Why Skills-First Hiring Is Key to Your Talent Planning — and How to Get Started

Skills-first hiring should be an integral part of your organization’s hiring plan in 2023 and beyond. This trend has been accelerating year after year and data supports its importance. But it’s easier said than done, and we still have room to grow before we can fully enact and leverage all of the benefits of skills-first hiring. 

Yes, it’s sometimes hard, time-consuming, and inexact to assess and hire for skills. While this is improving every day, reliable assessments and certifications aren’t always available for every role or every skill. Cost and limited access to these resources may be a factor too. Interview-based assignments and projects are (at best) controversial, time-consuming barriers to hire and (at worst) biased or inaccurate predictors of a strong hire. 

And without the means to accurately measure, quantify, or assess key skills, it may prove difficult for recruiters and sourcers to develop a targeted, qualified, skills-first talent pool. So what can we reliably do today and where should we focus? 

1. Move away from hiring for pedigree

Recognize that hyperfocusing on “pedigree” — former employers, college degrees, years of experience, etc. — is passé and exclusionary and leads to homogeneous teams that aren’t inclusive and will be outperformed by more diverse teams. And focusing on pedigree won’t even guarantee you a strong hire. 

Understand that people grow in their career paths in all sorts of ways and there is no one “right” path. On-the-job learning, community colleges, certification programs, online learning, and hackathons are all valid means of developing necessary skills for various roles. Focusing on skills, past experience, and performance is a much more accurate predictor of success and will lead to stronger, diverse teams that have both the breadth and depth of skills to deliver.

2. Get buy-in from top execs on a skills-first approach

Make sure your leadership team is on board about the importance of developing a skills-first hiring strategy across the organization. A sole recruiter may not be able to influence a hiring manager who is stuck in their ways and entrenched in traditional pedigree-based hiring practices, but knowing that this skills-first mandate comes from above and is endorsed by leadership is more likely to effect real change.

3. Highlight skills throughout the hiring process

Put a focus on skills in your job postings, phone screens, interviews, post-interview debriefs, and candidate scorecards. Make skills a focus that’s front-and-center and interwoven in all hiring conversations.

4. Integrate a skills-first focus for your employee referral program 

Ask your referring employees not only for the referral’s resume or LinkedIn profile, but go a bit deeper and ask where the referral’s strengths lie regarding soft skills, hard skills, and overall experience. You might even ask them to rate them in a quantifiable way. 

Consider those highly recommended referral candidates for positions where their skills and experience are most transferrable and relevant, not just for roles that are the most obvious matches. A strongly recommended candidate is worth a bit of additional consideration since a strong referral hire is a valuable resource that doesn’t come along every day.

5. Develop an internal mobility program with a strong skills-first focus 

Last but not least, look within the organization and identify top performers who have the right aptitude, motivation, and transferable skills to be promoted into more challenging roles. Use the “Internal Candidates” spotlight in LinkedIn Recruiter to source your own organization. Make the investment to train and develop those employees and help them fill any skills gaps. 

Promoting a known employee is worth the investment and, in many cases, is a safer bet than hiring an unknown quantity and rolling the dice that the new person will excel. Added bonus? There’s no better morale booster for an organization than a strong internal mobility culture where performance is recognized and rewarded, the company invests in their employees, and employees have actual career paths, not just another job on their profile.

Final thoughts 

Focusing on skills, relevant experience, and past performance rather than automatically defaulting to less reliable criteria like former employers, college degrees, and years of experience will result in better hires. 

Taking just a few key steps today will give your skills-first hiring teams a strategic advantage over competitors still stuck in their ways — and will ultimately position your organization for greater future success.