Addressing the skills crisis with skills-based hiring

Why a new hiring approach is needed

This post contains excerpts from my newly published starter pack on skills-based hiring.¹ Closing the critical skills gap: Your skills-based hiring starter pack

The current skills crisis

“The skills crisis is creating challenges for organisations globally. In a fast-evolving business landscape, employers are struggling to find the critical skills they need to deliver their strategies and grow.

In demand are the full spectrum of skills needed to do a job effectively. For example, of the nearly 73,000 employers surveyed in the 2022 UK Employer Skills Survey:

• 63% said skills shortage vacancies (SSVs) are due to a lack of specialist skills or knowledge

• 48% of SSVs relate to the ability to manage time and prioritise tasks”²

62% of UK organisations³ and 70% of US organisations⁴ faced skills shortages in 2024.

Skills-based hiring

Many businesses are turning to skills-based hiring in order to address this skills crisis.

Why skills-based hiring?

This new hiring approach provides a way to:

• Open up the pool of candidates that can apply

• Hire for soft skills and train for hard skills

• Fill skills gaps quickly

“A granular understanding of skills reveals more about a person’s potential than can be inferred from a qualification alone. It is also considered a fairer way to hire because it removes some of the biases associated with traditional, qualifications-focused hiring.”

What are the implications?

As with any change in hiring practices, implementing skills-based hiring has implications for human resources / talent acquisition teams and recruiters.

Implementing skills-based hiring means:

1. Identifying the skills needed by your organisation

2. Developing skills-based job descriptions

3. Identifying your skills-based hiring approach

4. Selecting appropriate skills-based hiring tools

5. Analysing and integrating skills-based data

Such changes require thought and planning.

The good news is that each of these steps is addressed in the skills-based hiring starter pack, with tips and additional resources for approaching them.

Discover how to recruit the talent your business critically needs in the
skills-based hiring starter pack, written by

Grainne Hamilton

and published by HRZone in partnership with TestGorilla.

Skills-based hiring series

This post is part of a series on skills-based hiring. Subscribe to receive notifications of new posts.

1. Read the report, ‘Closing the critical skills gap: Your skills-based hiring starter pack’. Written by Hamilton, G. Published by HRZone in 2025.

2. Read the report, ‘Employer Skills Survey, 2022’. Written by the UK Department for Education. Published by GOV.UK in 2023.

3. Read the report, ‘The Business Barometer 2024’. Written by The Open University and British Chambers of Commerce. Published by The Open University in 2024.

4. Read the report, ‘The Latest Labor Shortage Trends & Statistics (2024)’. Written by Duarte, F. Published by Exploding Topics in 2024.