So, skills based hiring. is it legit or should it be consigned to the overflowing bin of talent buzzwords like "Quiet Quitting" and "market competitive".
Today, lets jump in the mighty canoe of talent strategy and navigate the choppy waters of business bullshit creek. (shush, it's late)
Here's what you need to know about Skills Based Hiring.....
So, traditional hiring practices can fall short in identifying the best candidates....you are a recruiter, you know that.
Skills-based hiring CAN (can) offer a more effective approach by focusing on a candidate’s abilities rather than their formal qualifications.
What Is Skills-Based Hiring?
Firstly, it's nothing crazy out of left field. Skills-based hiring prioritises a candidate’s abilities over traditional markers, like degrees or job titles.
It assesses applicants based on their ability to perform specific tasks relevant to the role, which should ensure a more accurate match between the job requirements and your candidate's capabilities.
I think of it like this :
You are measuring ability, instead of measuring proxies for ability.
Why is it Getting So Popular So Fast?
Theres no one good answer to this but in my opinion, these are the factors potentiating the growth of skills based hiring as a go to strategy :
1. Degrees no longer align well enough to specific role requirements.
Yes if you are in a professional service, like medicine or law of course degrees are excellent proxies for ability. Also, I don't now how feasible it would be to ask a candidate to perform gallbladder surgery as a mid stage case study.
But look at the tech world. FE Developers, BE Developers, FS Developers, DevOps Engineers, Site Reliability Engineers, Applications Support Engineers, UX designers, Product Managers, Product Marketing Managers, Technical Customer Success Managers etc etc etc.
They all have skills in overlapping spectrums and a specific degree is just not going to be as good a proxy for core ability.
2. Diversity.
Degrees cost a lot of money, and therefore are a barrier for people in different socio-economic groups. Building experience through unpaid internships again, is an option only to those who can afford it.
Building a talent strategy that measures ability first gives a business a way to circumvent these blockers and access a wider talent pool.
3. The SaaS Explosion
Don't know if you've noticed, but there are well over four SaaS companies out there just now, maybe even more!
Basically, its now a lot easier for an organisation to measure ability using one of the ten trillion SaaS tools out there. Obviously you have coding specific tools like Test Gorilla and Codility, but to measure any domain specific knowledge you have white boarding tools, different ways of sharing your work and collaborating.
The level of effort required to create a stage that would accurately measure a candidate's capability in a specific area has reduced by an order of magnitude
Where Is Skills-Based Hiring Currently Being Used?
Large Corporations
Major companies like Boeing, Walmart, and IBM have adopted skills-based hiring to access broader talent pools (McKinsey & Company)
Tech Startups
Smaller organisations and tech startups are also embracing this approach. For instance, the UK-based startup Papercup has implemented skills-based hiring to overcome challenges in finding technical expertise. (Raconteur)
Diversity and Inclusion
A significant driver for adopting skills-based hiring is the enhancement of diversity within organisations. Research indicates that skills-based hiring increases the proportion of women in the talent pool by 24% more than it would for men in jobs where women are under-represented. (Spotted Zebra) < cool company by the way..
How to Implement Skills-Based Hiring
These are high level instructions but its a good start :
- Conduct a Job Analysis: Identify the specific skills required for each role. go as deep as possible until you have identified the core ability rather than some general requirement.
- Develop Assessment Tools: Create tests or simulations to evaluate these skills. You don't have to go out to market. an internal document, or assessment is more valuable as you want the assessment to be as close to the work as possible.
- Train Hiring Managers: Educate them on evaluating candidates based on skills and competencies rather than "I want an Ex-FAANG Ninja" (FYI if your hiring manager says this, they have a bad case of Elon Musk syndrome and you must call an exorcist)
- Revise Job Descriptions: Focus on skills rather than degrees or years of experience.
Potential Downsides and Mitigation Strategies
Some of the challenges I see :
- Assessment Development: Creating effective skill assessments can be very time and resource-intensive at first. Bias in Assessments: Poorly designed tests may introduce new biases.
Here's how you mitigate :
- Invest Time in Quality Assessments: Make sure tests are valid, reliable and as representative of the work as possible. Regularly Review Processes: Continuously evaluate and refine assessment tools to maintain fairness. I recommend reviewing them in your quarterly retro. If you don't have a quarterly retro, start having quarterly retros.
Luke Update
After a lot of travelling I'm back home and on the home stretch with the book. Quick question for you all. Would you prefer the format to be :
1. Theory section then scenario section
OR
2. Theory then relevant scenario all the way through.
Message me on LinkedIn if you have a strong preference
Well... that's issue twenty six! If you have any questions about it, or any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!