Skills-Based Hiring and Mobility: HR Leaders Share the First Moves That Worked
Traditional degree requirements are giving way to skills-based hiring strategies, but many HR leaders struggle to know where to begin. This article presents practical first steps from experts who have successfully implemented skills-based hiring and internal mobility programs across different industries and functions. Their proven approaches offer clear guidance for organizations ready to shift from credentials to competencies.
Start with Portfolio-Rich Functions, Align Evaluations
We chose an area where skill evidence already appeared in everyday work to avoid overwhelming the team. Editorial and learning design roles were a good starting point because portfolios and daily work showed clear ability. This helped us define what strong performance looked like without creating a complicated process. It also gave us a fair way to compare our previous hiring approach with a skills based model.
We kept the pilot focused and easy to manage from the beginning. We asked hiring managers to agree on the key skills and matched interview questions to those areas. This made interviews more consistent and helped us identify stronger candidates with greater confidence. Those early results encouraged other teams to support and adopt the same approach.
Choose Web Team, Remove Degrees, Test Live
I'm Brian Chasin, MBA, the CFO of Soba New Jersey, specializing in corporate finance, M&As, IPOs, and large-scale real estate transactions.
We chose our digital communication/website maintenance team to be our pilot area for skills-based recruitment. Practical application is superior to formal education in evaluating technical digital tasks. To enhance self-taught web specialist access, we eliminated the computer science degree requirement from the postings for this role and requested applicants provide a portfolio of their previous work, or links to their GitHub repository. A short 20-minute live content edit exercise was used during an interview to evaluate each applicant's ability to produce quality verified technical output. Through successful completion of this evaluation process, we were able to successfully identify and retain qualified web coordinators who have been able to complete all of the necessary digital platform updates with great reliability.
Target Outreach, Scrap Credentials, Adopt Anonymous Samples
To develop and implement a safe, skills-based evaluation system at our company, we first identified our corporate community outreach and events management department as the target group. Because community outreach is primarily a function of effective communication with the general public, presentation was the most important factor when evaluating potential employees for these positions.
To provide opportunities for individuals who have been underrepresented in traditionally employed positions, we deleted degree requirement language from all job postings; we also added an opportunity for applicants to submit an anonymous work sample prior to their resume being evaluated. As part of this new work sample component of the application process, candidates were required to submit either a one-page community event proposal or a written information summary. We reviewed each applicant's resume anonymously, solely by its content and quality. This anonymous review process eliminated initial bias due to background and provided us with opportunities to identify talented communicators who had developed strong practical skills through alternative means rather than simply relying on traditional education.
Begin in Inventory, Specify Outputs, Include Trials
We stopped requiring college degrees for warehouse operations roles in 2019, and it immediately opened up a talent pool we'd been ignoring. I had guys with 15 years of forklift experience getting auto-rejected by our ATS because they didn't have a BA. Made zero sense.
The first area we tested was inventory management positions. These roles needed pattern recognition, attention to detail, and the ability to work fast under pressure. None of that requires a diploma. We rewrote the job description to focus on what someone would actually DO in the first 90 days instead of listing credentials. Instead of "Bachelor's degree preferred and 3 years warehouse experience," we wrote "You'll count 500+ SKUs daily, investigate discrepancies within 24 hours, and coordinate with 4 different teams to solve problems." Then we added a paid skills assessment where candidates spent two hours doing actual inventory tasks.
Applications from qualified people tripled. We hired a former line cook who became our best inventory manager within six months. He had no warehouse background but understood systems and moved with urgency. That's what mattered.
The single biggest interview change was adding a working session instead of the standard "tell me about a time when" questions. For operations roles, candidates spent an hour on the floor doing real tasks while we observed. For account management positions, we gave them an actual client problem to solve with 30 minutes of prep time. You learn more watching someone work through a messy returns issue than hearing them recite rehearsed stories about leadership.
This approach scared our HR team at first because it required more time upfront. But our 90-day retention rate jumped from 64% to 81% because people knew exactly what they were signing up for. No surprises.
The untapped talent was always there. We just had to stop filtering for proxies and start testing for actual ability. At Fulfill.com, I see 3PLs struggling with the same hiring challenges I faced. The ones who figure out skills-based hiring first will dominate because this labor shortage isn't temporary.
Pilot QA, Measure Outcomes, Replace Requirements with Auditions
Selecting the Quality Assurance division as the first test case for skills-focused recruitment has allowed us to see quantifiable results of such an approach straight away, since the output is straightforward: it is known if a bug has been found or not. By starting from a place where qualification can be measured, we were able to demonstrate that the ability of a candidate to break the system and describe the failure is a much better predictor of success than the educational institution or previous jobs. The fact that the work of candidates could be assessed straight away enabled the delivery teams to observe the power of talents who would have usually raised red flags during standard recruiting processes. It created less anxiety for the team because we could see immediately whether the candidate was able to produce work that demonstrated their skills instead of going through reports from background checks.
The most important change we introduced to give more opportunities to more candidates that are not usually considered for employment is rather simple: we just substituted the typical requirements section with a technical audition. Instead of giving specific years of expertise in a certain domain as a requirement, we invited candidates to solve a real problem or analyze sample code as the first step. This implies a shift from the subjective assessment of candidates, meaning that people with non-standard backgrounds who, for various reasons, cannot be hired using standard recruitment processes, can be considered for roles requiring the appropriate skill set.
Focus on Care Teams, Emphasize Empathy, Scenario Interviews
We've always put kids first at Sunny Glen Children's Home, and when we shifted toward skills for hiring and internal moves, I started with our residential care team. That's the heart of what we do in San Benito, serving the Rio Grande Valley with child care and support for kids who've been through so much. Credentials are fine, but we picked this area because the real value shows up in daily interactions. Patience, building trust, listening. Skills that don't always come with a diploma. It didn't overwhelm us since our team already lives that mission of restoring hope, rooted in our Christian foundation since 1936. We kept the change small: focused on one role type first, measured how new hires connected with the kids, and built from there without overhauling everything. When resources are tight like they often are in nonprofit work, you prioritize the frontline spots that address physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of vulnerable children.
One change that really opened doors for untapped talent? We rewrote job postings to lead with must-have skills like empathy for neglected youth, reliability, and clear communication, then dropped the blanket degree requirements. In interviews, we added real scenarios from our work with refugee children or those in Supervised Independent Living at the Allen House. Candidates from all walks of life could show how they'd handle a kid needing that full support. It's made a huge difference. We've attracted people who get our holistic approach and CARF standards without the paper barriers. Access improved because folks with life experience, maybe former foster youth or community volunteers, now shine. I'm convinced this skills-first path is how nonprofits like us keep serving more of those 25,000-plus kids we've helped over 90 years. You want talent that shows up ready to care, not just check boxes.
Opt for Support, Drop Tenure, Use Paid Demos
We are a small bootstrapped software company, and I never had the luxury of hiring on pedigree, so skills came first out of necessity. The first area where I leaned into it was customer support and onboarding, because it was the easiest place to see skill directly. You do not need a resume to tell whether someone can calm a frustrated broker and explain a workflow clearly. You just watch them do it.
The change that mattered most was rewriting job postings to drop the degree and years-of-experience lines and replace them with a short, paid work sample that mirrors the real job. For support that meant answering a few realistic customer messages. For a product role it meant a small real task. It widened the pool immediately, because people who would have self-selected out on the credential line applied when the ask was show me you can do the work.
The other change was structuring interviews around that sample instead of around history. We talk about what they did on the task, not where they went to school. It is how we ended up supporting 90,000+ users with a lean team, and most of our best hires would not have made it past a credential filter.
Select High-Volume Roles, Detail Duties, Add Exercises
We started with one role family where we hired often and where the day to day work was easy to describe as tasks rather than qualifications. Volume matters early on because it gives you enough hires to see whether a skills based approach is widening the pool, and observable skills let interviewers assess someone doing the work rather than reading a CV for proxies. Converting every vacancy at once tends to overwhelm a small team, so we kept it to that single area until managers were comfortable.
The posting change that made the clearest difference was removing the default degree requirement and replacing a long list of qualifications with a short description of what the person would do in their first few months. We also added a practical exercise to the interview that mirrored real tasks. Applications from people without conventional backgrounds rose, and managers found shortlists easier to compare because everyone had been assessed against the same work.
Prioritize Behavioral Assessments, Describe Situations, Expand Pipelines
We made the shift out of necessity, because in private household recruitment a polished CV tells you almost nothing about whether someone will actually thrive in a specific family's home. Two candidates with identical experience can perform completely differently depending on temperament and fit.
The first area we focused on was assessment rather than paper credentials. We built a structured evaluation process with a consultant psychologist that looks at how a candidate handles real situations, not just where they worked before. It surfaced strong people we would have overlooked if we had filtered on job titles alone.
The change to our process that made the biggest difference was rewriting how we describe roles. Instead of listing required years and past employers, we describe the actual situations the person will face and the qualities that matter in them. It opened the door to candidates from adjacent backgrounds who had the right instincts but not the conventional track record, and those placements have been some of our most durable.
