As the hiring landscape has evolved in recent years, so have HR and talent acquisition professionals' attitudes about who makes the best candidate. Recruitment strategies are shifting away from a focus on traditional qualifications, like education and years of professional experience, in favor of identifying certain job-specific skills.

Historically, skills have been categorized as hard or soft. Hard skills, like graphic design, grant writing or Google Analytics, are technical competencies. Soft skills, on the other hand, are closer to personality traits, like being a good listener or having a strong work ethic.

But what happens when business needs change and different skills become mission-critical? How can skills-first and skills-based hiring strategies account for longer-term workforce planning? Enter durable skills.

The Value Of Putting Durable Skills First

Previously categorized as soft, durable skills include communication, collaboration, the ability to learn quickly on the job and creative problem-solving, as well as people-centric skills like time management and goal-setting. Because these capabilities can help a workforce adapt, their value lasts even as factors like AI adoption and decentralization come into play. Meanwhile, certain hard skills can become outdated—or perishable—because of technological advancement or other major disruptions. For example, workers who spent years mastering programming languages are now having to upskill or reskill in the face of GenAI.

While both durable and perishable skills are key, the business imperative for durable skills is growing. According to Deloitte, matching skills, human capabilities and motivations to a portfolio of projects and assignments supports workforce and organizational agility. Cultivating this level of talent mobility and flexibility enables organizations to pivot in line with business objectives, ensuring that the skills needed to succeed remain at the forefront. But the challenge, particularly at the enterprise level, is building processes that identify durable skills in job applicants so hiring managers can recruit talent with enough fluidity to outlast change.

The Durable Approach To Recruiting

The following strategies can help you elevate durable skills as part of your recruiting efforts.

Don't focus on risk avoidance.

The allure of hard skills comes down to risk. Need someone with experience in SQL? Knowing you can check a box on that particular skill helps de-risk hiring. But that approach doesn’t tell you anything else about that candidate. Maybe SQL is all they can do. So what happens when it's no longer the most in-demand skill?

We need to start seeing new hires as investments in our organizations, not as potential liabilities we'll need to address. To achieve this mindset, we must re-evaluate how we interact with hiring managers and what the intake for new jobs entails. For example, is there more to succeeding in a position than having a specific degree and three to five years of experience at a similar company in a similar industry? Most likely. So it’s time we think outside the checkbox.

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