Traditional hiring has long fixated on academic degrees and credentials as proxies for skills and potential. But this limits the talent pool and diversity of perspectives. Forward-thinking companies are shifting to skills-based hiring in order to build a more agile, diverse, and adaptive workforce that aligns closely with the evolving needs of the modern workplace.
Many forward-thinking companies are looking beyond specific degrees, and seek to identify the hard and soft skills needed for success in a role. When it comes to recruitment they will evaluate candidates based on their ability to demonstrate such skills and abilities.
This opens doors to qualified candidates from non-traditional backgrounds who have the skills but lack the pedigree. This will ultimately be of tremendous benefit to the company as diversity of thought spurs innovation.
Companies are much more aware of valuing skills like communication, analytics, teamwork and problem-solving that enable success across roles.
A degree guarantees neither competency nor ambition. Instead it is important for hiring managers and recruiters to assess learnability and personality indicators of future success like intellectual curiosity.
Skills-based hiring removes bias associated with schools, age, ethnicity and other traditional indicators that can unconsciously influence decisions and also provides a career route for individuals who have gained expertise through hands-on experience, certifications, or alternative education paths.
By shifting emphasis to skills assessment organizations gain access to untapped talent pools hungry to prove themselves.
Morgan McKinley recently listed the skills that hiring managers should be looking for to shape a workforce that is equipped to thrive in the future.
Top 15 skills of the future
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Complex problem-solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality and initiative
- Leadership and social influence
- Technology use, monitoring and control
- Technology design and programming
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
- Emotional intelligence
- Troubleshooting and user experience
- Service orientation
- Systems analysis and evaluation
- Persuasion and negotiation
Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a deep dive into the list and explore how these uniquely human skills will be so pivotal for the future workforce and how you can develop them to be at the top of your game and stand out from the crowd and get recruited!
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