DOL Publishes Skills-Based Hiring Guide

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a resource guide on Nov. 13 designed to educate employers about the benefits of using skills-first hiring practices.

The Skills-First Hiring Starter Kit, developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a guide to hiring, promotion, and management built around worker skills rather than degree qualifications.

The guide includes resources from various organizations advocating for skills-first employment, including Jobs for the Future, Opportunity@Work, and SHRM. 

“Skills-first hiring practices can be a way of helping workers get ahead through good jobs,” said Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. “Our Starter Kit provides the blueprint for employers to take concrete steps to begin skills-first hiring and provide economic opportunity for workers who face barriers—not because they are not highly skilled—but because of where they attained those skills.”

We’ve rounded up articles and resources from SHRM and other outlets to provide more context on the news.

Recruiting Best Practices

Skills-based hiring refers to the hiring or promotion of workers around the skills, knowledge, and abilities that workers can demonstrate they have, regardless of how or where they attained those skills. The DOL promotes skills-based hiring as a recruiting best practice and aims to provide employers with more information on how to conduct skills-based hiring beyond simply removing  

four-year degree requirements from jobs that don’t require them.

(DOL)

AI Has the Potential to Advance Skills-First Hiring

​Skills-first hiring has been gaining support from academics, policymakers, innovators, nonprofits, and employers. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is being seen as a potential accelerant for the movement, both as a way to identify skills and operationalize skills mobility and as the catalyst to do so.

(SHRM)

Skills-Based Hiring Requires Commitment to Change

The momentum for skills-based hiring is clearly growing, but how can employers get started with this new approach? Hiring for skills will require a mindset shift in which candidates are “screened in” instead of “screened out,” necessitating new ways to define roles, write job ads, evaluate candidates, manage performance, and develop employees.

(SHRM)

SHRM to Launch Skills-First Center of Excellence

The Skills-First Center of Excellence from SHRM and the SHRM Foundation will show employers how to prioritize job candidates’ skills, talents, aptitudes, and competencies. The aim is to lessen an over-reliance on factors such as college degrees that can serve as proxies for job capability and, in doing so, overlook people with the skills employers seek. The online hub is expected to launch in early 2025.

(SHRM)