The End of 'Jobs' and the Rise of Work: Why Skills-Based Hiring is Changing How We Grow

By Pam Sands, Vice President, Equity@Work, Kelly

For most of my career, hiring has revolved around jobs. Each had a title, a description, and a degree requirement. But over time, I’ve learned that work doesn’t fit neatly into those boxes. It changes faster than most job descriptions ever could.

That’s why I believe we’re living through one of the most significant shifts in decades: a shift from hiring for jobs to hiring for skills. Skills-based hiring means evaluating candidates on their ability to do the work—through assessments, work samples, or demonstrations of capability—rather than relying on proxies like degrees, years of experience, or previous job titles.

Across the U.S., change is underway. Over half of U.S. state governments have dropped degree requirements for many job postings. Today 85% of employers say they are using skills-based hiring, an increase from 81% the previous year.

Companies like IBM, Delta Air Lines, and Bank of America have already removed degree mandates for many roles. 

The momentum is undeniable because employers are seeing what happens when they hire for ability, not pedigree—they find talent they’ve been missing.

Understanding the shift toward skills.

I sit in many conversations about skills-based hiring. Too often, people use the phrase without understanding why it matters. The “why” is everything.

Work is evolving faster than the structures that support it. More than 70 million U.S. adults are “Skilled Through Alternative Routes” or people who’ve learned through community college, military service, certifications, or experience. Yet many of them still can’t access higher-paying roles because job postings default to “bachelor’s degree required.”

When companies rely on degree filters, they screen out an estimated 15.7 million capable workers for mid-skill roles. That’s a costly mistake in a labor market where unfilled roles slow growth.

By 2030, experts estimate a global talent shortage of 85 million workers. Employers can't afford to ignore entire swaths of capable workers because of outdated filters. The Kelly Global Re:work Report confirms this shift is accelerating: nearly two-thirds (65%) of global executives say their organizations are moving from degree requirements to skills-based hiring. Even more telling, 42% of global workers say their current roles don't actually require a college degree—exposing how arbitrary many credential requirements have become.

The “how” comes next: How do we plan for the work we need done, not just the jobs we’ve always had? How do we build the systems and culture to support it? That’s where strategic workforce planning comes in, which aligns people’s real skills with the outcomes the business needs.

The advantages of hiring for skills.

So what actually happens when companies make the shift to skills-based hiring? The outcomes show up across every part of the hiring process—from the size of your talent pool to how long people stay.

> Expand your talent pool.

Removing degree filters can increase your qualified candidate pool by nearly 19 times, giving access to capable workers who’ve been excluded by previous requirements. 

Some hiring managers worry this means lowering the bar. It doesn't. A degree tells you someone completed coursework. It doesn't tell you whether they can manage a project, troubleshoot a system failure, or build client relationships. Skills assessments measure: can this person do the work?

Expanding your talent pool puts you ahead in a competitive environment. When every company in your industry requires a degree for the same role, you're all fishing in the same small pond. The moment you open that role to skills-qualified candidates, you're accessing millions of people your competitors are ignoring. That means you can be more selective, not less. You're choosing from a larger group of people who can do the job.

> Hire quality candidates faster.

Companies adopting skills-focused evaluations are hiring faster and with fewer false starts. Studies show 82% have seen their time-to-hire drop after making the shift. About one-third reduced average hiring time by roughly 18%, and nearly one in five cut it in half. Studies show you can save between 339 and 660 hours per hire for non-senior roles using a skills-based approach.

Take the example of hiring a data analyst. Under the traditional model, you post a job that requires a bachelor’s degree in statistics or economics and three years of experience. Two hundred applications come in. Someone spends hours scanning résumés, guessing who can build dashboards or interpret datasets based on school names and job titles. You bring in ten candidates for interviews. Half can’t write a SQL query or explain a pivot table. The process resets.

This skills gap is measurable and growing. According to The Re:work Report, 46% of business professional and industrial executives struggle to find talent with technical and operational AI skills. Yet only 18% of business professional and industrial workers recognize this demand exists—a massive perception problem that widens the talent shortage. When job seekers don't know which skills are in demand, and employers keep those requirements buried behind degree filters, both sides lose.

Now imagine that same role under a skills-based approach. You lead with a practical assessment. Candidates analyze a dataset, build a visualization, and write a short summary of their insights. The results show immediately who can do the work. Your interview pool is smaller but qualified. You make an offer in weeks instead of months.

> Improve job performance across teams.

When hiring decisions start with the outcomes that need to be achieved, performance improves. People hired for demonstrated capabilities are already aligned with the work, so they contribute faster and with more confidence. That alignment is what drives better results—not just skill tests or credentials, but matching talent to purpose.

Across industries, companies that have made this shift report stronger results. Ninety-two percent of employers say hires made through skills-based methods outperform those chosen mainly for education or experience, and 88% have reduced mis-hires. 

> Reduce the cost of hiring.

Skills-based hiring saves U.S. employers between $7,800-$22,500 per role by reducing mishires. When you bring someone on board who looks good on paper but can't perform, you've paid for recruiting, onboarding, and training—then you have to do it all over again. Skills assessments catch that mismatch early. 

You're also spending less time sifting through unqualified candidates, which means recruiters and hiring managers can focus their hours on people who've already demonstrated capability. Shorter hiring cycles mean less revenue lost to unfilled positions. Fewer bad hires mean fewer do-overs. 74% of employers say skills-based hiring decreased their hiring costs.

> Boost employee retention.

I see employees as organizational equity. They carry knowledge, relationships, and context you can't replace. That equity grows when you invest in reskilling and upskilling — and it erodes when you don't.

Among organizations that switched to skills-based hiring, 89% report increased employee retention. That's loyalty born of trust. When a company recognizes someone's abilities rather than disqualifying them for the lack of a degree, that employee often becomes its most committed advocate. When people feel seen for their abilities, they grow, and that growth compounds into the kind of workforce stability many companies are struggling to achieve right now.

The Kelly Global Re:work Report reveals why this matters now more than ever: nearly two-thirds of business professional and industrial workers say they would leave their company after upskilling if there's no clear next step. Younger workers are even more likely to walk—over 70% of millennials and Gen Z would quit if growth stalls. Skills-based hiring creates transparency about what capabilities lead to advancement, turning retention risk into retention strategy.

> Foster more innovation.

Teams built with varied learning paths bring different approaches to challenges. When you have people who learned through bootcamps working alongside university graduates, military veterans collaborating with career changers, each person brings a different lens to the same problem. 

Signs you should evaluate your hiring approach.

I've learned to look for certain indicators that a company's hiring model is out of sync with the work it's trying to do:

> Falling productivity or profits: That's often a signal of a skills gap, not a market downturn. When revenue declines, most companies look at external factors—competition, pricing, market conditions. But sometimes the issue is internal: your team doesn't have the capabilities to execute what the business needs. Projects take longer than they should. Quality slips. Deadlines get missed. Those are symptoms of people working hard in roles that have evolved beyond their current skill set.

> High turnover: If your best people are leaving for more challenging work, they're chasing the chance to grow their skills. Top performers don't leave just for more money—they leave when they stop learning. When you lose someone and they land at a competitor doing more advanced work, that's a signal. Your company might be hiring for the job you had five years ago instead of the work that needs doing today.

> Growing skills gaps while boomers retire: If your organization is among the 92% of global executives concerned about labor shortages from boomer retirements (according to The Re:work Report), you can't afford to wait for "perfect" candidates. As institutional knowledge walks out the door, you need hiring systems that can quickly identify people with transferable skills and the capacity to learn. Skills-based hiring opens the aperture to mid-career professionals, veterans, and career changers who can fill critical gaps faster than traditional campus recruiting pipelines.

> Long-tenured teams stuck in old patterns: Stability can look like success, until you realize the skills inside your company haven't kept up with what's required outside of it. A team that's been doing the same thing the same way for years might be efficient at outdated processes. But if the market has moved to new technologies, new customer expectations, or new ways of working, that stability becomes stagnation. You need people who can adapt, or you need to invest in helping your current team build new capabilities.

Removing barriers and measuring the impact.

When we launched Equity@Work at Kelly, our goal was to show that removing barriers wasn’t just the right thing to do. It made business sense.

We added a simple question to every assignment in our system: “Was a barrier removed for this role?” That could mean eliminating an unnecessary degree requirement, revising background checks for non-relevant offenses, or dropping a drug test in states where certain use is now legal. Once that flag was added, we could start to see patterns in how those changes affected hiring.

This approach aligns with what The Re:work Report uncovered: 57% of global workers want their employers to support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. But there's a trust gap—many doubt leaders follow through. Skills-based hiring isn't just rhetoric; it's measurable action. When you track barrier removal at the assignment level and tie it to business outcomes like faster fill times and longer tenure, equity stops being a values statement and becomes a competitive advantage.

What we saw was consistent across assignments: removing barriers opened access to more candidates and sped up hiring. Managers were filling roles faster and finding loyal talent that stayed on the job longer. By tracking this at the assignment level, we could measure the value of inclusion in practical, operational terms.

It also changed our client conversations. Instead of talking about why skills-based hiring matters, we could point to the evidence that it helps companies move faster, widen their reach, and keep strong people longer.

The future we're building.

I see the future of work shaped by skills, not titles. When organizations understand what people can do and build around that, they hire and develop differently. The abilities that will matter most in the next decade go beyond technical expertise. Digital fluency, adaptability, problem-solving, and collaboration will carry the most weight. They are what keep teams moving and connected.

As companies build around these capabilities, structures will keep evolving. Teams will shift to where they’re needed, and work will move more fluidly across projects. That kind of agility asks leaders to think differently about how they organize people and measure contribution.

This work matters to me because it’s about access. It’s about how opportunity moves through a company—who it reaches and who it leaves behind. Skills-based hiring changes that pattern. It widens the gate without lowering the bar, giving more people the chance to contribute while helping businesses find the talent they’ve been missing.

I’ve seen what happens when companies start hiring for ability instead of credentials. Teams grow stronger, people stay longer, and organizations learn faster. That’s the direction I want to keep pushing toward. This is legacy work—building a future where skill and contribution guide opportunity for everyone.