A Shift Towards Skills-Based Hiring

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The evolving workforce dilemma to occupy hard-to-fill roles and unemployment due to COVID-19 raised a skills-focused approach to hire as a solution.

In this tight hiring market, finding talent is now coupled with reliance on skills — especially those that are verifiable. Today, the pandemic has further accelerated the trend of skills-based hiring. 

For years, hiring has traditionally been heavily focused on higher education requirements and past experiences. These 2 factors convince hirers that applicants who possess them are a good match for a job, while skills are less of a priority for one to be considered for the role.  

According to a 2019 survey by Linkedin, more than 50% of professionals feel their skills were overlooked and 24% struggle to get a call back for interviews despite having the required skills. This traditional hiring practice has caused employers to forsake valuable skills for qualifications.

Hiring based on education requirements only widens the opportunity gap for upwards career mobility and employers miss out on job seekers who have the expertise they may need. Furthermore, the pandemic is proving that skills are growing important in entering and succeeding in this new economy. To recover from the pandemic, it will be crucial for businesses to hire based on skills. With high demand and a lack of workers to fill job roles, the skills gap continues to exist.

A switch to skills-based hiring and assessment allows companies to hire from a diverse workforce and through training opportunities, be able to adapt easily and narrow the opportunity gap. According to the Linkedin survey, 77% of hirers are focusing efforts on hiring based on skills and competencies, showing a hiring trend in skills rather than education. Due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, skills — technical and transferable — are also becoming more valuable across sectors and durable over time. This makes it attractive for companies who are in dire need to fill roles urgently. 

In recognition of this future of work, Singapore has also initiated a new programme called Skills Path, supported by the National Jobs Council and piloted by Linkedin.

This initiative provides job seekers opportunities based on their proven skills, allowing companies to discover potential employees amid the pandemic and fill new roles. For job seekers, this helps level the playing field of applicants based on skills while hirers would have greater access to a more diverse talent pool.

Removing the unnecessary barrier to job roles that are educational qualifications could help nurture a culture of learning to be ever-ready for changes. However, companies should not completely abandon these qualifications as an indicator during hiring, but rather find a right balance between the two.

Needless to say, having a wide and diverse talent pool gives hirers the possible options to determine the capability and fit of a potential employee in greater depth. The evolving workforce and a shift towards skills-based hiring is the future of hiring, and adapting to this change seems inevitable if companies want to keep their competitive edge.  

In this shift, the keyword is “verifiable”.

When businesses plan to commit to hiring based on skills, it makes sense to ensure that potential employees actually have those skills. However, a switch to skills-based hiring requires implementing a dissection of job roles into essential skills for your hiring process, and tracking and managing the skills and competencies of a shift-based workforce can be taxing and prone to oversight.

This is where digital platforms such as Inside become useful. Digital platforms help companies review, validate and manage team members’ skills, facilitate effective deployment and address any competency gaps.

Inside is your comprehensive solution for reshaping the landscape of workforce management in the hospitality industry. In a world where operations never sleep, Inside not only simplifies scheduling but transforms the entire employee experience through Smart Scheduling, the dynamic Employee Hub, and cutting-edge features for insightful dashboarding and employee sentiment analysis.