The conventional hiring paths that focused on education and degrees are becoming less meaningful and relevant in today’s HR recruitment strategy. With the average employee’s turnover increasing in this competitive landscape, it has become even more critical that new staff members hit the ground running.
Here’s where skills-based hiring is emerging as the new recruitment trend among healthcare, HR and C-Suite hospital executives. The tactic involves prioritizing your recruit’s actual skills over theoretical experience and degrees. Below are some practical steps to implement this process, including how MedCerts Partner Solutions can support your execution.
What is Skills-Based Hiring?
In the context of skills-based hiring, skills refer to observable traits and abilities that a prospective employee needs to successfully perform a role. It differs from degree-based hiring, which focuses on where a recruit learned the skill, or their work experience in years. Skills, no matter how they’re acquired, are a reliable indicator of success as they are measurable, practical and directly affect job performance.
These skills include:
- Hard Skills: Functional or technical abilities you need to do a specific task, like:
- Proficiency with software or tools
- Technical writing or coding languages.
- Soft Skills: Interpersonal or behavioral skills that determine how to do the work. They influence long-term performance and adaptability. Examples include:
- Problem solving
- Critical thinking
- Emotional intelligence
How Can You Implement Skill-Based Hiring?
Step 1: Identify Skills That Matter More Than Degrees
Performing a skills audit is the first step in the skills-based recruitment process. It allows you to determine the ideal and minimum skills necessary to perform a given task in your organization. The skills audit entails:
- Identifying the key outcomes a position is supposed to accomplish
- Naming the required competencies
- Defining the specific skills that underscore those competencies
Step 2: Establish a Structured Skills Assessment Method
The skills-based hiring framework has an initial screening phase, where you can use pre-employment psychometric assessment tools. These tools include:
- Cognitive aptitude tests
- Technical exams
- Role-specific simulations
- Situational judgment questionnaires
Only the candidates who meet the minimum skills requirements can proceed to the next recruitment phase. In the next stage, your hiring team can subject the qualified candidates to exercises that provide better insights into the recruits’ personalities and competencies. These exercises include:
- Structured behavioral interviews
- Job-specific exercises
- Assessment center days
Step 3: Train Your Recruitment Team for Skills-Based Evaluation
You may encounter some resistance when shifting from conventional to modern hiring methods. Educating your recruitment teams on the advantages of skills-based hiring helps promote its adoption. Some of the perks include:
- Expanding the talent pool
- Improving employee performance and retention
- Promoting workforce diversity
- Adapting to rapidly evolving job demands
- Enhancing hiring efficiency
Once they have this understanding, you can train them on the best approaches to skill-based hiring. Phasing out the traditional methods can occur gradually to effectively integrate the skills-based approaches.
How MedCerts Partner Solutions Supports Each Step
Skill-based recruitment has its fair share of challenges that impact its effectiveness. There are high initial costs for implementation, complexity in defining and measuring skills and the risk of overlooking long-term potential. Luckily, you can rely on MedCerts Partner Solutions to guide you through the skill-based recruitment process. We’ve created a flexible, affordable and online healthcare and tech training program that gives you access to a skills-ready talent pipeline. Partner with us today to benefit from our employer talent solutions and adapt to the evolving hiring landscape.
