Skills-Based Hiring – What it is, How it’s Going, What’s Next?
HR Needs to Do More to Promote Skills-Based Hiring
The federal government and business are both making a push on skills-based hiring, where a hiring manager considers a candidate based on their skills instead of relying on an applicant’s educational background. The hiring technique can be useful in today’s job market, where a skills gap exists, and many organizations have trouble finding qualified workers. This is especially true in technical positions, where the skills needed to succeed positions are constantly evolving and many applicants learn skills not through traditional education, but through coding and other bootcamp programs.
The latest episode of FEDtalk titled “Skills-Based Hiring–What it is, How it’s Going, What’s Next?” focused on skills-based hiring and the barriers that exist more than a year after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance on implementing skills-based hiring for the federal workforce.
Joining host Jason Briefel, non-attorney partner and Director of Government and Public Affairs at Shaw, Bransford, & Roth P.C. were Juanita Soranno, edX Vice President of Global Social Impact & Innovation, and Adam Wray, CEO of AstrumU.
AstrumU uses data to provide individual learning recommendations to help employees gain skills needed to succeed in today’s workforce while edX is an online open course provider offering degree programs, professional certifications, and executive courses.
Workforce Dynamics Evolving Quickly
According to the panelists, skills-based assessments are becoming more important due to the dynamics of today’s workforce, which are constantly evolving largely due to technology, like the current boom in artificial intelligence (AI).
Organizations need workers with the right skills which can be hard to find when relying on traditional education alone. Wray noted that technological changes that used to “take years or decades” can now happen in weeks or months, making it critical to find workers who have the durable skills to adjust to changing dynamics.
As for workers, Soranno said it is important to conduct an “asset mapping of your own skills” noting that college degrees are no longer a “straight line to a specific career.”
360-Degree View
When it comes to hiring, Wray said the model of relying on whether a person graduated from college is outdated and instead hiring managers need to conduct a “360-degree view” of a candidate that pulls from available data sources including work history, online classes, transcripts, records, military records, prior job records, and more.
In addition to helping the company, Wray says moving to a comprehensive data view helps candidates by giving “people a better understanding of their options.”
Bridging the Gap on Skills and Workforce Needs
Both panelists said there needs to be a greater understanding between employers and employees, as many hiring managers have trouble understanding the quality of various skills-based programs and whether a graduate’s skillset aligns with their needs.
“We really need to be thinking about the handoff between what educators do and what employers do,” said Wray.
In addition, Wray and Soranno both noted that companies and organizations want to go to skills-based hiring, but “effectively no one knows how to do it.” Wray blamed a lack of workforce development programs within human resources as one of the barriers.
Wray urged companies to focus on workforce development programs and not rush to cut upskilling and training when facing financial challenges. “HR is (currently) not designed for it at all,” he said. “Workforce training is the place to play.”
Soranno highlighted the importance of partnerships as employers look for talent. She says that companies can start small, pointing to a partnership that edX has with Netflix, which started out as a traditional focus on early talent, and eventually broadened into a more skills-based program that Netflix used to bring workers into its pipeline.
In addition, Wray noted that HR departments need to stop thinking of hiring underprivileged workers as “philanthropy” and start thinking about it as “economic development,” urging companies to look in their own backyard and figure out how to do skills-based hiring in a “quantifiable way” instead of relying on traditional grant-based models.
Wray said that ultimately scaling will be based on return on investment (ROI) for both the company and the employee.
Upskilling in a Fast Moving World
With all the changes, Soranno said that many companies are aware they need programs to bridge the digital skills gap but are unsure of how to do so.
She urged employers to recognize that if an employee can learn one language or one way to fix a problem, it can apply to a number of tasks, even as technology evolves.
“Investing in talent now will still pay off,” she said.
Wray agreed noting that even as technology evolves, if an employer focuses on “durable skills” needed, those skills will be transferable and benefit the organization in the long run.
You can stream the show online anytime via the Federal News Network app and listen to the FEDtalk on all major podcasting platforms. FEDtalk is a live talk show produced by Shaw Bransford & Roth P.C., a federal employment law firm. Bringing you the insider’s perspective from leaders in the federal community since 1993.
