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The skills gap is one of the biggest challenges that several businesses are battling in today’s competitive market. The inability to find skilled employees who come with the necessary knowledge and expertise required for their particular industry is becoming a critical issue. This not only hinders daily operations but also jeopardises growth across diverse industries and business verticals.
According to Eurostat, over 75% of EU companies already find hiring professionals with the required skills to fill open positions difficult. From IT and sales to cybersecurity and engineering, the skill gap has become a big problem. However, a skills-based hiring approach can offer the ideal solution to handle this issue.
What is Skills-Based Hiring?
Skills-based hiring assesses prospective candidates on their skills rather than their education and experience. With a skills-first approach, employers are increasingly deemphasizing degrees, years of experience, and connections while focusing on skills when making hiring decisions.
Skills-based hiring helps create a more diverse talent pipeline and a more equitable and efficient labour market, which in turn creates better opportunities for all.
To implement skills-based hiring successfully, businesses can take some effective steps like redefining job descriptions to move away from traditional biases and focus on specific skills. Developing non-biased and robust methods for skill assessment and supporting employees’ career development by prioritizing skills for internal opportunities and promotions are equally important.
3 Ways Skills-Based Hiring Can Future-Proof Businesses
1. Increased Candidate Competency
Skills-based hiring helps the recruitment or talent acquisition team refocus their efforts on candidate competency. Since the emphasis is on onboarding candidates having the right skills for the job, chances of mis-hires are reduced.
Imagine what happens when you end up hiring a sub-par candidate based on experience or educational criteria alone! When the new hire, who’s unsuitable for the role, leaves soon after the appointment, it will disrupt the team’s productivity and morale. It would also mean resuming the hiring process all over again, which will be an additional cost to your business.
Traditional hiring methods tend to favour candidates who might tick all the boxes, but could be a misfit for the position compared to a different candidate who lacks a specific degree but has the requisite skills the role needs. With a skills-based hiring process, you can recruit candidates capable of making an instantaneous impact upon being hired without excessive ramp-up time, which will help optimize your recruitment outcomes.
2. An Extensive Talent Pool with Improved Diversity Hiring
Skills-based hiring focuses on skills and competencies rather than on credits, time, degrees, and other aspects that conventionally aggravate inequalities. Without creating an unnecessary barrier to recruitment, say a four-year degree, and being open to hiring candidates, who might have obtained their trade through alternative education methods, for instance, the skills-based approach helps businesses overcome unconscious bias and improve diversity hiring.
Since skills-based hiring focuses on finding candidates based on their specific competencies, it broadens the talent pool. By creating a diverse and expanded talent pool, businesses can tap into a wealth of qualified candidates with various hard and soft skills that would have been overlooked through traditional hiring practices.
An extensive talent pool with a diversity of skills fosters adaptability and innovation within the workforce. It also facilitates the creation of a resilient and dynamic team that’s better equipped to meet the challenges of a fast-evolving business landscape.
3. Better Employee Engagement and Retention
When employees love doing what they are good at, are appreciated by their employers, and are given adequate growth opportunities to develop their capabilities, they are better engaged in their work and tend to stay with their employers for long.
Since skills-based hiring ensures an improved alignment between job requirements and skills compared to traditional hiring, hired candidates start off highly motivated and can get almost immediate job satisfaction as the roles they take up resonate with the skills they possess.
Thus, skills-based hiring improves employee satisfaction and retention and facilitates the creation of a proficient workforce that’s likely to perform better on the job (due to roles that coincide with their skills and strengths) and is invested in the business’s objectives. This directly impacts their long-term success and growth.
Final Words
By embracing skills-based hiring, businesses can enjoy increased candidate competency, create a broader talent pool that’s more dynamic and diverse, and enjoy better employee engagement and retention. This way, they can build an inclusive workplace, drive innovation, and better align their business needs with the talent they acquire. If you aren’t using skills-based hiring, start employing it today to reap the benefits. If you need help implementing this competency-based approach and seek a headhunter to meet your hiring needs, get in touch with us at InHunt World right away!
This article was written by InHunt World