Almost Two-thirds of Employers Use Skills-based Hiring to Help Identify Job Candidates

May 19, 2025 | By Kevin Gray

Trends & Predictions

Someone stacking some wooden blocks with a block that says "skills" on top.

TAGS: hiring outlook, nace insights, surveys, talent acquisition, trends and predictions,

Almost two-thirds of employers responding to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey reported using skills-based hiring to help them identify candidates with potential. (See Figure 1.)

This shift to skills-based hiring—which emphasizes abilities needed to do the job—is occurring as, for the third straight year, less than 40% of respondents will screen candidates by GPA.

More than two-thirds of employers using skills-based hiring practices use them always or most of the time. (Figure 2.)

Employers use skills-based hiring most when interviewing and screening candidates, and they use a variety of skills based hiring practices, including behavior-based interviews, competency-based job descriptions, and resume scans for specific skills. (See Figure 3 and Figure 4.)

Overall, employers find implementing skills-based hiring relatively easy. Lack of department time/resources, buy-in from hiring managers, and cultural hurdles within the organization top the list of specific challenges in implementing skills-based hiring.

The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was conducted from February 18 – March 21, 2025. Of the 216 total respondents, 176 were NACE employer members, representing 22.2% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was also distributed to nonmember companies; this group provided an additional 40 responses. The survey updates hiring projections for the Class of 2025; those projections were collected from NACE employer members from August 5 – September 16, 2024, and were reported in Job Outlook 2025, which was published in November 2024. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update is available on NACEWeb.