Competency-Based Hiring
By Edgility Consulting
Summer 2023
Competency-based hiring is an approach to talent management that starts with identifying the particular skills required in a role and then prioritizing assessments or credentials that look for those skills. Sometimes, hiring processes will look at the credential (a degree, a certification) or have a performance task without building the skills an employer is looking for first. It promises to empower employers to align recruitment related to competencies based on experience as opposed to education or titles alone. The team at Edgility has found this practice to be far more equitable in practice.
Why use competency-based hiring?
It is evidence-based and gives you a clear set of standards to compare each candidate against. Competency-based hiring requires creating questions that align with the competencies and gathering evidence from the candidate's current or past experiences.
Using an agreed-to set of standards is more equitable and reduces the opportunity for bias to enter decision-making.
It enables more consistency across interviewers as you can train people on which evidence aligns to which competencies.
Norming and calibration across candidates is facilitated more easily as you evaluate all candidates’ written materials, interview responses and/or performance tasks against a standardized rubric.
It naturally leads into a candidate’s professional development plan, helping identify concrete gaps in skills and experiences that will need to be addressed once they are hired.
Steps to Building a Competency-Based Hiring Process
First, prior to identifying and interviewing candidates:
Define competencies for the role, which are higher level skills, rather than simply list job responsibilities or activities. For example:
“Financial management skill, able to oversee budgeting and make decisions” NOT “Reviewing and approving financial statements”
“Fundraising skill, especially in developing written materials for funders” NOT“Writes grants and funder reports”
Get feedback and input from the people involved in the hire regarding necessary skills and once drafted, have the competency rubric approved by the hiring manager and/or hiring committee.
Ex. Undergo a “Prioritization Activity” – list a group of competencies and ask hiring decision-makers to prioritize the top 5-7 most important for the role.
Develop a selection process based on these competencies, where questions for each interview round, all activities, performance tasks and reference checks are both grounded in and aligned to the competency rubric.
Hold an interview norming session so that everyone involved in the interview and hiring is grounded in a competency-based process and calibrate on “look fors”
Hold an anti-bias/equity in selection training for all selectors, senior leaders and hiring managers
During interviews:
Stick to a common list of questions for all candidates unless specific follow-ups are needed;
Transcribe or record responses on a scoring card or using a rubric;
Reflect on evidence aligned to the competencies through questions asked when rating candidates, scoring the evidence by each competency.
(something about use of narrative assessment, notes)
After interviews:
Have all interviewers rate candidates before a broader group discussion or debrief
Focus debrief discussions on competencies, avoid vague and evidence-free judgments
Review numeric ratings as well as narrative feedback
Consider alternate ways to answer outstanding questions (performance tasks, reference checks, etc.)
At Edgility Consulting, we build a competency framework for all of our executive search positions, leveraging feedback from internal and external stakeholders to build an ideal profile and then define the skills/qualities that will be essential to success in the role. Our selection efforts are driven by collecting evidence against position competencies through reviewing resumes and other written materials, conducting interviews and evaluating responses to performance tasks. We hire with a strong lens towards equity and inclusion, focusing on an evidence-based hiring process and utilizing tools to support this focus.
Founded by Allison Wyatt and Christina Greenberg, Edgility Consulting is a talent services firm that helps mission driven organizations bring practice and structure into alignment with their values. Through compensation and talent management consulting and executive search practices, Edgility partners with clients to build intentional equity. Learn more about Edgility here.
This post is part of the America Achieves Talent Summer Series. America Achieves is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2011 to strengthen democracy by building educational bridges to the middle class and re-establishing the link between work and opportunity.
In early 2023, America Achieves selected Edgility Consulting, Bolster and LER Consultants (LER) and DGW Consulting Group (DGWCG), all nationally recognized talent sourcing and executive leadership firms, to participate in a philanthropically funded national talent pipeline pilot project known as the Collective Impact Talent Initiative. The Collective Impact Talent Initiative builds upon America Achieves’ work with equity-centered economic growth and workforce regional coalitions through the Commerce Department’s Build Back Better Challenge and Good Jobs Challenge, both of which were part of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan. The Collective Impact Talent initiative, with its partners, provides inclusive, place-based regional coalitions from across the country, from upstate New York and Central Valley California, to Virginia and Texas, among others, with individualized and capacity-building support to source, recruit and hire the key diverse talent needed to drive the regional coalitions’ innovative and bold visions of equity-centered economic growth and workforce development. The Collective Impact Talent Initiative is grounded in the belief that coalitions and their work are only as good as their teams and people. You can learn more about the Collective Impact Talent Initiative by going to catalyzeblog.americaachieves.org/talent_initiative or by emailing catalyze@americaachieves.org.
