Focus on Skills and Fight Talent Shortage

Skills-based hiring is a trend on talent acquisition specialists’ minds for a number of reasons. The main one is the current talent shortage, which requires sourcers and recruiters to think outside the box to fill openings. With one in ten seats in offices across the US empty, they need to juggle the demand for people to fill those seats, choosing the right profile for each position and moving quickly in a candidate-driven scenario.

Of course, there are specific roles that legally demand certain qualifications, but in a large number of scenarios, there are other benefits to implementing this approach to hiring.

By taking the focus away from traditional indicators such as candidates’ degrees, the school they went to and job titles, you can also promote diversity across talent pools. Focus on skills and find candidates with the knowledge to do the tasks, leveling the playing field for talent that may not have the typically impressive credentials, but who are qualified for a specific opening. Combine all the elements that make up a candidate’s profile and you’ll see that the sum of the parts is greater than each individual item on their resume.

Looking at candidates from a skills perspective also allows you to approach them with job openings they wouldn’t apply to under conventional circumstances but for which they have what it takes to get started. It’s not always about what someone has done so far in their career, but what they can potentially achieve.

How do you recruit today for a job that didn’t exist yesterday? You may not be able to find someone who has the years of experience but you can definitely find people with the skills to do the job, as long as you can clearly define and understand the skills that are required to be successful.

Jeremy Bloom

Manager, Digital Experience

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Avature Advantage

– Semantic Search allows you to find candidates based on skills. Enter a specific term of your choice and let the system suggests other related skills that may be relevant. You decide whether to add any to the search query.

– You can also use Candidate Recommendations to find the most compatible talent for a position. Give new life to your database and get suggestions for a requisition thanks to Avature’s powerful system, which shows you relevant candidates based on the similarities between the job record and their work experience and skills.

– You can also look at the talent that’s already in your company and is interested in new opportunities within the organization. With an AI-driven talent marketplace, connect employees with open positions, projects and upskilling opportunities that match their experience and interests.

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Every year, Cisco combs through a pool of 800,000 candidates to hire over 10k people. This cutting-edge organization enhances its recruiting strategy by focusing on skills instead of relying on past jobs or industry experience alone

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