Skills-Based Hiring: How to See Talent Beyond Credentials

Skills-based hiring promised to make the labor market more accessible by shifting attention from where candidates went to school to what they can actually do. Yet changing a job description is much easier than changing the systems and habits that determine who ultimately gets an offer.

Reports suggest a real gap between changing job requirements and changing hiring outcomes. In 2025, Harvard Business School conducted research with the Burning Glass Institute. The study found that companies that removed degree requirements saw only modest increases in hiring workers without degrees, with fewer than one in 700 new hires benefiting from the reforms overall. At the same time, the trend has not disappeared: Indeed reported in January 2026 that 19.3% of U.S. job postings required a bachelor’s degree or higher in November 2025, up from 16.6% two years earlier.

Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank say the question is therefore bigger than whether a degree appears in a job posting. The real test is whether employers have changed how they define qualified, evaluate candidates and recognize capability.

“A policy change without a change in how managers evaluate candidates is just cosmetic.”

– Sharifah Masten, Managing Partner and Principal Advisor at Counterpoint Collective

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Rewrite the Evaluation, Not Just the Posting

For Sharifah Masten, Managing Partner and Principal Advisor at Counterpoint Collective, the biggest problem with skills-based hiring is that organizations often change the qualification language without changing the decision-making process behind it.

Masten, a former Chief Human Resources Officer with more than two decades of experience across military, nonprofit and corporate environments, works with organizations on workforce strategy, leadership and organizational effectiveness. That perspective leads her to focus on what happens after a candidate sees the job description.

“Skills-based hiring has changed the job posting more than who gets hired,” Masten says. Removing a degree requirement, she explains, “does not automatically give hiring managers a reliable way to recognize capability that shows up through other paths.”

That is where old habits can return.

“Without that, the old default just reasserts itself at the point of decision,” Masten says.

She recommends rebuilding the evaluation process while the requirements are rewritten. Rather than treating non-degree candidates as exceptions to a degree-based standard, employers should define what an equivalent qualification actually means.

“Define concretely what ‘equivalent qualification’ actually looks like—a specific mix of experience, certifications and demonstrated skills that genuinely counts as equal to a degree, not a case-by-case exception,” she says.

That definition should guide screening and interviewing.

“Then retrain your screening and interview process around that definition,” Masten says. “A policy change without a change in how managers evaluate candidates is just cosmetic.”

The distinction matters because skills-based hiring is not simply a communications exercise. For employers, the lesson is straightforward: If the organization wants to hire differently, it needs to teach hiring managers how to recognize different forms of qualification.

“Studying’ and ‘learning’ aren’t synonyms.”

– Aida Figuerola, Neuropsychologist at Lift

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Hire for Learning, Not Just Past Study

Aida Figuerola, a Neuropsychologist at Lift, takes the question in a different direction. Instead of asking whether someone has the right credential, she wants to know if they’ll keep learning.

Figuerola’s work as a neuropsychologist gives her a perspective that extends beyond conventional hiring checklists. Her answer challenges the assumption that completing a particular course of study is enough to demonstrate readiness in a rapidly changing workplace.

“In a world changing this fast, four years of past study carries little weight on its own,” Figuerola says.

Her distinction between studying and learning matters as skills become outdated more quickly.

“‘Studying’ and ‘learning’ aren’t synonyms,” she says. “I’m looking for someone who learns, continuously and actively unlearning and relearning in their field, not someone who simply studied once.”

That shifts the focus from a candidate’s educational history to the behaviors that make someone valuable after they are hired.

“What I hire for is attitude, intelligence, adaptability and integrity,” Figuerola says. “A degree is fine if it built those, and fine if it didn’t.”

The implication for employers is that skills-based hiring should not simply replace a degree requirement with another static checklist. Hiring teams need to identify the capabilities that matter over time, including adaptability and the ability to keep developing.

“A degree can’t be treated as proof of current capability,” Figuerola says. “Anyone who has stopped growing and updating their knowledge is a no-go, regardless of educational background.”

That creates a useful test for employers: Does the hiring process measure what candidates know today, or does it assume that an old credential tells the organization what it needs to know?

“Until organizations reprogram their automated screening tools to parse verified skills, non-degree candidates remain invisible.”

– Volen Vulkov, Co-Founder of Enhancv

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Fix the Algorithmic Gatekeepers

Removing a degree requirement from a job description does not necessarily mean a candidate without a degree will make it through the screening process. Volen Vulkov, Co-Founder of Enhancv, points to a less visible barrier: the technology employers use to sort applications.

Vulkov is a resume expert who has written extensively about job applications, resumes and career development. His perspective highlights what happens when an organization adopts skills-based language but still relies on the systems built around traditional career signals.

“Skills-based hiring changed the job posting, but not the resume-parsing algorithms,” Vulkov says.

That distinction matters because applicant tracking systems (ATS) can influence who gets human attention before a recruiter or hiring manager ever evaluates a candidate.

According to Vulkov, companies may remove “degree required” from a job description while their screening systems continue to rely on “legacy keyword proxies like job titles and tier-one employers.”

The result is a process that can appear skills-based from the outside while still rewarding conventional credentials underneath.

“Until organizations reprogram their automated screening tools to parse verified skills, non-degree candidates remain invisible,” Vulkov says.

Technology can help identify capabilities, but only if employers configure those systems around the capabilities they actually want to measure.

This makes skills-based hiring a technology governance issue and a talent strategy issue. HR leaders should examine whether their screening tools reinforce the same educational and career signals that the organization claims it has moved away from.

The practical question is not simply whether an ATS can identify a skill. It is whether the system gives that skill comparable weight to the traditional proxies that once stood in for it.

Remove Barriers Before Candidates Disappear

Christopher Bylone, Principal Strategist at Innovation Unbiased, focuses on another part of the hiring funnel: candidates who never apply.

Bylone leads a consultancy focused on data-driven, people-centered workplace strategies and has led belonging initiatives at organizations including Krispy Kreme and IFF. His answer shows why measuring applications alone may not reveal the full effect of a degree requirement.

He points to a common job posting formula: “Advanced degree from a top institution, plus 15 years of progressive experience.”

“That is an and, not an or,” Bylone says. “The 15 years of proven results did not earn the seat. The diploma did, and the experience only confirmed it.”

But the problem starts before recruiters see a résumé.

“The bigger cost lands before you ever read a résumé,” he says. “The person without the advanced degree reads that line and closes the tab. They do not apply.”

That means employers can mistakenly interpret a small applicant pool as a shortage of qualified talent when the job description itself may be discouraging qualified people from entering the process.

“Your pipeline arrives prefiltered, and you never learn who you lost, because they show up in no report you run,” Bylone says.

The point changes how HR leaders should evaluate skills-based hiring. It is not enough to measure who eventually gets hired. Organizations also need to examine who is discouraged from applying in the first place.

“The data will tell you the market is thin. The market is not thin. The posting is,” Bylone says.

Every qualification must earn its place.

“Is this needed before they can start the job, or is this something they can learn once they are here?” he asks. “If they can learn it here, cut it from the list.”

For employers, that creates a simple but powerful discipline: distinguish genuine job requirements from preferences that merely describe the traditional candidate.

Expand the Definition of Qualified

Britton Bloch, VP, Global Talent Acquisition Strategy and Head of Recruiting at Navy Federal Credit Union, adds an important qualification to the skills-based hiring debate: The goal isn’t to eliminate degrees. It is to eliminate unnecessary barriers.

Bloch’s talent acquisition background makes that distinction particularly important. Skills-based hiring can be counterproductive if organizations treat every credential as irrelevant rather than determining which requirements genuinely predict success.

“The goal of skills-based hiring should not be to eliminate degrees; it is to eliminate unnecessary degree barriers,” Bloch says. “Degrees remain a valuable pathway and, for some roles, an essential qualification.”

That nuance keeps the conversation grounded. Some positions absolutely require education, licensing or specialized training that cannot simply be replaced by experience. However, when a degree functions mainly as a screening shortcut, employers can widen the pool without lowering the standard.

“The promise is a wider candidate aperture, not the replacement of one credential with another,” Bloch says.

To make that promise real, Bloch says organizations need to change several parts of the hiring process.

“They must define the skills the work actually requires, activate additional talent channels, assess candidates through credible demonstrations of capability and ensure recruiters and hiring leaders do not revert to degrees as a familiar screening shortcut,” she says.

In short, capability can come from many places.

“Done well, skills-based hiring allows organizations to consider people whose capabilities were developed through college, military service, community colleges, apprenticeships, certifications, internal experience or nontraditional careers,” Bloch says.

The goal, then, is not to make degrees disappear. It is to ensure they are used when genuinely relevant, not as a proxy for capability.

Measure Capability, Not the Path Taken

Nicole Cable, Chief People and Experience Officer at C3 Health, brings the discussion back to the fundamental question employers should ask when evaluating talent: What can this person actually do?

Cable has more than two decades of executive experience across healthcare, hospitality and customer-focused organizations, with expertise spanning talent strategy, culture, learning and development and organizational transformation. Her perspective is rooted in the idea that credentials should provide context rather than determine capability.

“Skills-based hiring will not be real until we stop treating a degree as shorthand for capability,” Cable says.

Her own experience has reinforced the distinction.

“I have worked alongside incredibly talented people who built their expertise through years of experience, continuous learning, problem-solving and simply doing the work,” she says. “I have also seen people without degrees run circles around people who had every credential on paper.”

A credential can describe how someone entered a field without revealing how well they can perform in it. “That is why it is frustrating when someone with 15 or 20 years of demonstrated success cannot even get through the door because they lack a degree,” Cable says. “We are not evaluating their ability at that point. We are evaluating the path they took to acquire it.”

The solution is not to disregard education. It is to distinguish between credentials that are necessary to perform a job and credentials that have simply become customary.

“If a degree is truly necessary to perform the job, require it,” Cable says. “But if someone can demonstrate the skills, judgment, experience and results the role demands, we should be willing to recognize that too.”

That approach also changes what HR leaders should measure after launching a skills-based hiring initiative. Removing degree requirements is an activity. Hiring people who previously would have been screened out is an outcome.

“Skills-based hiring should expand how we define qualified, not simply change the language in the job posting,” Cable says.

Her final distinction captures the larger challenge: “A credential tells me what someone completed. Capability tells me what they can do. I want to know both, but I will choose demonstrated capability every time.”

From Skills-First Language to Skills-First Decisions

• Redesign the evaluation criteria alongside the job requirements. Define what equivalent qualifications look like, then train recruiters and hiring managers to evaluate them consistently.
• Look for evidence of continuous learning. A degree may show what someone studied, but hiring processes should also test adaptability, current knowledge and the ability to keep developing.
• Audit the technology behind candidate screening. If an ATS still rewards degree-linked proxies such as educational pedigree, job titles or employer names, removing a degree requirement from the posting will have limited impact.
• Measure who never enters the pipeline. Examine whether unnecessary qualifications discourage capable candidates from applying before recruiters can evaluate them.
• Keep legitimate degree requirements while removing unnecessary ones. Skills-based hiring should widen access to qualified talent without eliminating education requirements that are genuinely necessary for a role.
• Measure hiring outcomes, not just changes to job descriptions. The clearest evidence of skills-based hiring is whether people who previously would have been screened out are actually being hired and recognized for their capabilities.

The Real Test Is Who Gets Through the Door

Skills-based hiring has made meaningful progress in changing how employers describe jobs, but changing language is only the first step. The harder work happens behind the posting: in screening systems, recruiter habits, manager confidence, interview design and what counts as qualified.

The next phase will require HR leaders to move from declaring that skills matter to proving that they matter in practice. That means measuring who applies, who advances and who gets hired, while ensuring technology and human decision-makers evaluate demonstrated capability rather than defaulting to familiar credentials.