Written by Laura-Kate Ruttle, Principal Consultant
Right now, it seems that everyone is talking about implementing skills-based hiring initiatives and the benefits of doing so, and these conversations often come with warnings that your organization will be left behind if you don’t switch up your hiring process quickly. But fewer people are talking about what it actually takes to implement skills-based hiring practices.
Speaking with clients, it’s clear that because there’s not much practical advice readily available, the idea of adopting a skills-based hiring approach can feel disruptive, resource-heavy, time-consuming, and expensive. And that’s putting a lot of pressure on talent acquisition professionals to ‘get it right.’
At first glance, skills-based hiring initiatives may feel like an abstract concept, but it doesn’t have to be an unnecessarily complex overhaul that undoes the great work you and your teams have already done. That said, this shift might not be needed for every organization. If you’re unsure whether it’s the right move, it’s important to take some time to really evaluate whether it makes sense for your business. If you do feel that this is the right step for your organization, we’ve developed a step-by-step skills-based hiring guide that covers the key components and utilizes the work you’ve already done in the hiring space.
Skills-based hiring guide: 6 steps to follow
1. Define: Identify the skills that matter
This is a critical first step of skills-based hiring initiatives where the focus is distinguishing between skills vs competencies and getting a clear picture of what skills mean for you and your organization. Why is that so important? Because let’s be honest, there is no consistent definition across the industry. While that can be tricky, it does mean that there’s flexibility and no right or wrong answer. This gives you the opportunity to define skills in a way that makes the most sense for your organizational context, your culture, and your roles. For example, how specific do you want a skill to be, and how many key skills do you want a role to have?
There are different ways to approach this stage, varying widely depending on your starting point. Do you already have a robust, fully embedded competency framework? Have you completed a recent, well-rounded job analysis highlighting the specific personal attributes that differentiate performance? Or are you just beginning to explore measuring attributes outside of a resume, going beyond what jobs and qualifications someone has done previously?
Your answers to these questions will help determine whether to create something new by building on what you already have or to bring in an established skills framework and taxonomy that resonates with your needs.
2. Align: Connect skills with roles and your organizational strategy
Now that you’ve developed a comprehensive framework of the skills that matter, it’s time to align your skills-based hiring initiatives with your wider organizational strategy and specific roles, including both current and future jobs that might be needed.
Think about whether there are core, organization-wide skills that every employee needs for success – regardless of role – as well as recognizing those that are more specific to function, role, or level. Importantly, be sure to use a future-focused lens that not only considers the skills that are needed today, but also what will be essential in six,12, or 24 months from now. Using techniques like visionary interviews with strategic leaders and reviewing organizational growth plans can be useful to consider these future requirements.
At this point, understanding how different skills tie to performance metrics, business outcomes, and goals also becomes important. This understanding helps you focus on the areas that will truly drive impact and allow your strategy to become a catalyst for organizational success, not just a process for filling roles.
3. Analyze: Uncover workforce strengths and gaps
Before you can act and implement change with skills-based hiring practices, it’s important to know where you stand right now. Therefore, this stage focuses on creating a solid understanding of your current internal skills landscape. Ask questions such as:
- What skills are already prevalent across your workforce?
- Perhaps even more importantly, where are the skills gaps?
- Of these gaps, which are most likely to hold the business back from achieving strategic goals?
A detailed workforce talent audit is valuable here, using a multi-method approach which may include 360 ratings and skills assessment tools to build a comprehensive view. This approach to implementing skills-based hiring initiatives reveals information and data that provides answers to these important questions, informing decisions and allowing you to prioritize next steps in a meaningful way. This stage helps to lay the groundwork for building a high performing workforce that is based on evidence rather than assumptions.
4. Assess: Evaluate skills with confidence
Now that you’ve mapped out the skills gaps within your workforce, it’s time to assess new candidates for the skills and roles that you need. Make sure to use psychometric assessments with a proven track record that have readily available evidence on their validity, fairness, and reliability.
You want to assess for both job-specific and transferable skills during the assessment process. Effective skills-based hiring practices go beyond what candidates can do today and take a more holistic approach by also evaluating their skills foundations. These are personal characteristics like an individual’s personality, cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, motivation, and values. These tend to remain more stable than skills themselves – especially amid substantial technological change – and they offer valuable insight into a person’s skills potential. Skills potential is defined by how likely a person is to master specific skills and acquire new skills over time. Typically, online assessments will focus on skills potential whereas it’s more suitable to measure skills proficiency during in-person stages.
5. Mobilize: Leverage skills insights to take action
With a clear picture of your current workforce’s skillset and an understanding of the ideal future state, this step of the skills-based hiring guide is designed to mobilize your current talent. This includes making the most of the skillsets of the colleagues and employees you already have.
Look at whether the expected skills are actually present in each team. If they’re not, are there people in other areas who could fill those gaps? Utilizing the gathered insights allows you to redeploy talent more effectively, whether that’s moving people between teams or assigning them to new projects. Of course, when making these decisions, it’s important to remember that skills alone don’t provide the full picture. Don’t forget to consider an individual’s motivation, interest, and team fit, too!
You can also use these insights to create and offer targeted employee development solutions. By focusing your investment on the areas with the most prevalent or impactful gaps, you can build cost-effective, collective growth journeys for your incumbents.
6. Evolve: Use data to drive continuous improvement
Finally, an important element not to forget: skills-based hiring is an ongoing cycle. Skills aren’t static – they develop over time and so do the requirements of your roles and workforce. As technology advances and organizational priorities shift, your skills taxonomy needs to keep up to ensure it reflects what is needed to enable success into the future.
For this reason, it’s important to regularly revisit your skills-based hiring practices to review what you’re measuring, how, and why. Are the skills you’re focusing on still driving performance? Are there new capabilities that are becoming more important? Performance data and talent metrics can help answer these questions if you’re capturing and using them well.
By treating skills-based hiring practices as a continuous, cyclical process, you can ensure your hiring strategy remains relevant, resilient, and ready for the evolutions that are bound to continue coming our way.
Implementing skills-based hiring initiatives that last
If you’re still trying to figure out how to implement skills-based hiring, you are not alone. By properly defining the basics, connecting those to the wider organization to uncover any potential gaps, and continually revisiting and optimizing this process, you can get the most out of your skills-based hiring practices. Use these six steps as a road map to determine not only if it’s the right approach for your organization, but to make it effective for years to come.
About the author:
Laura-Kate Ruttle, MSc, is a Principal Consultant at Talogy who specializes in designing and delivering digitally-driven solutions, particularly in the high-volume and early careers space. She has experience partnering closely with clients across industries to understand their unique challenges and goals, designing fair and engaging assessments that deliver meaningful results. A strong believer in the power of data, she is passionate about using insights to tell compelling stories and guide evidence-based decisions.
