Skills-based hiring - is it here to stay?

Education level is slowly dropping down the list of priorities when it comes to hiring in the Smart Industry.

It wasn't too long ago that having a degree was a major factor in whether you were offered a job or not. But we've been noticing as of late that this really doesn't ring true anymore. It's not a complete null point - there are many careers where higher education is still essential in even being considered for a role - but more and more we're noticing hiring managers not mentioning education in their priorities when hiring.

Even job experience alone is not quite enough to secure certain roles in this industry. The shift towards skill-based hiring is very much here, but is it here to stay? That's a whole different kettle of fish, so for now let's just focus on you can use this hiring approach to identify the best candidates for your team.

Initial Screening Process

Before getting people to interview stage, your screening process is a hugely important step to ensure that the right candidates make it through. At this stage, it can be difficult to gain a complete understanding of the skills that candidates possess beyond what they've listed on their CV, so this is the main time in the process where you will have to take previous job experience into consideration. After all, certain job types lend themselves to certain skillsets. As an example, if you're in need of a talented relationship builder, then a CV that has Account Manager experience is a reasonably safe bet to have these skills.

There are other options available to eliminate the slight guesswork that comes from a CV, particularly if you're a company that receives a large number of applications. Online skill tests are widely used across a number of industries, and they're an excellent option to test for general aptitude on a range of numerical and logical skills. Personality assessments are also involved in a number of large organisations at early screening stages, and they are especially good for testing cultural fit with the company and their wider team. These are testing applicants at a fairly basic level, so there is a need for a deeper dive into certain skills further down the interview line.

Be warned, though, roll these out too early in a process and you may lose engagement from some candidates. Use them wisely!

In-person Assessments

So, you've shortlisted your candidates for interview. This is your absolute best opportunity to find out the most about each individual candidate, so making the most of your time with each person is of the utmost cruciality. A simple question and answer interview is great at certain things, but when attempting to evaluate the competency of certain skillsets there needs to be more done. 

One great way to properly assess the skills candidates can offer is to have some sort of test/activity as part of the process. These can be specifically designed to test the aptitude of skills that are necessary for success in the role.

Now, these can be designed in whatever way suits your company - it can come down to the number of applicants you want to bring through to this stage. Small tasks that take no more than half an hour can be added in front of an individual interview, or you can make a whole day of it and invite multiple candidates to an assessment centre. Either way, setting tasks that the candidates have a certain time limit to complete can be an excellent way of bringing out the best of each candidate.

Don't forget about the soft skills

Now, technical skills are fairly easy to identify either through experience or rigorous testing throughout the hiring process. But there are skillsets that are maybe just as important as the technical skills, but are sometimes harder to test for. These are what are known as 'soft skills'. These are skills that are more personal and describe the way people approach their work and their interactions with others in a professional capacity. Naturally, there are fewer methods of uncovering these skills in candidates as it's not an objective fact whether or not someone possesses them. But there are a few approaches you can take…

One of our personal favourites is the way you approach the interviews themselves; treat them like an open conversation. Removing a strict structure from an interview gives candidates the opportunity to speak more freely and be their authentic selves, a great way to measure communication and cultural fit. Scoring rubrics are also a method used to assess how 'skilled' someone is at soft skills. Having a scorecard with criteria that everyone involved in an interview process uses to rank each candidate on how they display certain attributes is a great way to make finding the 'best' candidate more of a factual process.

Overall, there are so many factors that can come into a hiring decision. If skills-based hiring is the approach that will work best for you and your team, then hopefully you've taken a bit of insight from my ramblings to aid in your next search.