Why Skills-Based Hiring Is on the Rise
January 14, 2023 
One of the hallmarks of ushering in a new year is the commitments many of us make to new ways of doing things, in the form of New Year’s resolutions. We discard the old habits to embrace new, more effective practices. Skills-based hiring is one new practice more employers are adopting to increase their candidate pool for potential workers. I hope it is here to stay and delivers on helping employers create a more equitable and sustainable workforce.
In today’s competitive labor market, leading companies are coming to the realization that some traditional hiring methods are archaic at best and ineffective to pointless at their worst. They’re trending more towards skills-based hiring, screening employees based on their skills and capabilities, rather than letting degrees, credentials, and past work history stand between them and a qualified hire. Google, Apple, Microsoft, GM, and IBM have all started offering high-level roles to candidates without college degrees to attract new talent and widen their talent pools. In May 2022, the state of Maryland announced it would no longer require degrees for nearly 50% of its positions, opening thousands of jobs to a larger pool of applicants. Even the White House has started changing its hiring practices with its 2021 announcement of limits on the use of educational requirements when hiring for IT positions.
Ever heard of degree inflation? This statement in a 2017 whitepaper, “Dismissed by Degrees”, published by the Harvard Business School, offers a good explanation.
“Degree inflation — the rising demand for a four-year college degree for jobs that previously did not require one — is a substantive and widespread phenomenon that is making the U.S. labor market more inefficient. Postings for many jobs traditionally viewed as middle-skills jobs (those that require employees with more than a high school diploma but less than a college degree) in the U.S. now stipulate a college degree as a minimum education requirement, while only a third of the adult population possesses this credential.”
Talk about limiting the labor pool, especially when many industries are faced with middle-skills gaps in their workforce. A college education is a wonderful thing, but it can be a barrier to employment for otherwise qualified candidates. And let’s face it, college is the start of helping us acquire deep knowledge in our fields, but experience, gained on the job, is the best teacher.
Learning by doing allows one to put learned concepts and theories into practice — again and again. We learn from our mistakes through experience. This is not to say that college degrees aren’t important, as there are still some jobs that require college training, certifications, and extensive work experience, but for low- and middle-skill level jobs, skills-based hiring could be the better way to go.
And, evaluating someone based on their skill sets instead of their education and past work history doesn’t just have to apply to new hires. Application of these practices to existing workers can help companies discover the talent they already have and open new career paths for employees who are likely to be more engaged in their work and satisfied with their place of employment when they see opportunities to learn and grow. Do you have a learning culture at your company, one where ongoing education is prioritized as fundamental to career growth and can be completed on company time? Too often, ongoing education has been seen as the employee’s responsibility, to be somehow worked in after hours while juggling family and household responsibilities. One benefit an employer could provide is to encourage a company-wide practice of setting aside dedicated time for learning or mentoring in areas employees are interested in.
I suspect there are already many companies in our industry that use some form of a skills-based hiring approach, and I hope others will investigate this practice for its potential. This hiring strategy could have far-reaching applications in helping greenhouse operations break down barriers to widen their talent pool and find qualified, committed job seekers who are the perfect fit for the company. It’s time for a change in the way we hire.
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