Skills-first talent management is an approach that focuses on people’s skills and competencies throughout the talent life cycle, regardless of how or where those skills were acquired. For example, organizations that use skills-first strategies have moved beyond specific degree requirements in hiring and promotion decisions and, instead, evaluate candidates based on the skills they have, whether those skills were acquired from past jobs, volunteer opportunities, life experiences, or their own personal upskilling.

Skills-first talent management looks different at various levels of the learn-and-work ecosystem:

• Recruiting and Sourcing 
  • Looks like removing degree requirements from public job descriptions
  • adjusting language on the recruiting landing page
  • advertising skills-based job descriptions
  • expanding sourcing channels
  • identifying community-based organizations, community colleges, and training organizations in target geographies that have preexisting programs that support a company’s talent needs.
• Hiring
  • Looking at open job roles and mapping out the skills needed the first day on the job
  • Building diverse interviewing teams
  • Creating skills-based interview rubrics
  • Coaching interviewers on how to use rubrics
• Advancement and Retention 
  • Developing skills-based performance rubrics
  • identifying upskilling needs
  • developing or buying formal upskilling programs
  • creating skills-based pathways for internal mobility.

According to Grads of Life,  more than 60 employers (and the number is growing) are embracing skills-first practices, including Accenture, The Adecco Group, ADP, Airbnb, Allstate, American Express, Amgen, Aon, AT&T, Bain & Company, Bain Capital, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Bright Horizons, Blackstone, Care.com, Cargill, Caterpillar, Chub, Cisco, Clario, Cleveland Clinic, ConSol USA, Deloitte, Delta, Dow, Eli Lilly & Company, Elanco, Emerald, ERT, Genpact, Gilead, GM, Goldman Sachs, Hika, HP, Humana, IBM, Intermountain Healthcare, ITW, JetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Lowe’s, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Merck, NBA, Nike, Nordstrom, Northrop Grumman, PepsiCo, Randstad, Roper Technologies, Stryker, Synchrony, Target, Trane Technologies, United Airlines, Verizon, Walmart, Weill Cornell Medicine, Wells Fargo, Whirlpool, Yum! Brands, and others.