competencies. So, if you’re using competencies to inform how you assess candidates, this is aligned with a skills-based hiring approach.
The goal of any selection process is to successfully predict which candidates will go on to perform well in the role. If there is a clear link between a skill (or behaviour or competency) and later job performance, then that skill should inform how you test candidates at the recruitment stage.
Work Psychology Group have been working with our clients to embed skills-focused hiring for many years now. Look at our case studies to see how we’ve adapted our approach for different sectors, or reach out to us to discuss your own opportunities in this area.
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