Competencies Over Credentials: A Case for Skills-Based Recruitment

Examining talent by starting with the work that needs to be completed – and then matching the skills of candidates to meet those needs – is what makes a skills-based recruitment approach so effective. By reviewing competencies instead of generic job descriptions, hiring managers can benefit from wider talent pools, gaining access to top talent and building a more future-proof pipeline. Discover why adopting this approach can improve hiring outcomes, drive business success and enhance your recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) program.

The Shift Toward Skills-Based Recruitment

Becoming a skills-based organization is no longer a new concept but a burgeoning reality. Yet, many businesses struggle with how to properly deploy a skills-based process effectively into their hiring strategy.

For decades, recruitment has relied on traditional markers of candidate qualification—degrees, years of experience and rigid job descriptions. However, in today’s dynamic workforce, those criteria often fail to capture a candidate’s true potential and limit access to a wider pool of talent. Skills-based recruitment is rapidly emerging as the preferred method to bridge skills gaps, attract top talent and future-proof workforce strategies.

By shifting the focus from credentials to capabilities, organizations unlock a broader and more agile talent pipeline, ensuring they hire based on real-world competencies rather than conventional resume filters. This shift is also reflected in the main tools that recruiters use to find talent.

How LinkedIn Is Leading the Skills-Based Movement

With 80-90% of recruiters using LinkedIn as their primary sourcing tool, it’s no surprise that the platform is at the forefront of the skills-based revolution. LinkedIn’s recruiter tools now prioritize skills-first hiring, enabling organizations to match candidates to roles based on their capabilities as well as business goals and future growth.

For hiring leaders who have yet to embrace skills-based recruitment, the risk is falling behind in a workforce market where talent discovery is increasingly driven by competencies, adaptability and the ability to evolve with the demands of work.

A Global Insurance Company’s Skills-Based Success Story

A leading global insurance company faced hiring challenges when searching for IT talent. Several hiring managers contributed to the list of skills needed but were only focused on what their teams needed, which led to varied and extensive skill requirements for each requisition. Their initial job descriptions included 12 to 18 skill requirements, making the hiring process highly restrictive.

As their RPO partner, AGS Managed Services (AGS) helped to optimize their required skills list with a skills-based approach.

• Gather Current Data. Leveraging Acumen® Intelligent Workforce Platform ecosystem, including Lightcast, we were able to analyze available talent pools, providing insights to hiring managers to help them understand how adjusting requirements could increase the number of viable candidates.
• Refine Data Set. The Lightcast reports also provided valuable information on international hiring restrictions, particularly regarding visa limitations, which helped determine the realistic size of the talent pools.
• Have Level-Setting Conversations. The listed skills were assessed to determine whether all of them were essential, reducing the required qualifications where appropriate. For example, “Do these tasks require five years’ experience or can someone with two years’ experience also effectively perform these tasks?”
• Data analysis and expert interpretations. Working closely with the client, our teams gained approval for further optimizing the number of required skills. This helped identify common skill sets as well as unnecessary requirements.
• Secure Leadership Buy-in. The senior leadership approved the change, reducing required skills from 12-18 down to 5-6 essential competencies.

The results? Optimized job descriptions that enhanced the recruitment strategy and a streamlined recruitment pipeline with more accessible talent pools and increased flexibility in hiring decisions. Candidates who met core skills could be placed in various roles without being limited by strict job descriptions. The process also opened the door for more creative solutions and innovative talent that bring additional skills to the table, which may have been missed when considering only basic requirements.

Empowering Hiring Managers Through Skills-Based Thinking

A skills-first approach doesn’t eliminate recruitment best practices—it refines them. With a data-led skills assessment process, hiring managers are more likely to gain buy-in from leadership because they will be supported by facts, not feelings. In addition, developing an effective hiring strategy via a skills-based recruitment process can provide hiring managers an agile and future-forward way to find talent and get work done.

With a skills-first viewpoint, hiring managers can refine screening questions, define essential skills based on the actual work required and implement workforce flexibility, allowing strong candidates to be considered for multiple openings across the organization.

Talent acquisition specialists will also have the necessary information to determine when the skills outweigh other criteria such as educational history and years of experience. For example, technical roles often demand specific skills regardless of experience level, while customer service roles may benefit more from years of interpersonal expertise. This nuanced approach ensures that organizations make informed hiring decisions.

The Future of Skills-Based Recruitment

Forward-thinking organizations across industries are successfully implementing skills-first hiring, recognizing its value as workforce management and talent acquisition continue to evolve. AI-driven recruitment tools, experienced RPO partnerships and hiring platforms such as LinkedIn becoming increasingly skills-based are shaping how organizations find and engage talent.

With TA leaders tasked with improving workforce adaptability, maintaining competitive edge and unlocking new opportunities for growth, skills-based recruitment offers a path forward. It’s more than just filling seats – it’s about building a workforce designed for the future.