The way we hire is changing. A recent survey by HireVue shows a significant shift towards skills-based hiring, with 70% of hiring managers prioritising skills assessments over more traditional recruitment methods, such as CVs and cover letters.
This trend is driven by the need for a more diverse and inclusive workforce that doesn’t limit candidates on their educational credentials, including degree qualifications.
While this is a positive change, more can still be done. Employers must move beyond what looks to be a ‘black-and-white approach’ to skills-based hiring and instead should assess candidates’ potential for growing the relevant human skills required for the job.
Soft skills, introduced in the 1970s, initially focused on interpersonal abilities like communication, teamwork, and empathy. As the workplace has evolved, so has the demand for a broader set of competencies. With the rise of generative AI, automation, and hybrid work models, human skills – a blend of interpersonal, cognitive and emotional abilities with technological proficiency – have emerged.
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Today, human skills are becoming essential. These skills go beyond traditional soft skills, encompassing areas such as well-being, ethics, and the ability to adapt to technological advances. As they evolve over time, driven by continuous learning and development, its crucial for employers to invest in ongoing training to support employees in enhancing their abilities throughout their careers.
Why Skills-Based Hiring?
Skills-based hiring has several benefits – most notably, focusing on individuals’ skillsets opens doors for talented individuals who may not have followed traditional educational pathways. By shifting the focus to an individual’s skills, including human skills employers can level the playing field and tap into a wider pool of qualified candidates.
Additionally, standing out requires more than just a degree in marketing, economics, or nursing and it doesn’t guarantee the necessary knowledge or skills for a specific role. It is important to break down and consider the different human skills required for a role because human skills are the fundamental building blocks to carrying out a task successfully. For example, to ensure an action is executed and meets the requirements of the brief, you must be a great communicator so there is no misunderstanding when completing a task. Or strong levels of emotional intelligence are crucial in any role to mitigate any risks of conflict in group settings and create harmony throughout a team. It’s no surprise that skills-based hiring has seen such interest from companies.
A New Approach?
One of the most common methods of introducing skills-based hiring is to remove degree requirements. Almost half (45%) of employers surveyed by Hays in its UK 2024 Salary and Recruiting Trends Report no longer consider a degree essential for job applicants. Yet, organisations who are using this approach need to be cautious about a ‘lift and shift’ approach, which could result in a misalignment of their newer skills-based hiring strategy to the broader recruitment process.
In fact, according to a 2024 study by The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School companies that introduced skills-based hiring only increased the share of people without a degree in their workforce by an average of 3.5%. While, a large proportion of companies (45%) only made changes in the body of the job advert, rather than applying skills-based hiring to the whole recruitment process.
To truly embrace skills-based hiring, companies should adopt a potential-based hiring approach. This starts by creating a skills taxonomy; an inventory of the different human skills required to run a successful business and achieve the goals of a company. These skills can then be identified for each role and listed out as clear requirements within the recruitment process. During the interview process, HR leaders should ask how candidates have demonstrated skills from previous jobs, work experience and interests, using scenario-based questions to test their understanding.
The Role of Ongoing Training and Development
While skills-based hiring can have a big impact on candidate quality and diversity, too often it is forgotten about after candidates join. To unlock the full value of a skills-based approach, employers should look to embed it throughout their employees’ careers journey. Effective, skills-led learning and development is the cornerstone of many successful business today. Indeed, 92% of employees agreed that training programmes have a positive effect on their engagement, whilst 68% of employees viewed training and development as the most important company policy.
With this in mind – employers should change their thinking of human skills as a tick-box exercise to how they envision the employee continuously developing. This not only allows employees to continuously refine their skills and stay up to date with latest industry trends and advancements in their sector, but also understand how best to utilise human skills to make the most out of a situation.
How can this be achieved?
A good starting point is using online self-based assessments. These assessments, mapped to specific development areas related to L&D challenges, allow employees to pinpoint skills needed for improvement. Then they can access courses that relate to the wider coherent development areas.
Self-based assessments could also be used as the basis for performance reviews, to help evaluate human skills progress, and identify where next steps and learning goals should be focused upon. Employers should refer to the organisation’s skills taxonomy when organising learning and development opportunities and consistently giving employees dedicated time to develop their human skills through tailored learning programmes.
In addition, to prioritising a positive employee experience, effective leadership is essential for organisational success. Leaders who are committed to continuous learning can serve as role models for their teams, helping to inspire a company culture of continuous learning and development. By leaders showing real enthusiasm and energy to learn and keep on developing their human skills, this encourages team members to feel the same way and block out dedicated time for skills-based learning. Organisations should never forget the role of mentorship – where knowledge and experience are shared across all job levels, but particularly leadership, this helps build a healthy workplace culture of learning.
By embracing skills-based hiring to potential-based hiring and investing in ongoing training, companies can build a future-proof workforce with the human skills needed to succeed in today’s dynamic workplace. Human skills evolve over time and learning should be at a constant – training has an end – but development should never stop.
Mark Thompson is Country Lead at GoodHabitz.
