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skills-based hiring 90 day roadmap featured image

"But how do we actually do this?" We often hear this question after companies see the compelling ROI of skills-based hiring. You're convinced by the numbers, energized by the potential, but now comes the real challenge: implementation. You don't need to reinvent your entire hiring process overnight. Companies that successfully transition to skills-based hiring typically follow a methodical approach that builds momentum through early wins. Let's break down exactly how you and your teams can move 

Your 90-day roadmap for implementing skills-based hiring

Hiring & recruiting

White-collar vs. blue-collar recruitment featured image

Recruitment isn’t a one-size-fits-all process, especially when it comes to white-collar vs. blue-collar roles. The strategies that land top software engineers won't always work for hiring a carpenter, for instance.  But which strategies should you use to land the best talent for your blue- and white-collar roles? And how, exactly, are the two types of recruitment different? We break it all down for you in this guide.  Below, we explore the unique challenges of recruiting for white-collar and blu

White-collar vs. blue-collar recruitment: Key differences for hiring

Skills-based hiring

Can skills-based hiring solve tech’s diversity problem? 

“Experience matters. We hire old people. (And young people, too).” [1] This bold 2021 job ad by tech startup RelevantDB quickly drew attention to tech’s long-standing diversity problem when it comes to hiring older workers. However, tech’s diversity issue isn’t just about the lack of older workers. Data shows that the industry also tends to hire fewer women, Black and Latinx workers, and individuals with disabilities.  Despite recent contractions in the job market, tech is expected to expand mor

Can skills-based hiring solve tech’s diversity problem? The data says yes.

Skills-based hiring reduces mis-hires for 90% of employers featured image

Despite an influx of labor from the tech layoffs, a cooling labor market, and access to more global talent than ever, 51% of employers are having difficulty finding top talent in 2024.  What’s worse – even when you think you’ve found the right person for the job, there’s still a good chance it won’t work out. One study even showed that nearly 75% of recruiters admit to having hired the wrong person for a vacancy – wasting time, resources, and money. [1] Luckily, things are changing. We recently 

Skills-based hiring reduces mis-hires for 90% of employers. Here’s why.

For job seekers

How skills-based hiring can help you land your dream job

Today’s job market is challenging for employers and job seekers alike. While companies are struggling to fill their roles, candidates are having a tough time landing good jobs.  It’s frustrating, right? You might work hard, try to gather relevant experience, take online courses, and more – only to get rejected. Or, you might think going after a job is pointless – even if you feel capable. We get it, and we’re here to help.  Our latest research shows that skills-based hiring is the ultimate solut

Claim the job of your dreams with skills-based hiring

Why do younger generations prefer skills-based hiring

According to a recent survey for our 2024 State of Skills-Based Hiring report, 68% of employees prefer a skills-based hiring process. For 25 to 34-year-olds, this number goes up to 82%.  The question that naturally follows is – what makes skills-based hiring so appealing to younger workers? In this article, we take a look at millennial and Gen Z workers and what drives their preference for skills-centric recruitment processes. 

Why do younger generations prefer skills-based hiring?

Talent assessment

Top 10 eSkill Alternatives for a Streamlined Talent Assessment Process

Talent assessments are the future of hiring – but to build a truly skills-first hiring process, you need the right software tools. eSkill is a platform many HR teams use to evaluate candidates’ skills during recruitment, but although it’s overall a good choice, it has its limitations.  For example, many of its customers complain that its user interface feels clunky and isn’t very intuitive – or that its integrations aren’t built in a very user-friendly way. That’s why we’ve set out on a mission 

Top 10 eSkill alternatives to assess and hire top talent

4 simple ways to master skills-based hiring

For many employers, skills-based hiring has been a game-changer. It's helped them find top talent, boost diversity, and save time and money – despite an unfavorable job market.  Unfortunately, not everyone is seeing these benefits, and we get how frustrating it can be. You’ve got the best intentions. Maybe you’re using tried and tested skills-based practices. Overall, you’re trying to change how you hire – and somehow, you’re still falling short.  Don’t worry, though – we've got your back. We di

Does skills-based hiring scale? Your guide to using it as an org-wide recruitment strategy

With 73% of employers using skills-based hiring in 2023, the way we hire is truly evolving towards practices that focus on skills. Technology is also evolving to facilitate this shift. There’s a real need for employers to be able to reliably measure and quantify the skills that their applicants have, and software companies that specialize in building science-backed skills-based hiring solutions are there to meet that need. As a result, skills-based hiring solutions are more accessible than ever.

Why is the federal government prioritizing skills-based hiring featured image

The federal government is the largest employer in the US, with close to 3 million workers around the country. [1]  Despite this, the government’s approach to hiring hasn’t changed significantly in decades – until now. Over the last few years, a clear shift to skills-based hiring has emerged. This shift challenges the “paper ceiling” – a metaphor for the unofficial barriers that prevent skilled individuals without formal degrees from accessing certain career opportunities.  So, what does this shi

Why is the federal government prioritizing skills-based hiring?

I’ve been helping people implement skills-based hiring with TestGorilla for over 2 years now, and recently someone asked me which questions come up the most during onboarding calls. If we’re being literal about it, then the most common question I get asked during a call is “How are you?”, but if pleasantries didn’t count, it would be, “What are your recommended best practices?”  Consider this blog post a culmination of all the times I’ve answered that question. Read on to learn about the steps I

How to adopt skills-based hiring: 6 tips for success (and 3 things to avoid)

Skills-based hiring is the ultimate way to retain talent featured image

Losing talent can seriously disrupt growth and put your business on the back foot. If that’s not scary enough – replacing employees in today’s deprived labor markets is tough.  It’s no surprise that retention is currently top of mind for most employers. [1] Despite this,  the last few years have seen some of the worst turnover rates in decades [2], leaving employers confused and frustrated.  So, what’s going wrong?  Maybe you’re hiring people who were a flight risk to begin with. Perhaps you’re 

How to retain talent with skills-based hiring

9 key negotiation skills (and how to assess them)

At TestGorilla, we believe the future of hiring is skills-based. But that’s only the beginning. Organizations wanting to future-proof their workforces shouldn’t stop at skills-based hiring. They must also place skills at the center of building and managing their workforces. This approach creates a culture of continuous learning, adaptability, and innovation throughout your organization, benefiting both the business and your employees.  In this article, we make the case for an approach to hiring 

What is a skills-based workforce? The key to future-proofing your business

30 medical assistant interview questions and sample answers featured image

In a recent Gartner survey of HR managers, 47% admitted they didn’t know what skills gaps existed in their current workforce. [1]  This finding is surprising given this information's crucial role in effective recruitment, strategic workforce management, and succession planning. It’s even more astonishing considering there’s a dedicated tool designed to help organizations understand their workforce’s skills: skills ontologies.  Some organizations dismiss skills ontologies as overly complex, acade

Why you should use a skills ontology: The foundation of strategic, skills-based hiring

States across the US are implementing a skills-based approach to hiring and rewriting the rules to traditional hiring practices.  Instead of evaluating candidates on their education and background, they’re going in search of diverse talent who have the skills needed for the job. This opens up opportunities to people who might miss out because they’ve been skilled through alternative routes (STARs) or don’t have a degree. However, not all states are created equal in their approaches to hiring and

Skills-based hiring is the latest US hiring trend – and these 5 states are getting it right

One of the main objectives most successful professionals pursue is to be as efficient as possible at their jobs. For someone in a hiring role, this means hiring and retaining the right people for your company while spending as little time and resources as possible on the task.  To do that, you’re going to need more than blind effort and sheer luck. Even your best efforts can turn out to be fruitless if they’re not organized.  Optimizing your hiring process is easy when you implement a talent ass

What is a talent assessment framework – and why do you need one?

Still relying on highly defined roles and fancy job titles? While these may have been the gold standard in the past, they’re outdated and damaging in today’s fast-moving world.  The smartest companies know they must stay agile – they’re ditching the old playbook and transitioning to what’s known as a skills-based organization. Skills-based organizations are reshaping the future of work. I believe they are the future – and you could seriously lose out if you don't pay attention.  Not sure what al

How to build a skills-based organization: A step-by-step guide to success

Human resources

Soft skills are attributes and traits that are not job-specific. These are broad, non-technical skills that can be applied to many different roles. A few examples of soft skills include effective communication, adaptability, teamwork, active listening, and time management. Soft skills are near-universal in their applicability. An employee with any of these soft skills on top of their hard skills is more effective than an employee with hard skills alone. This guide contains our lists of the most 

A list of the soft skills HR professionals and job seekers should know

If you’re interested in anything skills-based hiring-related – whether it’s rate of adoption, employee attitudes, or the benefits and impact of this hiring practice – then you’re in exactly the right place.  We collected responses from over 2,000 employers and employees to bring you The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2024; now, we’re bringing you 47 key skills-based hiring statistics.

51 key skills-based hiring statistics

At a time when great talent comes at a significant premium employers are realizing that they need tools to assess candidates’ skills more quickly and reliably.  Unfortunately, resumes are prone to bias, difficult to evaluate objectively, and often lead to inaccurate hiring decisions. That's why many organizations are now choosing to hire people based on their skills rather their education or experience.  By making the switch to skills-based hiring employers can drastically reduce their time and 

 The data on why employers are hiring people based on skills

Skills-based hiring is a hiring process where evidence of candidates’ skills, rather than other information such as their prior experience or where they were educated, is used to make hiring decisions. As such, employers set specific skill requirements and then measure for these skills. We’re all about skills-based hiring at TestGorilla, and the rest of the world is finally catching up. Skills-based hiring has had lots of press of late, with big names such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, CNB

What is skills-based hiring?

With increasing demands for skills-based hiring from employers, employees, and job-seekers, it’s important to understand the crucial role that recruitment tests play in the process.  Recruitment tests focus on candidates’ provable skills and abilities instead of inaccurate, bias-prone strategies like degree and resume requirements.  But what’s test recruitment and how can it benefit your organization?  Below, we’ll explore what recruitment tests are, why you should use them, and the seven types 

7 recruitment tests to include in your campaign 

21 full stack developer interview questions (+ answers) featured image

The most skilled and capable individuals aren’t always the people you’d expect, or the loudest people in the room. As a result, in the quest to build high-performing teams, you might often overlook the hidden talent within your existing workforce. This is particularly the case for STARs (people skilled through alternative routes), individuals from underprivileged backgrounds, or those with impostor syndrome who find it harder to advocate for themselves despite having the skills necessary to move

6 ways skills-based hiring can help you identify hidden gems in your organization

Skills-based hiring provides a fairer way to assess candidates and foster more diverse, inclusive, and high-performing teams.  However, its impact is limited if practices are only half implemented.  Without tracking and measuring the success of your skills-based hiring process, you’ll struggle to optimize your talent acquisition strategy fully. You may still be under-representing particular groups, adding inefficiencies into your hiring process, or missing opportunities to improve the employee/c

Measuring the success of skills-based hiring: Metrics and best practices

According to Gallup, 50% of the US workforce alone are “quiet quitters," showing up to work and doing the bare minimum.[1] This detachment from work has huge implications for productivity, company performance, and employee satisfaction. Especially as, in parallel, HR managers say the needle isn’t moving on employee engagement.[2] However, when you focus on skills-based hiring and regular skills testing and development for existing employees, you can increase engagement and get the best person fo

Skills don’t quit: How skills-based hiring helps prevent quiet quitting

We live in strange times, with what seems like a “once-in-a-lifetime event” occurring every few months.  Market conditions, hiring practices, and the working landscape itself are constantly shifting. This means that organizations need agility and flexibility to properly respond. Companies need processes and people that are ready to solve problems and take on sudden challenges with a healthy mindset and plan. Skills-based organizations are companies that put skills first when hiring, developing t

How skills-based organizations increase their agility and become more adaptable

Increasingly more HR professionals are feeling pressure from events like the pandemic and the Great Discontent. Organizations need top talent, and top talent is scarce. A simple solution to this growing problem is out there: talent sharing. Talent sharing is when a company shares employee skills across departments and teams, or possibly with a separate organization. It’s an agile strategy that enables hiring managers to find the skills they need, and it also gives new career opportunities to emp

The relationship between skills-based hiring and talent sharing

It’s well-known that STEM industries – industries under the umbrella of science, technology, engineering, and math – are some of the least diverse industries out there. Despite that the skills needed for a software engineer are not inherent to any race, gender, or other demographic categories, 93% of professional developers are men, more than 40% are White, and more than 98% do not have a disability.[1]  Given that more than 90% of organizations that switched to skills-based hiring in 2022 saw a

What’s causing inequality in STEM, and is skills-based hiring the solution?

When employees feel like they belong at work and are an integral part of a close-knit team, the results are far-reaching: Their job performance increases by 56%, their turnover reduces by 50%, and they take 75% fewer sick days.[1] Belonging is also cited as a leading driver of employee engagement, and 91% of employees who feel they belong are engaged at work as opposed to 20% of those who don’t.[2]  However, creating a culture of belonging at work involves more than offering a friendly welcome t

How skills-based hiring can build a culture of belonging

“You’re overqualified.” “We’re looking for a youthful digital native.” The hiring world is obsessed with age. After decades of linking stereotypes to certain ages, it’s become second nature to assume that younger workers are inexperienced or older workers can’t learn complicated programming. It’s about time we stopped thinking of people as either “too young” or “too old” for a position and started looking at individual skills instead. Is the candidate able to get the job done? Yes? Then hire the

How skills-based hiring ends ageism and our obsession with age

An ideal candidate profile (ICP) is a common recruiting tactic used by hiring managers. These documents include the ideal requirements for open roles, such as skills, work experience, education, motivation, and career goals. But a few of those points can be problematic. When you make assumptions about a candidate’s “required” experience and education, it narrows your talent pool – or even worse, it leads to a bad hire. So what about a skills-based ideal candidate profile? Developing an ICP that 

 How to create a skills-based ideal candidate profile

Skills-based hiring has proven to be revolutionary for companies in countries around the world, ensuring they can locate, hire, and develop talented workers. But not all countries have fully adopted skills-based hiring, if at all.  The consequences of relying on traditional hiring practices include failing to fill important vacancies with skilled workers, missing out on or driving away diverse talent, improperly upskilling, and burning out existing employees.  For example, the European Union’s t

How skills-based hiring is a game-changer for Europe and the UK

Quick, efficient, and effective — it’s focused on adaptability, innovation, and putting the right person in a role. Now ask yourself: Are we talking about agile recruitment or skills-based hiring? Agile recruitment has helped countless hiring teams increase performance and hire better candidates. It has a focus on communication and quality. We believe skills-based hiring aligns perfectly with agile methods. They share many key qualities and complement each other’s processes as if they were built

The connection between skills-based hiring and agile recruitment

The healthcare industry is one of the largest in the US. The market size was valued at $359.2bn in 2022 and is projected to reach $781.5bn by 2030.[1] This massive industry is currently facing a massive talent gap. Thousands of healthcare workers are leaving the industry, and too few are coming in. This means the healthcare sector needs to attract talent, stay competitive, improve working conditions, and retain top employees. It’s certainly a tall order, but there’s a solid solution to each of t

Skills-based hiring in the healthcare industry

Innovation drives organizations forward, leading to better discoveries and improved financial performance. It’s a core priority, and every business is looking for ways to nurture it. But “innovation” isn’t exactly a measurable metric like turnover or retention. As important as it is, companies struggle to nail down concrete ways to boost innovation. What does innovation look like in a skills-based organization? Does skills-based hiring have an impact on innovative thinking? We might have cracked

Does skills-based hiring have an impact on innovation and innovative thinking?

Sometimes the benefits of skills-based hiring sound too good to be true – lower cost-to-hire for a higher quality employee who stays longer? By switching to skills-based hiring, thousands of organizations save recruiting costs through higher-quality hires, faster time-to-hire, and longer retention. We’re here to tell you that skills-based hiring isn’t too good to be true, but it isn’t magic either. Like any new practice, it needs some consideration to properly incorporate into your processes. Ma

How does skills-based hiring affect your recruiting budget?

Job candidates are putting their desires front and center when searching for a new job in 2023.  In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation, keeping track of what job candidates want out of their employer and career is crucial for attracting and retaining talent. Gone are the days when candidates would bend over backward to fill out job applications, endlessly tweak their resumes, and sit through round after round of interviews.  Candidates want a speedy hiring process, 

How skills-based hiring delivers what job candidates want in 2023

The average Black or Hispanic household in the United States earns about half as much as the average White household.[1] This phenomenon, known as the racial wealth gap, embodies racial inequality in the United States, threatening the economic security of the families it affects and the economy as a whole.  The racial wealth gap doesn’t just appear in wage disparities between different racial groups. It also appears in the hiring process.  Most notably, traditional hiring practices (those emphas

How skills-based hiring can help close the racial wealth gap 

A job application is a pretty standard form to fill out. They’re a way to quickly list out achievements, skills, and competencies – and an equally quick way to tell employers your name, age, gender, and race. If this sounds like an opportunity to open the door to unconscious bias to you, you’re right. Anonymous job applications sidestep this issue by removing certain personal details from the process, instead focusing on whether or not the candidate has the right skills, like solid computer lite

Does anonymous hiring fit into a skills-based approach?

The essential metrics for an HR professional are mis-hires and turnover. They became even more relevant to the conversation after the Great Discontent. Hiring an unsuitable candidate after months of searching is detrimental to your company, and losing a current employee is just as painful. Maybe there’s a simple way to manage these tricky metrics. According to TestGorilla’s State of Skills-Based Hiring report, of companies that used skills-based hiring, 91.2% of organizations saw an increase in 

How skills-based hiring leads to fewer mis-hires and helps combat employee churn

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The skills-based hiring handbook

A comprehensive guide packed with detailed strategies, timelines, and best practices — to help you build a seamless onboarding plan.

How to elevate employee onboarding

A comprehensive guide with in-depth comparisons, key features, and pricing details to help you choose the best talent assessment platform.

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Top talent assessment platforms: A detailed guide

This in-depth guide includes tools, metrics, and a step-by-step plan for tracking and boosting your recruitment ROI.

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The blueprint for boosting your recruitment ROI

A step-by-step blueprint that will help you maximize the benefits of skills-based hiring from faster time-to-hire to improved employee retention.

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The skills-based hiring checklist

With our onboarding email templates, you'll reduce first-day jitters, boost confidence, and create a seamless experience for your new hires.

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Essential onboarding email templates

 Get all the essentials of HR in one place! This cheat sheet covers KPIs, roles, talent acquisition, compliance, performance management, and more to boost your HR expertise.

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The HR cheat sheet

Onboarding employees can be a challenge. This checklist provides detailed best practices broken down by days, weeks, and months after joining.

Employee onboarding checklist

Track all the critical calculations that contribute to your recruitment process and find out how to optimize them with this cheat sheet.

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Key hiring metrics cheat sheet

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