Skills-Based Hiring and Advancement
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation understands that in order to support economic growth and maintain global competitiveness, the U.S. must prioritize the development of a robust workforce. Emphasizing a skills-based approach to hiring and advancement can broaden talent pools and create more meaningful career opportunities for workers by removing barriers like more access to talent for employers, and improving the ability for job seekers to better highlight their full skillsets.
Skills-Based Hiring and Advancement (SBHA) is the process by which employers and their HR service providers identify, recruit hire, and advance candidates based on the match between a work opportunity’s skill requirements and a candidate’s skills.
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A Win-Win for Employers, Workers, and Learners
Employers are facing major challenges in closing their skills gaps, diversifying their workforces, and remaining agile in a rapidly changing global economy. As a result, many employers are pursuing skills-based hiring and advancement strategies. They are starting to re-align their requirements by asking for only their most critical specific skills while reducing their use of more indirect indicators of skills such as traditional college degrees and work experience that prevent them from tapping into a broader and more diverse pool of candidates pursuing alternative pathways. They also are exploring new recruitment and hiring practices enabled through advanced data analytics. However there remain many barriers to adoption and scaling.
Candidates also are facing major challenges in navigating this dynamic talent marketplace. These challenges can be addressed through a new generation of resumes and LERs and new analytics-based guidance services and initiatives, but adoption strategies are needed.
This T3 Innovation Network sponsored project provides a framework and forum for aligning and scaling innovative employer practices and initiatives with related learner and worker-centered initiatives designed to empower workers that together have the potential to create significant shared value.
Skills-Based Hiring and Advancement Use Cases Report
Read the Report
Scaling Up Skills-Based Employment Practices for American Businesses
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, and SHRM are joining together to scale up skills-based employment practices for American businesses.
Latest Content
Emerging technologies like AI are transforming work and society, a key focus at the 2024 ASU+GSV Summit. Cheryl Oldham and Lydia Logan explore AI’s impact on jobs and skills-based practices, highlighting how IBM and the Chamber Foundation together are shaping a stronger, more inclusive workforce.
More than 70 million adults in the United States are skilled through community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service or on-the-job learning, rather than through a bachelor’s degree. Learning and employment records (LERs) could play a critical role in advancing skills-based hiring practices and ensuring they are implemented equitably.
Skills-based hiring and advancement is the practice of evaluating a candidate beyond education credentials and experience requirements to assess a candidate’s unique skills, abilities and demonstrated competencies. At the 2023 Talent Forward, we asked ten industry leaders about how they are embracing skills-based hiring practices, and how employers can join the movement to build a more robust talent pipeline.
