"In today's market, it's essential for talent to showcase their ability to learn and evolve."
Dr. Alan McAlpine
President, National Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (NAGCAS)
Employability is the connection between what students learn and the competencies employers value.
Today, employers are increasingly asking, "Can you show me what this student can actually do?" They are no longer satisfied with just a degree; they want evidence of a student's capabilities.
This has led to the rise of skill-based hiring, which prioritizes academic and experiential competencies. Traditional job-matching over-emphasizes a student's ability to interpret job requirements and the relevance of their degree, while underrepresenting their specific applied skills and competencies. Skill-based matching presents a forward-looking alternative.
What is skill-based hiring?
A recruitment strategy focused on assessing a candidate's specific capabilities and competencies for a job, rather than educational credentials.
The Shifting Role of Career Services
As the job market changes, the role of career services is also shifting. Career centers are becoming the central point where student skills, employer needs, and market data converge.
The central question is:
How should institutions structure their career services programs?
Many universities are operating in silos, juggling student advising, employer relationships, and outcome reporting using disconnected tools like spreadsheets and email threads. This fragmented approach makes it difficult to:
- Provide a consistent, personalized student experience.
- Show leadership the true value of career services.
- Adapt to the changing demands of the job market.
The rise of skill-based hiring has made this gap even more visible, yet many career centers lack the infrastructure to capture and present these skills in a way that effectively matches students to the right opportunities.
What are the Benefits of Skill-Based Matching?
Bias in hiring is real.
98% of employers say their organization struggles to find talent, with the majority believing recent grads lack real world-experience. (Hult International Business School)
Skill-based matching can help counteract these biases against new grads.
For students:
- Improved Discoverability: Connects students to opportunities they might otherwise miss.
- Clearer Pathways: Helps students understand the skills needed for desired careers.
- Reduced Bias: Focuses on capabilities over background or institutional prestige.
- Enhanced Self-Marketing: Provides a framework to articulate their skills and experiences.
For employers:
- Efficient Sourcing: Faster identification of candidates with precise skill sets.
- Access to Diverse Talent: Broadens the talent pool beyond traditional pipelines.
- Improved Fit: Leads to better employee retention and performance.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Provides insights into talent availability and skill gaps.
For universities and career services:
- Enhanced Reporting & Analytics: Quantifies the impact of career services.
- Strategic Program Development: Informs curriculum design to align with market needs.
- Improved Student Outcomes: Higher placement rates and better career trajectories.
- Demonstrating Return on Investment (ROI) to leadership.
How to implement skill-based hiring on campus
A truly effective skills-based hiring ecosystem should start on campus. Students are actively involved in a range of activities, from co-curricular engagements to projects and internships. However, they often struggle to effectively translate these experiences into marketable skills.
Centralizing Data for a Holistic View
This is where universities must find a way to centralize this data to create a comprehensive view that can be easily interpreted.
Skills-based hiring can help reduce bias—provided that all students have access to skill-building opportunities and can adequately document their experiences.
Many career platforms tend to rely on self-service models and title-based searches. These solutions often prioritize employee volume, emphasizing quantity over quality. They may layer some support for experiential learning and advising, but it's often disjointed limiting the holistic view of the student journey.
Ready to centralize your student data and create a comprehensive skills-based ecosystem? See how Symplicity Outcome can transform your career services →
What to Look for in a Skill-Based Platform
An effective skill-based ecosystem includes:
Centralized Skills Catalog: Owned by the institution and captures all opportunities in one place.
Validation Process: An institutionally-approved framework to map activities to skill frameworks, program outcomes, and career competencies.
Reporting: A platform to gather data and assess your institution's influence on skill development, career readiness, and employability.
Institutional Control & Customization: Tailored workflows, branding, and customization to allow for the uniqueness of you school
Skills-Centric Matching Engine: Bridging academic outcomes with employer demand.
Want to see these features in action? Request a demo of Symplicity Outcome to discover how your institution can implement effective skills-based hiring.
The Skills-First Revolution
According to LinkedIn's Future of Work report, by 2030, over 75% of entry-level tech roles will prioritize skills over degrees. Adopting a skills-based hiring method is the key to preparing students for a competitive workforce.
To effectively adopt a skills-based hiring approach, institutions need to make a strategic investment in a platform that can manage experiential learning, personalize hiring, enhance student engagement, and provide actionable insights.
Ready to prepare your students for the skills-first future? Learn how Symplicity Outcome can help your institution implement comprehensive skills-based hiring today.
