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Post a JobSkills-first hiring focuses on sourcing, screening, and hiring candidates based on the skills and competencies required for the job.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to implement skills-first hiring on Indeed.
Skills-first hiring focuses on whether a candidate has the right skills for a role, regardless of how they gained them. Instead of screening job seekers based on degrees, years of experience, or unrelated background checks, this approach evaluates candidates based on whether they have the skills to do the job.
Shifting to a skills-first mindset opens the door to job seekers who might otherwise be overlooked, including STARs (job seekers Skilled Through Alternative Routes). STARs are individuals who have built their expertise outside a degree programme, whether through on-the-job learning, military service, career shifts, short-term training, or apprenticeships.
STARs make up half of the adult workforce. However, these job seekers may get screened out in applicant tracking systems (ATSs) due to rigid hiring filters that businesses sometimes use. Expanding your definition of what makes a candidate “qualified” could help you connect with this untapped talent and experience the potential benefits of skills-first hiring.
Swapping a traditional hiring approach for a skills-first hiring method may help you:
Shifting your organisation’s hiring mindset towards a skills-first approach is a great first step in learning how to adopt skills-first hiring practices. Key to this approach is identifying roles that require in-demand skills, rather than degree qualifications.
In this next section, we’ll explore how to identify these roles. We’ll then follow up with tips for writing a skills-first job description.
Before implementing a skills-first hiring approach, identify roles that will benefit most from re-credentialing (i.e., the process of defining and assessing the skills truly needed for success rather than relying on degrees as a proxy).
When identifying roles suitable for this process, consider focusing on the following to maximise impact:
Once you’ve identified skills integral to the role you’re hiring for, it’s time to write a skills-first job description. Learn how in this next step.
Traditional job posts often focus on degrees, job titles, and a certain number of years of industry experience, but this may screen out candidates who have the right skills.
A skills-first job description emphasises the specific skills needed for the role from day one. This approach attracts candidates who possess the necessary skills, regardless of how or where they acquired them. Additionally, it uses inclusive language to welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
To write a skills-first job description, consider the following:
Rethink your job requirements by identifying the skills, knowledge, and competencies you need for the job on day one. This can help you distinguish between skills that are necessary and those that can be taught. Replace proxies with the precise skills that are needed.
Consider describing specific tasks and expectations to help job seekers understand how their skills might apply to your open role. To do this, it can help to detail what the person will actually be doing for the job.
Additionally, avoid jargon and biased terms that may discourage quality candidates from applying.
A degree or previous industry experience isn’t always a key indicator of a candidate’s ability to perform a job. In fact, more employers are moving away from requiring formal education credentials. Searching for previous industry experience can also rule out candidates with training or transferable skills that closely match the role.
We recommend using inclusive key phrases, such as “no degree” and “no high school diploma.” Since job applicants have the ability to search by these filters, it could be effective to optimise your job descriptions to target these searches.
Also, employers can state that applicants are encouraged to apply even if they do not have previous industry experience or degree qualifications. This can also help attract more quality candidates who might not otherwise apply.
Here are two job description introductions, one traditional and one skills-based, to show you what skills-based job descriptions might look like in practice:
Traditional job description: Marketing Coordinator
We are seeking a Marketing Coordinator with a bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field and 3+ years of experience. The ideal candidate has strong digital marketing, content creation, and social media management skills.
Skills-first job description: Marketing Coordinator
We are looking for a Marketing Coordinator who can create engaging content, run digital campaigns, and analyse marketing data. No degree or years of experience are required, but candidates with experience creating content, analysing social media performance, and supporting brand strategy are strongly encouraged to apply.
Required skills:
Preferred skills:
To improve your chances of matching with the right candidates for the job, you can also sponsor your job on Indeed. This increases your job post’s visibility and can help you reach candidates faster.
A skills-first approach can make it easier to connect with quality candidates. In fact, Indeed Smart Sourcing allows employers to filter based on skills listed in candidates’ CVs. Through Smart Sourcing, you instantly receive a list of candidates who match your job criteria.
You can use Smart Sourcing’s tools to help you with skills-first candidate searches. Simply input desired skills into our keyword search and use the custom skills filter to get specific results. You can save your skills-first searches and get daily alerts for newly-matched candidates.
Understanding how to evaluate candidates on Indeed can help you make informed hiring decisions. Indeed offers tools, such as screener questions, to support this.
Screener questions, which are available with a paid job post, can help you assess a candidate’s skills upfront so you can focus on those who meet your job’s requirements.
When screening candidates, the key is to focus on skills. Instead of screening candidates based on degrees or years of experience, screener questions may also reflect which skills matter for the job. You can write the questions yourself or use pre-made screener questions on Indeed.
Here are some tips to help you choose the right screener questions:
Think about what a candidate needs to know on day one and consider making those skills required. This could be clearly indicated as a screener question by asking, for example: “Do you have experience using project management software to manage deadlines?”
Some skills can be learned on the job, so consider keeping certain requirements flexible. For skills that candidates could learn on the job, you could ask: “Are you familiar with [preferred tool or skill], or are you open to learning it?”
If the job requires certifications, software knowledge, or industry experience, ask directly. For a screener question, you could ask:
Behavioural interview questions assume that an individual’s past workplace behaviour is a reliable indicator of their future performance.
Open-ended questions about past behaviour can give insight into problem-solving and communication skills. A screener question to assess this might be:
Once your job is posted, you can filter applications based on candidate responses to your screener questions. Those who don’t meet your required skills are automatically placed in the “Rejected” tab, but you can still review them at any time.
Yes, you can filter applicants based on their skills, experience, and responses to skill-related screening questions.
To measure the success of skills-first hiring, consider tracking these key performance indicators (KPIs):
Yes, in some circumstances, a degree or specific experience may be required for your role. By putting skills first, you ensure that you are assessing the requirements based on skills and adding other requirements only when necessary.
Skills-first hiring is about starting with what matters most for success in the role: the skills, knowledge, and competencies people need on day one. By rethinking degree and experience requirements, writing job descriptions that highlight skills, and using tools on Indeed to search, screen, and evaluate based on abilities, you can open your roles to a wider pool of qualified candidates and make more confident hiring decisions.
Over time, this approach can help you reach more motivated applicants, reduce mishires, and build teams that are better matched to the work you need done.
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This article is based on product information available at the time of writing, which may change at any time. Indeed does not guarantee that this information is always up to date. Please seek out your CS/Sales rep for the latest information on this topic.
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