3 Key Reasons to Hire Using Competencies

Most companies have been using the age old resume and job description model for years. But it makes no sense. Resumes are outdated tools which fail to capture the full extent of a candidate's competencies. Instead, why not first figure out what a potential employee can actually do?

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Competency based hiring has been used by leading companies and governments for decades. Time and time again this model has proven superior. These are three key reasons you should be hiring based on competencies, not resumes:

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Identify Workers with Transferable Talents

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70% of competencies are shared across industries, but resumes only focus on the credentials and experience that a candidate built in a single job function. They provide very little context about how their experience is transferable to other job categories. In contrast, competencies are a translatable framework for understanding how past experiences predict future performance.

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For example, millions of restaurant workers lost their jobs due to the fall in restaurant revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic. These waiters and waitresses possess competencies that are highly desirable in other fields. Their attention to detail, ability to remain on their feet, and abilities to multitask make them ideal candidates for positions in logistics. Resumes are unable to convey these ideas, while competencies show that these workers are a perfect match to fill a plethora of in demand positions.

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Increase Diversity

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Unconscious bias plagues the hiring process. Companies are twice as likely to interview a candidate if they have a non-minority sounding name on their resume. But minority status has nothing to do with a person’s ability to complete tasks at work. By removing resumes entirely, the unconscious bias that exists within each individual can be lessened. Instead, competency hiring can provide a single score by which to compare candidates based only on what they can do, not where they come from.

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Save Time and Money

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Have you ever posted a job description, only to be inundated with a slew of resumes to sort and screen? You’re not the only one. The average corporate job posting solicits upwards of 250 applications, of which only 5 are competent candidates. Competency based hiring practices allow companies to identify those 5 ideal candidates quickly, without the need to manually read through each application to try to determine if they would be a good fit. By first figuring out what a candidate can do, you save valuable sourcing time. Furthermore, competencies provide better job matching, which in turn reduces turnover rates. This saves your company over 60% on hiring costs.

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