By Tim Huff
President & CEO, TLG
There’s always something electric about this time of year… thousands of graduates stepping boldly into the unknown. Tassels turn, caps fly, and the workforce gains its newest wave of hopeful talent! Each spring, fresh college graduates enter the workforce… eager, optimistic, and armed with diplomas. But too often, they’re met with job listings demanding three years of experience for “entry-level” roles. At the same time, experienced workers seeking to transition careers hit a similar wall: degree requirements or rigid experience checklists that screen them out before they ever get a chance to show what they can do. The traditional hiring playbook is falling short, and it’s costing us talent we can’t afford to miss.
Credentials ≠ Capabilities
For decades, we’ve used education and job titles as shorthand for readiness. But in today’s fast-paced business environment, that approach no longer serves us as effectively on its own.
I find it fascinating that hiring for skills is now shown to be five times more predictive of job performance than hiring based on education, and more than twice as predictive as hiring based on work experience (Hancock et al., 2022)! But this doesn’t mean degrees have no value. On the contrary… degrees can signal important knowledge and durable skills, like critical thinking, discipline, communication, and domain-specific expertise.
The key is to be intentional.
Rather than using degrees as a default screening tool, organizations should ask: What knowledge or skills does this degree represent? Then, ensure those are truly related to job performance and integrate them into a broader, more holistic assessment strategy.
When degree requirements are too rigid or vague, organizations risk filtering out talented individuals who have the right skills but took a different path to gain them. Skills-based hiring isn’t about ignoring education, it’s about making sure we value what matters most for the role.
What Gets Measured Gets Valued: The Role of Competency Models
One of the most powerful tools to support skills-based hiring is a competency model… a clearly defined framework of the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to succeed in a role.
A good competency model goes beyond tasks or responsibilities; it spells out how success looks in practice. For example, instead of simply saying a team leader needs “communication skills,” a competency model defines the behaviors that demonstrate those skills, like facilitating open dialogue, delivering feedback effectively, or adjusting messaging for different audiences.
When you hire using a competency model, you’re not relying on assumptions. You’re anchoring your decisions to consistent, measurable criteria. It’s especially helpful for evaluating candidates from nontraditional backgrounds, allowing you to focus on capability instead of credentials.
Competency models also create alignment between hiring, performance management, and leadership development. When your model is integrated across the talent lifecycle, you’re not just filling jobs, you’re shaping culture and building long-term value.
Hiring for the Person, Not the Paper
A traditional job description captures what a person will do today, while a skills-based approach looks ahead to what’s needed in the future. When roles are framed around the skills needed rather than rigid qualifications, organizations unlock new ways to:
- Identify potentially overlooked talent
- Support internal career moves
- Equip managers to coach instead of micromanage
- Promote inclusive advancement
This mindset shift turns hiring into the starting line of a development journey, not a transactional exchange. It also sends a clear message to your workforce: We value growth, not just pedigree. We truly invest in people.
And when employees believe that, they don’t just stay longer, they lead better, contribute more, and raise the bar for others.
From Hiring to Growing: The Role of Coaching
Even the most thoughtful hiring strategy only gets you part of the way. The real opportunity comes in what you do after the hire. That’s where leadership coaching makes the difference.
Coaching helps new hires ramp up faster, internal candidates stretch into unfamiliar roles, and high potentials develop the attributes needed to lead. It also strengthens internal mobility by preparing individuals to step into bigger responsibilities, rather than defaulting to external hires.
Leadership development is not a ‘nice to have,’ it’s a multiplier. Companies that embed coaching into their talent strategy don’t just develop individuals; they build pipelines of future-ready leaders equipped to meet business challenges before they arise.
Getting Started
Here are three practical ways to begin embracing a skills-first approach:
- Reframe job postings. Focus on outcomes and core skills. Remove degree requirements unless they’re truly essential.
- Develop or refresh your competency model. Define role success through behaviors, not just experience. Ensure it aligns with your values and strategy.
- Invest in coaching across the talent lifecycle. Don’t wait for high performers to prove themselves before supporting them. Use coaching to develop their capacity early and often.
Skills-based hiring is more than a recruiting trend; it’s a leadership decision.
It requires us to question old assumptions, embrace new ways of evaluating talent, and trust that the best people for the job might not always look like we expect.
But when we get it right, the payoff is lasting. We build organizations that are more inclusive, more agile, and more human.
Let’s build the kind of workplaces where people don’t have to check every box to be seen, and where the real measure of value is not the paper on the wall, but the potential in the person.
Thanks,
Tim
Reference:
Hancock, B., Higgins, C., Law, J., Olson, S., Patel, N., & Van Dusen, K. (2022, November 15). Taking a skills-based approach to building the future workforce. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/taking-a-skills-based-approach-to-building-the-future-workforce
