Skills-based hiring

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Are you finding it difficult to compete for skilled technical talent? You’re not alone.

Many companies are facing tough hiring hurdles today. It’s been reported that 9 in 10 leaders think their organizations currently face skills gaps, or expect to in the next 5 years.

But you want to be prepared, regardless of the economic climate. SHRM and Harvard Business Review estimate that there could be 97 million “jobs of the future,” or new roles that will be created as a result of the shift from human to machine labor.

And this is during our lifetime!

Across all industries, hiring for roles such as robotics engineers, energy engineers, and manufacturing was 24% higher in 2022 compared to 2021. So how do you hire for roles that:

a) don’t exist yet, or

b) are growing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, and fill your funnel with top talent for your most in-demand roles—today?

Look to Gen Z.

Learn the benefits of skills-based hiring, and how this approach can help you uncover skilled early talent and update your talent acquisition strategy starting…now.

What is skills-based hiring?

Traditional role-based hiring screens for education, credentials, and experience. Skills-based hiring is an approach that screens for specific competencies. Skills-based hiring goes beyond majors and focuses on the candidates' skills that are applicable to the role (i.e. the candidate may not have a computer science degree, but they possess Python skills).

According to Handshake survey data, skills-based hiring is a good approach for recruiting Gen Z talent. Why? Early talent today is a generation of up-starts with passion, purpose, and potential to lead employers through digital transformation. They’re looking for professional development, opportunities to get promoted, and career pathways. And as the class of 2023 plans to apply to a wider range of industries and sectors, you can reap the rewards.

Among the benefits of skills-based hiring, this approach can help employers:

Diversify your talent pool

Expand your school strategy

Cultivate students with non-traditional majors

Strike equilibrium between supply and demand

What is the skills gap?

The skills gap is the difference between what a job requires and a candidate’s background and experience. Currently, the skills gap is most pronounced with STEM roles. Why?

One reason is that there aren’t enough people entering the workforce with STEM education and training. For instance, while 77% of jobs in the next decade will require tech skills, today only 13% of schools offer computer science courses.

Take cybersecurity as an example, with an estimated shortage of around 3.4M workers. Eric Patterson, Executive Director at SANS Institute, shared with Handshake that there aren’t nearly enough traditional CS graduates to fill the 700,000 vacant cybersecurity jobs in the US today—even if they all went into the cybersecurity field.

Alternate workforce training providers like SANS Institute are building talent pipelines to address talent shortages in technical fields. These training providers help underserved and overlooked students to transcend educational and financial barriers by earning skills and certifications, while helping employers fill skills gaps.

What is an opportunity gap?

Some workforce development experts believe there isn’t a skills gap but an “opportunity gap.” Underrepresented groups face barriers for pursuing a 4-year degree, often lack access to professional networks, and are confronted with conscious and unconscious hiring bias, among many other systemic societal hurdles.

But hiring for skills and competencies can reveal a hidden talent pool and help close the opportunity gap. If you’re only hiring technical talent with associated 4-year degrees, you’re unintentionally narrowing your talent pool.

For example, bootcamps provide hands-on experience for students to grow their technical skills by working on real projects. But many bootcamp learners don’t have a 4-year degree. There’s ample data to support that removing the barrier of a degree can increase equity for underrepresented groups to access job opportunities—while helping you diversify your pool.

What is reskilling?

Reskilling is about training employees for new job functions or newly formed roles. For instance, industries undergoing digital transformation and job automation may need to reskill employees.

There are predictive models like McKinsey’s that suggest massive reskilling will be needed to plug skills shortages so that the tech talent shortage doesn’t get worse. In fact, many name brand companies are already innovating on how to attract and retain talent, starting from entry level—and those that aren’t risk losing out on the competition on critical tech talent.

What is upskilling?

Upskilling is about improving on your existing skills and learning new skills. Why is this important for talent acquisition? 65% of workers say upskilling very important when looking for a job.

The good news is that technology is lowering barriers to learning. For example, have you met students who’ve earned their college degree in humanities, but plan on taking intensive courses—such as in digital marketing or coding, highly in-demand skills—through a bootcamp, or receiving on the job training? As they explore their career paths, when, how, and what someone chooses to learn can evolve.

Lifelong learning is another trend that shows a shift away from attaining higher education in a linear fashion, where a student may start college, leave for a job, get a credential, get another job, and may or may not ever get a 4-year degree.

Next steps

Handshake data has found that taking a skills-based approach results in a 2.3X increase in technical candidates. And now more than ever, non-tech industries have an opportunity to recruit skilled tech talent. Industries like government, construction, and finance/professional services are increasingly posting jobs on Handshake for entry level software and computer engineers.

To grow and diversify your candidate pool, and your business, you need to cast a wider net to compete for skilled technical talent. Recruiting from the same set of schools, relying on the same screening criteria, recycling the same interview process will only net you the same types of candidates—who can’t check all your boxes. Modernizing your hiring practices with a skills-based hiring approach is one way to close the skills and opportunity gaps.

Follow Handshake Network Trends for the latest data-driven insights on Gen Z →

What is skills-based hiring?

Crafting a job description can feel like designing your dream candidate. It’s an opportunity to list all of the skills and qualifications your ideal applicant could possess.

One checkbox that almost always makes the list? Years of experience.

But filtering on a candidate’s job history can be more of a hindrance than a help. This is especially true when you’re recruiting early talent and tech talent, who don’t necessarily have a long job history but who have the capabilities, training, and desire to contribute.

That’s why strategic employers are moving away from the years of experience filter to focus on what actually matters most: skills and knowledge.

Years of experience: What’s the problem with this traditional criteria?

Writing a job posting without a required experience level might feel unnatural, but there are a few compelling reasons why this classic filter can actually screen qualified candidates out.

1. It fails to keep pace with tech innovation

While technology gets a bad rap for replacing human workers with robots, the truth is that technology doesn’t just eliminate jobs—it creates them too. As technology advances, more tech-skilled workers are needed to spearhead innovation.

Just think about some of the in-demand tech roles today that would’ve inspired nothing more than confused looks and blank stares a mere decade ago:

Artificial intelligence developer

Blockchain analyst

Cloud architect

Cybersecurity specialist

Virtual reality developer

And that’s only the beginning. Technology—and the careers that support it—moves at a breakneck pace. In fact, it’s been reported that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t actually been invented yet. These are roles that aren’t limited to the tech industry—consider finance, government, energy, and yours.

Filtering out candidates based on years of experience means applying an archaic filter to a cutting-edge industry. And, as Sebastián Ramírez, the creator of FastAPI, experienced, you could mistakenly ask candidates to meet a standard that’s quite literally impossible.

2. It doesn’t showcase the capabilities of early talent

The “years of experience” filter might feel like it reveals a lot about what a candidate brings to the table. If they have over two years on the job, they must already have mastered this skill and gained proficiency with this piece of software.

But in reality, years of experience tells you precisely one thing: how long the applicant has collected a paycheck. That’s all.

It’s tempting to assign a lot of weight and importance to the time an employee has already invested in the workforce, but in doing so, you’re only making assumptions. Tenure isn’t always representative of knowledge, skills, and talent.

It’s important to remember that Gen Z is entering the workforce with a lot of enthusiasm and know-how—but they don’t necessarily have the perspective and confidence of someone who’s been navigating the working world for years.

The “years of experience” requirement shrinks your pipeline.

3. It threatens your application rate

Here’s the biggest problem with the “years of experience” requirement: It discourages skilled and highly-qualified candidates from applying to your open roles.

Early talent is typically in the “0-5 years of experience” range. So why create job descriptions aimed at early talent that state “3-5 years of experience”? This can discourage new graduates from applying since they believe they don’t meet the years of experience requirement—even though they’ve recently acquired a degree or certificate in the exact skills you need.

When recent graduates see a bold experience requirement in your job posting, it’s an immediate barrier—and one that often feels insurmountable. Most will move on and look for employers that have more reasonable expectations, particularly for roles that are branded as “entry level.”

Going beyond quantifiable qualifications

Thinking critically about your years of experience requirements—and questioning whether you even need them in the first place—supports more inclusive recruiting.

However, inclusive recruiting is not synonymous with “having no standards.” Employers absolutely can and should have specific criteria they’re looking for in successful applicants. The trick is being more open-minded about what those standards are—and how to evaluate them. Here’s some inspiration to get the wheels turning.

1. Revamp your job descriptions

It likely goes without saying that your job postings will need a bit of an overhaul, particularly if you’ve been reusing the same tired template over and over again. But what goes in a job description if you’re not listing the required experience or a specific college degree?

The traditional approach focuses on this question: What boxes does a candidate need to check? Flip the script and challenge yourself to answer deeper, more meaningful questions about the open position like:

What skills will make someone successful in this role?

What impact do we want this role to have on our organization?

What broader team or company goals will this role support?

What career path will this role put someone on (or help them discover)?

Doing so keeps you and the entire hiring team focused more on the outcomes of the position—rather than creating a laundry list of prescriptive inputs to make it happen.

2. Identify other meaningful experiences

Experience simply means to directly observe or participate in something. But somewhere along the line, it was boiled down to hands-on work in a paid role.

Experience comes in all shapes and forms outside of on-the-job responsibilities, and it’s well worth considering and honoring those less-traditional avenues like:

Apprenticeships

Bootcamps

Certifications

Clubs and organizations

Course work

Internships

Part-time jobs

Personal hobbies

Projects

Side hustles

Volunteer work

All of those can provide knowledge and skill-building that’s equally significant (if not more so) to on-the-job experience, particularly when many offer training that’s far more targeted and timely than college curriculum.

Maybe you can personally relate to racking up experience early in your career that doesn’t directly map to what you’re doing now. Perhaps a student who has waitressing experience applies to your role, and you discount that experience because you’re not hiring for a waitress position. But that student might have fantastic customer service skills, the ability to think on their feet, and agility in high pressure situations.

3. Consider new ways to evaluate candidates

If your experience requirements aren’t traditional, your evaluation methods shouldn’t be either. Fortunately, technical interviews typically include steps like:

Skills-based assessments, or a coding challenge

Test projects, or whiteboarding

Work samples of what the candidate has produced

These approaches, on their own or in combination, rely on a candidate’s current skills and knowledge, and they tell you more about an applicant’s aptitude than a single bullet point on a resume ever could.

There are plenty of out-of-the-box ways you can get a solid grasp on the know-how of job applicants without relying on their job history. Explore speed interviews, use situational interview questions, behavioral interviews over lunch, and other ways to surface a student’s skills, interests, and academic highlights. You can check with your school partners for suggestions for breaking the traditional interview mold.

It’s time to prioritize tenacity over tenure

For decades, listing an experience requirement was as inherent to job descriptions as the job title itself. But when it comes to recruiting early talent—and especially tech talent—that sort of filter can be more of a barrier than a boost.

Employers are better served by focusing on the knowledge and skills required to do the job, whether they were obtained through “traditional” experience or not.

In the end, maybe it’s time for the “years of experience” qualification to go the way of other outdated recruiting methods, like newspaper wanted ads and faxing a resume: complete and total obsolescence.

Look at your data to understand if “years of experience” is filtering out otherwise qualified candidates. Handshake levels the playing field for early career applicants. Find out more →

Need top tech talent? Check your requirements.

Veterans possess unique skills and experiences that can add significant value to your organization. Their disciplined work ethic, adaptability, problem-solving skills and technical proficiency, honed through military service, make them ideal candidates for roles requiring strategic thinking and technical versatility.

Many organizations are intentional about trying to source, hire, and include veteran talent to fill critical skills gaps, meet labor demands, and compete. But are your hiring strategies surfacing qualified veteran talent?

In this article, get data on the veteran population on Handshake, plus 3 suggestions for how to hire veterans in the next phase of their career:

1. Ensure your sourcing strategy will reach qualified veteran talent

2. Expand your school strategy to be more inclusive of veteran talent

3. Expose veterans to employees who have similar experience

What are some stats about the veteran talent pool on Handshake?

3 strategies for hiring veterans in the next phase of their career

1. Ensure your sourcing strategy will reach qualified veteran talent

Veterans leave the armed forces and graduate from post-secondary education with more work experience and professional development than the typical college student. Keep in mind that for some students from underrepresented groups and veterans in particular, their graduation year does not necessarily correlate with their age or years of experience. Think critically about transferable skills to screen veteran early talent in, not out.

For example, Anthony Hankerson, Employer Relation Advisor, Military Outreach at Western Governors University, suggests making your job descriptions more military-friendly by highlighting transferable skills and experiences relevant to the military personnel you are looking to recruit.

One way to target qualified veteran talent on Handshake is through Segments in Talent Engagement Suite, which enable you to input your criteria and dynamically adjust your inputs to show you the depth and breadth of the pool.  Segments offers you a skills-based hiring tool that can identify qualified talent based on your criteria, especially for private or public sector employers with dedicated programs for veteran recruitment initiatives for civilian roles.

2. Expand your school strategy to be more inclusive of veteran talent

Handshake can help you discover schools you may be overlooking when sourcing veteran talent. Not only that, but you may find that expanding your geographic reach may open up your pipeline. 

Once you’ve connected with more schools on Handshake, you can also partner with campus-based veteran serving organizations and conferences to not only source candidates but also learn how to better attract and engage veterans—such as through fairs, sponsored projects, office tours, virtual events on how to navigate the federal application process, and so on.

3. Expose veterans to employees who have similar experience

To even consider applying to a job with your organization, veterans want to see themselves represented at and welcomed by your workplace. In your branding materials and on your Company Brand Page, consider how welcomed veteran talent would feel if you share a testimonial from a veteran employee.

During the recruiting process, Anthony Hankerson, Employer Relation Advisor, Military Outreach at Western Governors University, recommends:

Leveraging social media, like the Handshake feed, to share success stories;

Partnering with university military resource centers to host information sessions, attend hiring events for veterans and transitioning service members, and promote job opportunities;

Connecting with veteran organizations such as Hiring Our Heroes and 50 Strong.

Take those in-person event opportunities to pair candidates with employees who share similar experience. For example, an advocate within your organization—who can relate to what veterans go through to transition to civilian life—can be a bridge to support veterans entering their first job outside of the service. An advocate might be a member of a veteran's Employee Resource Group, for example, who can help students navigate norms that are new to them during the hiring process and beyond.

Where to find and hire qualified veterans on Handshake

By implementing these strategies, your team can make a meaningful impact by connecting with and supporting veteran talent in their transition to the civilian workforce—at your organization.

Try filters available in Handshake Talent Engagement Suite to source qualified veteran talent based on degree type, skills, majors, graduation year, and more.


