LinkedIn’s new skills-based recruiting initiative aims to connect employers and job seekers by identifying core skills for open positions, and then connecting qualified candidates to those positions based on their skills.

The Skills Path program is a new way to use LinkedIn Recruiter, in which learning courses and company skills assessments match non-traditional candidates with job interviews. More than a dozen companies are already participating in the pilot program, including BlackRock, Citrix, Gap, Gusto, TaskRabbit and Wayfair.

“The way we hire can be overwhelming,” said Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn vice president of products. “Many recruiting processes depend on relevant experience or credentials to find candidates, but sometimes the best fit for the job comes from a community that an employer has never considered before. “

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of London-based job search engine Adzuna, said the company has conditioned people to think that “the more education you have, the better your job. This is not necessarily true. , and It does not necessarily have to be so. Not having a university degree must become more standardized in the talent pools considered by employers, and [is] something that qualified employees should not be ashamed of. There simply isn’t the availability of formally qualified talent to meet the demand in booming industries like technology and digital marketing, meaning a huge opportunity for employers keen to train or develop workers. on the job. ”

Srinivasan explained how Skills Path works:

• First, hiring managers at participating companies identify core competencies for specific roles.
• Applicants will be asked to demonstrate competence in a multiple choice assessment, as well as in a video or written test. Job seekers can fill their skills gaps with LinkedIn’s free learning courses organized for the job requirements.
• Those who pass the tests are guaranteed an interview with a recruiter.

“Competency-based recruiting is about first knowing what those skills are and then knowing how to reliably validate those skills,” Srinivasan said. “If we can hire people based on their skills, it allows employers to adapt much faster to a rapidly changing labor market, and many more job seekers will have many more opportunities available to them. . Coupled with learning, people can create a path to a career that they might not have thought possible. ”

Pilot participants use the program to hire customer service and sales representatives, data analysts, project managers, recruiters, and logistics coordinators.

“The common thread is that these are in-demand roles and improving skills requires knowledge that can be learned digitally,” Srinivasan said. “It wouldn’t work to hire a neurosurgeon, for example. But there are a lot of ways it would work.”

Gap uses Skills Path to fill Inventory Planning Analyst positions at its Banana Republic brand. Candidates will be assessed on Excel, their analytical skills, communication and problem solving skills, said Meghan Kelly, global head of talent acquisition for the San Francisco-based retailer. The company plans to apply the method for customer support roles in the future.

“In our industry, some roles and functions will continue to require specific accreditation, but there are many roles where it is more important to have the right skills, no matter where or if you were educated or in what industry you are. currently working, ”she said. “For these roles, skills and experience are the first indication of success and these are the areas we plan to explore with Skills Path.”

Srinivasan said the idea for Skills Path came from the disconnect experienced at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of workers in some industries were made redundant while other industries couldn’t hire quickly enough.

“Workers often don’t realize that the skills they have for one job can be easily transferred to another job,” he said. “But the point is, even if they realize it, they can’t be hired until employers realize it too.”

Part of a larger trend

Skills Path is part of a growing movement toward skills-based hiring rather than traditional education requirements like a four-year college degree.

LinkedIn reported a 21% increase over the last year in job postings in the United States that advertise skills and responsibilities instead of qualifications and requirements, and the number of positions that do not require university degree increased by almost 40% from 2019 to 2020..

Organizations around the world are scrambling to systematically map and categorize tasks and jobs based on skill set, while providers offering short degree upgrading and retraining programs have exploded.

“Competency-based recruiting helps employers fill their vacancies with high-quality talent and helps the 70 million people who are excluded from having the opportunity to get a good job just because they don’t. no bachelor’s degree, ”said Cristian Sirera, senior manager of corporate partnerships at Opportunity @ Work, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit group focused on expanding career opportunities for people without a college degree. “About 75 percent of all new jobs require a bachelor’s degree, and about 65 percent of the workforce doesn’t – the math doesn’t work,” he said.

The organization is partnering with employers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the Washington, DC area to work on the career path, identify roles that may be open to more applicants, and match people to these jobs.

Sirera said that when discussing the issue with employers, “it is understood that the current path is interrupted for so many people. Employers don’t know what to do about it, but they understand there is a problem. . When an employer is intentional about solving this problem, we can talk about journeys, we can bring candidates into the process, we can re-educate recruiting teams to make sure they know these candidates. ”

Kelly said that tailoring development and onboarding resources to support non-traditional new hires is another critical piece of the puzzle. “We know that when we hire a skills-based hire, which is not from a similar company or vertical retail business, we need to develop a more dynamic program to support their development and success with the role, the team and the business, “she said.” While competency-based recruiting is an important evolutionary change, it will be just as important for organizations to commit to identifying and delivering the right onboarding and the right training for the role and the individual. ”