Employers overlook qualified talent by recruiting, screening and hiring based on degrees or years of experience. We know they can do better by valuing the knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors candidates bring to bear.

The key is to persuade employers to use competency-based human resources practices to tap more qualified young people and working learners for in-demand jobs. As a starting point, we are defining “hiring for competency”— valuing specific skills and competencies over proxies like college degrees—and how it works on the front lines.

Through research and partnerships, we are setting out to identify and develop tools to enable employers to more deeply understand and operationalize competency-based hiring practices—the most effective way to source, hire and advance talent in today’s workplaces.

To assist employers in this new approach, the National Network commissioned Burning Glass to develop 52 occupational profiles of the most in-demand jobs from across 17 of the National Network’s member industry associations. The resulting profiles reference specific data points that employers can use to build competency-based job descriptions, helping hiring managers communicate more effectively to job seekers, educational institutions, and training providers about the competencies they need to fill vacant positions.