How Can a Skills-Based Approach to Hiring Help Build Successful Organizations Today—And Tomorrow

Recruiting the right talent is vital for any organization, driving creativity, innovation, and putting in place the building blocks for future success.

But are the traditional criteria widely used for evaluating candidates limiting the pool of talent open to businesses? Is a focus on past experience, academic achievement and even previous job titles proving a hindrance when seeking employees, especially in the technology sector?

Here, I would like to explore how a skills-based approach can be a supplementary way to help find the talent we need to thrive.

How do businesses define skill-based hiring?

Skills-based hiring is a term that has been gaining a lot of traction. In short, it is an approach which focuses on the abilities and competencies of a candidate, rather than their formal education or job titles. The method emphasizes practical skills and proven performance.

In a world where we are seeing a growing number of technical roles, as well as potential shortages of candidates to fill them, a skills-based approach can augment more traditional routes to help organizations access deeper pools of talent.

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It is also important to note cultural fit—sometimes known as ‘soft skills’—remains important. Building an organization based on shared values, with a strong sense of purpose, remains vital. A focus on skills is one, increasingly important, component of a successful hire, but it cannot be the sole determinant.

A tight labor market is driving a focus on skills

Locating talent can be hard. In 2024, Deloitte found 73% of business executives expect to continue to experience talent shortages over the next three years, while 70% of those respondents said they are getting creative about sourcing for skills rather than just considering job experience.

By considering relevant skills along with previous job experience, we widen the pool of talent available to us, while also creating opportunities for more candidates.

The transferable skills and competencies employees acquire in daily work are what matter.

Which skills will be the most valuable?

Skills vital for success will vary by industry, but three key areas dominate the conversation for Amadeus and the wider travel technology sector—public cloud, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

As we work to overcome fragmentation, a move to the public cloud is helping our industry consolidate data and create a holistic, end-to-end picture of the traveler journey. Skills to accelerate this move to the cloud are thus vital and are likely to remain in strong demand.

The same is true of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI). As an industry, we are just beginning to harness the tremendous opportunities afforded by this technology, enabling us to create hyper-personalized journeys, and use predictive analytics to build seamless, automated experiences. Now, with the arrival of Agentic AI, these trends are set to accelerate.

To keep the industry safe, the role of cybersecurity is likely to grow in significance in the coming years. Demonstrable skills in these areas are likely to be in high demand in travel technology and beyond.

These technical abilities will dovetail with the softer skills common across many industries—including communication, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving and emotional intelligence—which let teams work effectively together.

How do we make a success of a skill-based approach?

But it is important to remember, several key steps are required to ensure alignment across an organization. Defining role-specific competencies, using a variety of assessment methods, and explicitly focusing on skills—in addition to credentials—are all vital.

Training managers to understand the benefits and methods of skills-based hiring, including addressing biases is critical. This training can leverage technology, such as AI-powered screening tools and automated interview systems, to  streamline the training process.

Finally,  the shift toward a skills-based approach can support the adoption of new behaviors or practices, making it essential job descriptions and career paths reflect the change.

A long-term perspective

A skills-based approach can contribute to the long-term success of an organization, building a pipeline of talent for the future. These are not just skills for today—but for tomorrow.

As organizations increasingly focus on skills, they are starting to look internally, working harder to develop and train the existing workforce to better meet future demands. Regardless of current experience, if we can build and recognize skills across our teams today, we are building strength for the future.

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