3-day Virtual Seminar

Introduction to Skills-Based Hiring: Assessments not Degrees

Overview

Introduction to Skills-Based Hiring: Assessments not Degrees 

Hiring is one of the most important decisions an organization makes, yet many hiring processes rely on assumptions and guesswork. Resumes highlight the polished version of a candidate. Interviews often reward confidence over competence. And common filters like college degrees or years of experience are treated as reliable predictors of performance, even though they rarely tell the full story.

This webinar introduces a better approach: skills-based hiring.

Skills-based hiring shifts the focus from what candidates have done in the past to what they can do now. It prioritizes job-relevant skills, learning ability, and behavioral competencies over traditional proxies like education and work history. This model is gaining traction among forward-thinking organizations because it leads to better hires, more inclusive talent pools, and fairer evaluations.

Dr. Mark Smith, organizational psychologist and author of A Better Choice: The Manager’s Guide to Skills-First Hiring, will guide participants through the why and how of this important shift. Drawing on his consulting work, research expertise, and recent congressional testimony on the topic, Dr. Smith will outline practical ways to adopt a skills-first mindset in your hiring process (without overhauling everything).

At the core of skills-based hiring is a fundamental insight: The “most qualified” person is not necessarily the one with the most impressive background. It’s the person most likely to succeed and thrive in your specific role and environment. Degrees may reflect persistence, and experience may reflect time in the field, but neither guarantees the ability to perform, solve problems, or work effectively with others on day one.

To make better hiring decisions, employers need to focus on the skills and behaviors that truly matter. That means using valid, job-relevant assessments, asking better interview questions, and making more consistent, objective evaluations, especially when comparing final candidates. These changes do not require expensive platforms or complex systems. They simply require clarity about what success looks like and a willingness to let evidence guide your choices.

This webinar will explore:

• Why degrees and experience are weak predictors of job success
  
• What “validity” means in hiring and why it matters for both effectiveness and legal defensibility
  
• How skills-first hiring supports better performance, stronger engagement, and greater diversity
  
• How to evaluate final candidates using structured, consistent, and objective methods
  
• Where to start if you want to modernize your hiring process

Skills-based hiring is not a trend. It is a better way to make high-stakes decisions about people. By shifting focus from resumes to real capability, you not only reduce hiring risk but also unlock access to untapped talent.

Whether you are in HR, talent acquisition, or a business leader who hires regularly, this session will give you a clear understanding of what a skills-first approach looks like in action. You’ll walk away with practical insights you can use immediately to improve your hiring process and outcomes.

Join us to challenge outdated assumptions, strengthen your decision-making, and learn how to choose candidates based on what they can actually do (not just where they’ve been).

Why you should Attend

Introduction to Skills-Based Hiring: Assessments not Degrees 

Let’s be honest. Resumes can be misleading, interviews often reward confidence over competence, and many hiring decisions still come down to gut instinct. Even with the best intentions, companies often struggle to answer the most important question: How do we know if this person will actually succeed in the role?

If you’ve ever hired someone who looked great on paper but didn’t deliver on the job, or passed on someone who lacked the “right” background but had the skills to thrive, you’re not alone. These kinds of hiring mistakes are common, costly, and avoidable.

Traditional hiring practices rely too heavily on proxies like degrees or years of experience. These may feel familiar, but they often fail to predict real-world performance. At the same time, capable candidates from non-traditional backgrounds get overlooked, shrinking your talent pool and increasing your risk of a bad hire.

Skills-based hiring offers a better path.

In this engaging and practical session, Dr. Mark Smith, organizational psychologist, consultant, and author of A Better Choice: The Manager’s Guide to Skills-First Hiring, will show you how to shift your hiring practices toward what really matters: the ability to do the job. Drawing on his experience as a consultant and expert witness in front of Congress, Dr. Smith will explain why skills-based hiring is gaining momentum and how you can begin to implement it in your organization.

You’ll learn:

• Why degrees and experience are weak predictors of success
  
• What makes a candidate assessment process both fair and effective
  
• How structured, objective evaluations help you identify top candidates
  
• What you can do right now to bring a skills-first mindset into your hiring decisions
  

If you're an HR leader, recruiter, or manager looking for a smarter, more inclusive way to hire, this webinar will give you practical tools and a fresh perspective to improve your results.

Areas Covered in the Session

• Why traditional hiring methods often fail to predict on-the-job success
  
• The core principles of skills-based hiring and how they differ from degree- or experience-based hiring
  
• How to define what “qualified” really means for a role
  
• What makes an assessment valid, fair, and job-related
  
• How to reduce bias and expand access to overlooked talent through a skills-based approach
  
• The risks of relying on gut instinct and unstructured interviews
  
• Practical ways to evaluate final candidates using consistent and objective methods
  
• How to get started with skills-based hiring without overhauling your entire process 
  
• Lessons from real-world organizations applying these principles effectively
  

Who Will Benefit

• HR Professionals, Including: HR Directors, Talent Acquisition Managers
  
• Hiring Managers, Including: Operations Managers, Sales Directors