What Do We Mean By Skills?
The skills in skills-based hiring.
As more and more businesses turn to skills-based hiring, we need to address something about its name.
What do we mean by the term ‘skills’?
The answer to this is not entirely straightforward.
A note on ‘skills’
In my recently published skills-based hiring starter pack, I note the following when introducing the ‘skills’ in skills-based hiring…
“The term covers a broad spectrum of concepts relating to abilities or competencies a person develops through learning, experience and practice.
It is worth noting that terms used to categorise skills often overlap and are used interchangeably.
The skills in skills-based hiring
When skills are referred to in skills-based hiring, what is meant are the abilities or competencies that enable someone to do a job well.
Examples of the types of skills considered include: hard, soft, behavioural, cognitive and adjacent. Concepts like character attributes, human capabilities, and knowledge may also be included…
To summarise, when hiring with skills we want to identify all of the abilities or competencies that will enable someone to do a job well.”1
Same terms, different meanings
There is no globally recognised standard definition for different skill types, and meanings often overlap and are used interchangeably.
This means a feature of discussions about skills and skills-based hiring is that people may use the same terms to describe different things.
Does that matter?
It can when implementing skills-based hiring. Here’s why.
When you are identifying the skills your organisation needs or the skills requirements for a specific job, it’s useful to have a checklist of different types of skills to make sure you include the full range of skills needed.
It helps avoid confusion if you understand that your colleagues may be using the same terms to mean different things as you identify such skills.
Knowing this, I’d encourage you to:
Clarify what your organisation means by different skill terms
Build a common understanding of definitions for skill types and individual skills
Create a skills taxonomy for your organisation
Skill types
As a frame of reference, the following provides sample descriptions and examples for different skill types.
NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list of skill types or the skills associated with each one. You may have a different understanding of each one or use a different term to describe them.
Sample descriptions
Hard
The skills an individual needs to deliver the everyday requirements of a job, e.g. technical, manual and specialist skills.
Soft
The skills an individual needs to do a job well, e.g. time management, the ability to prioritise, communication skills, skills related to emotional intelligence.
The term ‘soft skills’ is often also used to describe the following skill types.
Behavioural
The behaviours someone exhibits, e.g. discipline, empathy, self-regulation.
Cognitive
How someone thinks through scenarios and approaches problems, e.g. critical thinking, logical reasoning, systems thinking.
Adjacent
These are skills that commonly sit alongside another skill. For example, a software developer needs coding skills but may also need project management skills in order to effectively manage the different aspects of a software development project.
Related concepts
Knowledge
Knowledge may be referenced independently from skills and pertains to what someone needs to know in order to be able to do their job.
Character attributes
These overlap with soft/behavioural skills and may also be referred to as personal attributes, characteristics, character traits or similar terms.
They may be used to describe things like adaptability, honesty, openness or having a skills/learning mindset.
Human capabilities
This term may be used to refer to the range of skills, knowledge and attributes a person has that enables them to achieve positive outcomes.
Identifying the skills your business needs
With a common understanding of the types of skills you might consider, it’s easier to identify the skills your business needs.
This aids the first stage of skills discovery and talent acquisition with skills-based hiring.
More on that later!
I provide various consulting and advisory services. If you‘d like to explore how we can work together, please get in touch by contacting me here.
This post contains excerpts from a skills-based hiring starter pack I’ve written recently that has been published by HRZone. Get your copy here: Closing the critical skills gap: Your skills-based hiring starter pack.
Skills-based hiring series
This post is part of a series on skills-based hiring. Subscribe to receive notifications of new posts.
Read the report, ‘Closing the critical skills gap: Your skills-based hiring starter pack’. Written by Hamilton, G. Published by HRZone in 2025.