Talent Blog

How to integrate skills-based hiring with traditional recruitment methods

Written by Team Talent | Oct 30, 2024 7:30:00 PM

Skills-based hiring is making a big splash in the business world, and is becoming a necessity for businesses aiming to identify their ideal hires. With the business landscape evolving, traditional recruitment methods that rely on academic qualifications are becoming less relevant. Instead, there’s a greater focus on skills-based hiring, as it transforms the recruitment process to focus on a candidate's practical skills.

Here are some ways you can integrate skills-based recruitment methods to maximize success, improve employee retention and enhance your business' competitiveness.

 

Maximize your recruitment success through integrating skills assessments and asking behavioural questions.

  • Add skills assessments during the screening process.

    By adding a simple task or test into initial candidate screenings, such as technical assessments or situational judgment tests, this can help you better assess an individual’s skills early on in the hiring process.

  • Ask behavioural questions during the interview to focus on culture fit.

    By incorporating behavioral interview questions you are able to assess the candidate’s behaviours, values and experiences. This allows you to gain greater insight into a candidate's mindset in daily operations around the workplace and better assess their potential adaptability to your team. For example, try asking questions like:

    • Can you describe a time when you worked successfully as part of a team?

    • What was your role, and how did you contribute to the team’s success?

    • Can you provide an example of a time when you went above and beyond your job responsibilities?

  • Leverage Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to accelerate the hiring process.

    ATS can enhance recruitment by sorting and searching resumes for keywords and specific skill sets, and excels in automating tasks like posting job openings, receiving applications, and filtering candidates based on established criteria. By handling these repetitive tasks and analyzing resumes, your HR team can focus on critical decision-making, reducing the risk of overlooking qualified candidates and fostering more meaningful interactions that enhance the applicant’s experience. This streamlines recruitment efficiency for the company and positively impacts candidate perceptions throughout the hiring process.  In fact, 72% of candidates reported that a smooth hiring process influences their decision to accept a job, while 185% are less likely to refer others to a company after a negative experience.

 

Integrate skills-based hiring to improve employee retention and enhance your business' competitiveness.

By focusing on what truly matters, your company benefits by being able to identify ideal candidates who can thrive and contribute meaningful work to your team. Here are a few ways integrating skills-based hiring can benefit your team.

  • Improve your employee retention.

    By prioritizing finding the right fit over a convenient one, your business encourages growth and alignment to company goals, enhanced job satisfaction and engagement for new employees. This approach builds long-term commitment while attracting skillful prospective hires who can adapt and learn evolving requirements, that cultivate a culture of continuous learning for future challenges.

  • Gain access to diverse candidate pools and enhance your business’ competitiveness.

    Expanding your business’s hiring range to include candidates from all backgrounds increases the likelihood of discovering applicants with the essential skills required for the role. Through embracing an open, skills-based perspective, your business can tap into a wealth of expertise that may have been overlooked due to traditional metrics that discourage certain applicants from applying. This approach enriches your hiring pool by fostering diversity and leads to fresh perspectives, as well as innovative ideas for your organization. 

 

By implementing a skills-based approach into your recruitment process, you can ensure a more accurate evaluation of a candidate’s skills and abilities. This means you’ll reduce the risk of an unfit hire, capture a diverse candidate pool, and boost retention for your company.

Want to learn more about skills-based hiring? Check out a few of our favourite blogs on the topic: