The Shift from Degrees to Skills: A New Era in Staffing and Recruitment

November 8, 2024
English

Curated by Jorge Valdés Garciatorres, MOD, PMP

I’ve learned over the years that, When you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, You can get them to do great things.”

Steve Jobs,
Co-founder of Apple

A Story of Skills Over Degrees

Recently, Maria, a self-taught software developer from a small town in Mexico, applied for an open position with one of our clients, a leading global technology company.

Maria didn’t have a formal degree, but she had built an impressive portfolio of projects, including a fully functional application that she had designed and coded herself. What made her application stand out wasn’t her educational background—she didn’t have a traditional one—but the tangible skills she demonstrated.

Maria’s story is not unusual. It’s part of a larger trend in hiring where skills are becoming more important than degrees. Many people are looking for a career change or to become a T-shaped, Pi-shaped, or M-shaped professional.

We’ve noticed that this shift towards skills-based hiring is changing how companies assess and value talent. We think this is a response to the rapid technological changes that require continuous skill updates and a move towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce. As we look ahead to 2024, this trend is changing how companies recruit people in all kinds of industries.

The Driving Forces Behind the Shift

The fast pace of tech innovation across industries has made it important to think about how we hire in new ways. A recent report found that many companies are now focusing more on skills than formal education when it comes to hiring (TestGorilla, 2024). This change is driven by the need for employees to keep up with new technology by learning new skills. Take Google, for instance. They’ve famously removed the requirement for a college degree in many of their job postings, focusing instead on the specific skills and competencies relevant to the job.

On top of that, the focus on skills over degrees is also a response to the rising costs of higher education and the growing availability of alternative educational pathways. With coding boot camps, online courses, and certifications becoming more popular, candidates can now get the skills they need to succeed in their roles without a traditional college degree (WeCreateProblems, 2024).

The Benefits of Skills-Based Hiring

There are lots of benefits for both employers and collaborators when companies hire based on skills. For employers, it means they can look at a bigger and more diverse set of candidates. By focusing on what candidates can do rather than where they’ve been, companies can tap into a wider array of backgrounds and experiences, leading to more innovative and effective teams. On top of that, this method can help cut down on bias in the hiring process. It focuses on objective factors like demonstrated skills and abilities instead of potentially biased things like educational background (HBR, 2024).

For collaborators, skills-based hiring can lead to more opportunities for career advancement and mobility. It lets people who might not have had the chance to go to college, not to mention an Ivy League University Opportunity, still compete for great jobs. This makes it easier for more people to get the chance to show what they can do, and rewards them based on what they can do, not what they’ve been told they should have done.

Implementing a Skills-Based Hiring Strategy

If you want to make a skills-based hiring strategy work, you’ll need to take a fresh look at your job descriptions, recruitment processes, and evaluation criteria. Job descriptions should clearly outline the specific skills you need for the role, rather than vague or outdated degree requirements. It’s a good idea to include skills assessments in your recruitment process. These could be coding tests, portfolio reviews, or practical tasks. This helps you to see if a candidate can do the job.

Sometimes we’ve put together a custom assessment center for a specific job opening, designed to really test out the candidates. This approach has helped our customers see candidates in action, and better understand their skills and capabilities in a real-world setting.

We also believe that hiring managers should get training on how to evaluate skills and competencies effectively. We can also set up the interview to see how the candidate reacts and answers in certain situations. This also means understanding how to read non-traditional educational backgrounds and recognizing the value of diverse experiences. We’re pretty sure that companies that do well in this area and have the right culture will be better at attracting and keeping top talent in a competitive job market.

How Staffing Agencies Deliver Value Through Skills-Based Hiring

Staffing agencies are a big help to companies trying to figure out how to hire based on skills. These agencies bring a lot to the table, thanks to their expertise and resources. We came across five key areas where they really shine when we were online.

Access to a Wide Range of Talents: Staffing agencies have a lot of ways to tap into diverse and specialized talent pools that aren’t easily reached through traditional recruiting methods. They’re great at finding candidates with the exact skills you need for the job, no matter what their educational background is. This means clients get top candidates who are ready to get the job done (TestGorilla, 2024).
Simplified hiring processes: Agencies can cut down on the time it takes to hire by using more advanced screening methods, like skills assessments and practical evaluations. This efficiency not only speeds up the hiring process but also makes sure that the candidates are a good fit for the role, which helps to reduce turnover and improve retention rates (WeCreateProblems, 2024).
Staffing agencies often use objective assessment tools and standardized processes that help minimize unconscious bias in hiring. By focusing on what candidates can do, they help clients build more diverse and inclusive teams, which is becoming more and more important in today’s business environment (HBR, 2024).
They also help with developing skills-based job descriptions: Agencies help companies create job descriptions that accurately reflect the skills needed for the role, moving away from outdated degree requirements. This helps attract a wider pool of candidates and ensures that the job expectations match the actual work to be done (LinkedIn, 2024).
Ongoing Learning and Development: Many staffing agencies offer training and development programs to help candidates learn or improve the skills they need for specific roles. This helps candidates get ready for the job and adds value for the client by making sure the team can keep up with changing business needs (LinkedIn, 2024).

If you focus on what candidates can do, not where they’ve been, you can open up new possibilities and keep your business moving forward in today’s fast-changing world.