Training for Nevada Employers to Hire for Skills, Not Just Degrees
WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility is helping Nevada employers expand their applicant pools by learning how to create skills-focused job descriptions and interview questions to evaluate candidates.
The Challenge
Nevada has the same challenge as many states: finding people to fill open jobs. Part of the problem is that employers often look for college degrees and specific work experience when hiring. While degrees and certificates show someone’s educational background, people can gain valuable competencies in other ways, too, such as
- professional certifications,
- military service, or
- learning on the job.
When employers expand how they write job descriptions, recruit candidates, and conduct interviews, they open up opportunities for more people. This helps candidates see that they might be a good fit for jobs they wouldn’t have considered before and provides employers with a broader applicant pool.
How We’re Taking Action
Working in partnership with a regional workforce development board, the Center for Economic Mobility has developed a training series, Skills at the Center, that helps employers transition to skills-based hiring.
First, we help employers revamp job descriptions. A skills-based job posting replaces typical qualifications requirements—which are often a mix of skills, tasks, and broad descriptions—with descriptions of the skills that are required and how they are applied in occupational tasks.
Second, we teach skills-based recruiting so employers can develop a pitch that expands the pool of applicants who feel they might fit the position. We leverage Gen AI platforms to support employers to develop skills-based job postings and candidate evaluation methods.
Finally, we clarify how to implement a skills-based interview process. This straightforward approach encourages candidates to describe their skills, where and how they gained them, and how they would apply those skills to key job tasks.
As a result, hiring practices of regional firms are becoming more aligned to the skills that people are gaining at community colleges and private training centers funded by the workforce system. Furthermore, workforce system career navigators are better able to prepare candidates for job searches and interview processes by homing in on how they articulate and demonstrate their skills with employers.