The concept behind skills-based hiring is straightforward: hiring based on a candidate’s practical skills and performance, rather than their education and other formal qualifications.
Not to disregard those qualifications, of course. But skills-based hiring can be more efficient than more traditional methods; namely, those referred to as “degree based” where candidates are automatically eliminated from contention for a role because they lack the ideal degree or certification associated with it.
Skills-based hiring doesn’t apply in every case. But it’s proving to be the perfect solution for a growing number of employers in today’s competitive talent market.
The Benefits of Skills-Based Hiring
Skills-based hiring helps your company and recruitment team:
- Minimize bias: Any bias based on formal qualifications or work experience is eliminated when you take a skills-based approach to hiring.
- Deepen your talent pool: By hiring for skills, you won’t automatically eliminate candidates who fail to meet degree requirements but otherwise are perfect for a role based on their skill set.
- Build a more diverse workforce: Persons from marginalized groups are often less likely to have formal qualifications, so by eliminating formal credential requirements from your hiring process, you can open up opportunities to more minority applicants and improve DEI at your company.
- Cut costs: Skills-based hiring can help you reduce time to hire, as well as costs associated with onboarding and training in many cases.
How to Adopt Skills-Based Hiring
To implement skills-based hiring at your firm, start by conducting a skills gap analysis to assess exactly where you need talent improvement. From there, start by applying it to a limited number of roles. Then, start incorporating a skills-based philosophy into your job descriptions, screening tools, and interview process. From there, you can transition skills-based hiring on a larger scale.
A skills gap analysis enables you to compare the skills needed for a role with the skills that your workforce actually has. Steps include clearly defining department and/or company KPIs, asking team leaders to provide insight on what’s holding them back from achieving their goals, and then identifying the skills and capabilities that would make the biggest difference.
Choose a handful of roles to begin with. Try skills-based hiring for a portion of your open positions at first. You may want to start with jobs that have high turnover rates, lengthy times to hire, or emerging skills – for which formal education may not yet be updated or even exist at all.
PrideStaff Modesto can help with all the steps involved in skills-based hiring, starting with determining how it could work for your company and its future. In business for more than 30 years in the Central Valley, we’re always striving to innovate for our clients. We can help you accurately identify your staffing needs, as well as the skills you require and the best way to get the work done – whether it’s with temporary, temp-to-hire or direct-hire employees. Contact us today to learn more.
