The landscape of talent acquisition is undergoing a seismic shift. According to recent data, 40% of employers on LinkedIn are now using a skills-first approach to fill open roles—up 20% year-over-year. However, while the chatter around the value of skills-based hiring continues to rise, recent research from the Burning Glass Institute shows that for roles where degree requirements were dropped, companies saw just a 3.5% increase in hires without a bachelor’s degree. In short, companies aren’t actually hiring more people based on their skills versus their degrees.

There are two reasons why this is happening: poor skills-based hiring implementation and limited training for recruiters and hiring managers on how to assess for skills. Taking that one step further, companies also haven’t planned for how skills-based hires attain the training and education they will need after initial hire to move up within the organization. This leaves hiring managers and recruiters concerned that entry-level hires won’t be able to progress and remain within the organization.

These trends lead hiring managers and recruiters to continue to gravitate toward degrees as a subconscious indicator of skills and future internal success. Unless the actual skills needed to do the job have been identified and a way to evaluate them is included in the hiring process, this will remain a barrier.

For an organization to address this, recruiters and hiring managers must first understand how to confidently evaluate and hire someone based on skills. This involves creating a skills taxonomy, designing skills assessments and implementing skill mapping. Once recruiters and hiring managers can assess skills and candidates have an avenue to demonstrate skills, the hiring process will be able to achieve its promise of matching talented candidates with open roles. After the hire, implementing workforce education programs will enable that individual to meet the ever-increasing demand for new skills and even attain that degree that is likely to remain a prerequisite for management positions.

To understand these issues with clarity, let’s begin by examining the value of skills-based hiring and workforce education. Then conclude with how to implement a strategy that sets skills-based hiring up to succeed in both speeding time-to-hire and building a robust internal talent pipeline.

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