Ready for Success: Adopting a Skills Mindset in Employment Practices Toolkit
Unleash Human Potential With Skills-First Hiring
Empowering you to help your organization transition to a skills-first hiring and advancement strategy.
We envision a world where all people have equal access to employment, the opportunity to advance in their careers and a shot at sustained economic advancement.
To get there, HR and hiring managers must first be able to identify the unique skills people bring to the table. That includes skills possessed by individuals without a four-year degree or traditional work experience. Once those skills are identified, HR professionals and hiring managers must know how to leverage those skills to benefit both employees and their organizations.
In partnership with the Charles Koch Foundation, SHRM and the SHRM Foundation developed a toolkit to help HR and hiring managers make those dreams a reality for workers and workplaces.
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This toolkit is designed to help you solve your talent acquisition issues.
Focus on the skills and training required for each role, rather than simply focusing on whether or not a candidate has a traditional four-year degree.
Putting a Skills Mindset Into Action
12 Actions You Can Take to Turn Intent Into Progess
Technology-Enabled Actions
01
Aligning Job Duties with Skills
Create skills-based hiring crosswalks, both offline and within your ATS, to address your organization's evolving needs.
02
Channels for Sourcing Candidates
Identify qualified talent through traditional and nontraditional sourcing channels via app-based tools.
03
Assessing Hard & Soft Skills
Leverage tools for assessing hard & soft skills like computer literacy, writing competency, creativity & critical thinking.
04
Current Job Market Trends
Access current job market reports with industry-specific considerations and talent heatmaps within your geographical area.
Communications Actions
05
Industry-Specific Employee Value Propositions
Create compelling employee value propositions for your organization to attract qualified candidates.
06
Formal Upskilling Programs
Design upskilling programs to fill in-demand roles with internal workers who demonstrate transferrable skills.
07
Differentiated Job Postings
Construct skills-based job descriptions that go beyond lists of functions and qualifications.
08
Interviewing Scorecard
Generate interview scorecards that objectively and quantitatively assess candidates for aptitude and fit.
Organizational Actions
09
Best Practices - Compelling Employee Benefits
Create a powerful total rewards program that will contribute to both employee acquisition & retention.
10
Behavioral Interview Guide
Train hiring managers and HR on behavioral interviewing to more effectively assess qualifications.
11
Accelerating the Hiring Process
Condense the time-to-hire and secure great employees ahead of your competitors through a curated set of resources.
12
Case Studies of Successful Alternative Credential Integrations
Discover how real businesses have transformed how they think about job requirements and degrees.
By changing how we approach job qualifications, we are enabling more individuals to be considered.
PSEG
Skills-First Hiring in Action
Challenging traditional job requirements to broaden candidate eligibility.
For Charlie Hatton, a U.S. military veteran who joined PSE&G as a project quality assurance/quality control specialist in 2015, showing how his military experience could transfer to a specific role was initially difficult.
“I applied for a job that I thought I was a good fit for, although I realized that the person screening the resumes might not agree because of my military background,” Hatton said. “It turned out I was right, and I didn’t get the interview.”
Our Partners
Please visit our partners for more resources on skills-first hiring.
