Skills Based Hiring and it's Benefits! (11 months ago) đWhat is skills-based hiring?
Skills-based hiring is a revolutionary new approach to recruitment in which candidates are evaluated based on their personality, cognitive abilities, role-specific skills, and soft skills rather than their experience or education.
In this methodology employers screen potential hires using tools such as skills assessments, structured interviews, and work samples. As a result, they are able to make accurate, objective, and bias-free hiring decisions based on the full range of talent job applicants bring to the table.
đWhy is skills-based hiring on the rise?
According to data from our State of Skills-Based Hiring report, 76% of employers are now using skills-based hiring practices.
Of these companies, 56% said that they made the decision to adopt this approach at some point over the past two years. A timeframe which happens to coincide with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting move to remote and hybrid workplaces.
As a number of roles that were previously considered essential in-office positions were reclassified as remote jobs, many organization reassessed their hiring strategies and expanded their recruitment to the global market where a wealth of previously untapped talent was available.
Unfortunately, screening international candidates based on their resumes was easier said than done.
While locally-based applicants were often judged based on the strength of their degree, the university they'd attended, and the reputation of organizations they'd worked at, hiring managers often lacked the context to judge remote applicants the same way. In other words, they were unable to make inferences about the suitability of a candidate based on resumes.
Skills-based hiring provided the perfect antidote to these challenges. It enabled companies to employ people based on their ability through an approach that could be applied in a standardized way across all countries. So, job applicants from every region would get an equal shot at proving their ability to succeed in the role.
đ5 ways skills-based hiring benefits your business:
Skills-based hiring gives companies access to a wider, more diverse talent pool, and saves time and money during the recruitment process.
In addition, by assessing a personâs skills, rather than their education and experience, a business can attract better quality hires. The result: greater productivity and improved employee morale.
1ď¸âŁReduction in total time-to-hire:
Time-to-hire is the time between a candidate applying to join a company and accepting a job offer. Itâs an important metric for hiring managers because it shows how quickly an organization can move applicants through its recruitment process.
Skills-based hiring facilitates a more efficient and streamlined hiring process. By sending candidates a link to skills-based tests before the interview stage, recruiters can quickly assess a candidateâs skills objectively and view their results in a dashboard.
2ď¸âŁReduction in total cost-to-hire:
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it costs more than $4,000 to fill an open role on average. Costs include internal and external recruiters, as well as advertising on job boards and careers pages, and creating and maintaining brand information about the business to attract candidates.
Investing in the best candidates is obviously worthwhile. But reducing these costs where possible is key to staying competitive as an organization.
Skills-based hiring can reduce the cost-to-hire by eliminating the need to:
â˘Pay external recruiters to sift through candidates
â˘Use resume screening software to filter candidates
â˘Pay department leaders and hiring managers to assess candidates on their skills
Skills-based hiring also lets businesses widen their search, resulting in better hires, which will bring long-term benefits to an organization.
3ď¸âŁReduction in mis-hires:
Mis-hires occur when a business employs an unsuitable candidate for a role, and they end up leaving soon after appointment. This problem companies on average 30% of the employeeâs annual compensation.
Beyond the costs of employee compensation and resuming the hiring process, a mis-hire can lead to disruption to team morale and productivity.
While there are unavoidable situations when employees leave their jobs early due to unexpected changes in circumstance, most mis-hires can be avoided by a well-trained HR team using the right recruitment tools.
Skills-based hiring makes the warning signs of a bad hire clear early on by replicating the experience of working in the role. With skills-based hiring software, employers can choose from a range of tests. You can check that candidatesâ technical skills match your requirements. And you can test for culture add, which assesses how a candidateâs values and behaviors align with your organization.
4ď¸âŁImproved team morale:
The wrong hire can cause disruption to teams. Highly skilled staff want to work with other highly skilled staff. And it can be demoralizing if new team members join who require a lot of training or donât do their share of the work.
Traditionally, organizations looked for people who would âfit inâ with other team members and preserve a sense of comfort and familiarity. But this approach excludes many skilled candidates with a different background from existing staff. While it encourages hiring managers to think about what a person is lacking, and not what they can bring to the table.
5ď¸âŁHigher employee retention:
You can measure employee retention by calculating the number of staff who stay in your company for a length of time (like a year) and show it as a percentage of total workforce.
You can use this metric to understand whether your business is selecting people who settle in well to their new roles and teams. Or if thereâs a problem in the recruitment process that results in new hires leaving after a few weeks or months.
As well as paying the high cost of recruiting new staff, companies with low rates of employee retention need to understand the root causes of employee churn â like an unmotivating working environment â and try to fix them.