Looking beyond the résumé: How talent pros can lean into skills-based hiring

Can you imagine a world without résumés? We may soon be in one.

Seven in 10 (71%) hiring managers expect text-based résumés to become obsolete in the next five years, according to a recent report from Canva. And it’s no wonder why, according to Laura Mazzullo, owner of recruiting firm East Side Staffing.

“We have realized, in the hiring community, how often candidates were eliminated for reasons that had nothing to do with core competencies. People would just look at a résumé and say, ‘I don’t like the format. I don’t like the font. It’s too wordy,’” she said.

There are a number of unconscious biases that cause recruiters and hiring managers to eliminate a candidate’s résumé, Mazzullo said, adding that talent pros should “educate, guide, and in many cases, push back to the hiring manager, so that they don’t overlook really amazing candidates just based on the résumé.”

Mazzullo and Steve Knox, VP of global talent acquisition at HCM software company Dayforce, spoke with HR Brew about how focusing on skills, rather than résumés, can help recruiters tap top talent.

Interview facelift. Mazzullo suggested that recruiters revamp their interview techniques so that they’re asking both behavioral and situational questions.

Behavioral questions, she said, pointing to research from Northwestern University, may include questions that seek to understand a candidate’s past experiences, like, “Tell me about a time you had to work under pressure.” Situational questions, on the other hand, seek to understand how a candidate might handle a situation, like, “What would you do if you made a strong recommendation in a meeting, but your colleagues decided against it?”

Situational questions can help recruiters gauge a candidate’s skills and potential, Mazzullo said.

“Hiring in the last thirty years has been about [wanting] someone to come in, hit the ground running, who has done this role before, and ideally had done this role before in the exact same industry, in the exact same type of company, [at] a competitor,” she said. “That’s when résumés became so important to demonstrate that…[but to] really giv[e] candidates a chance to try something new, then we won’t rely only on a document that speaks to past experience.”

Emphasis on skills. Knox recommended rethinking recruiting from a skills-based hiring lens.

He told HR Brew that talent pros should ask themselves: What are the core skills and competencies that our company is going to need in five to 10 years from now? What are the key attributes that our teams need to be successful?

Then, he said, they should revise their job descriptions, replacing requirements such as degrees and years of experience with those skills.

“What does it really mean if somebody says, ‘I need 10 years of customer service experience’? That’s meaningless,” Knox said. “What exactly are the attributes that you need this candidate to demonstrate that will show they’ll be successful in the role?”