Why You Should Consider Skills Over Qualifications When Hiring

You probably have tried to get an employee who is both qualified and skilled for your company role.

How was the process? Did you manage to find one with both sets?

You had to settle for one with near qualities just to fill a vacancy but not really skilled and qualified for the role as you would wish.

As an employer and a recruitment consultant, I have come across such scenarios and I came up with a framework of ideas that saved me a headache during recruitment.

So, as an employer which one should you focus on during the hiring process? Skills or qualifications?

Here are 5 reasons why you should consider Skills over Qualifications when hiring:

1. To Save you time and resources

To begin with, you know you have to pay the salaries irrespective of whether you earned profits or not.

So, your main goal is to see that immediately after recruitment an employee starts their performance on the job. 

This will help your company save some resources in form of time and money

A Diploma holder with 10 years’ experience in Marketing will hit the ground running because they already have contacts compared to a fresh graduate with 1-year experience who may need more time to acquire some or even new

Through skills, they understand the market reality.

2. Skills are practical compared to qualifications

Importantly, an employee needs to understand the everyday realities of working life. This is valuable and a sign that the employee is a long term stay.

You want your employees to be educated but need them to have that real-word experience as well.

You also want an employee that understands how the world works and skills for different situations. Unfortunately, education cannot teach some of this skills.

For example, education does not teach a transferable skill like leadership but rather leaders are made by situations and experience.

3. Transferable skills and exposure add considerable value to the organisation.

On to my next point, transferable skills acquired by employees and transferred to future employment settings are very important.

Common examples include interpersonal, communication, leadership and organisational skills.
These skills can simply be summed as past skills that can create future value.

Let’s say for instance, having persuasion as a skill requires practice and training over a period of time for one to be able to put it into use.

Transferable skills importantly make it easier for an employee to fit into a company’s culture and bring in newer cultures that would otherwise improve the company.
 
4. Skills would improve your Company culture and Structures

Furthermore, you should prefer an employee with skills and experience that would improve the overall quality of their company’s culture as well as contribute to reshaping and building of newer structures.

This is an ability you may not get in an employee who is highly qualified and has lesser experience but the opposite.

Such a candidate is less exposed and would not contribute to improvement of your company.

A skilled employee would come with a new idea for example on people management, a skill that can only be learned with time hence improving your company’s culture.

5. People Management requires skills over qualification

Luckily we both know that people management requires skills and long term experience.

The ‘bad boss’ experience causes more than 50% resignations at work place.

As an employer, you do not want to risk a massive turnover by going for a candidate who has qualifications over one who has experience to lead.

People Management Skills tend to develop as employee go through careers, attends trainings and learns new skills and habits.

In conclusion,

With many graduates struggling to find work, it’s wise to ask the question, ‘What are employers are looking for in a candidate?’

Unfortunately, a university degree may well be insufficient as seen above.

It is skills and experiences that can make you a desired applicant and supplement your qualification.
 

Perminus Wainaina is a Certified HR Consultant and the Managing Partner at Corporate Staffing Services where he manages a team of 20 staff.  He helps CEOs, executives, and managers solve their biggest HR pains, dysfunctions, and key challenges and turn their teams into a well-oiled machine that contributes dramatically to business success.