Employers urged to look beyond degrees, job titles in hiring under new skills-first framework

SINGAPORE - Employers are urged to look beyond academic qualifications and past job titles when hiring and promoting workers, under a new framework aimed at making skills a bigger consideration in workforce decisions.

The Skills-First Framework for Action, launched by the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL) on Oct 19, proposes 12 pilot initiatives to help companies identify, develop and better use workers’ skills, while opening up more career opportunities for Singaporeans.

Speaking at the launch at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Acting Minister for Manpower Jasmin Lau said employers typically begin assessing job applicants by asking about their previous roles and educational qualifications.

Such information reveals “more about where someone has been, rather than where that someone can go,” she said.

A “skills-first” approach would instead ask what workers can do, and what they can learn to do next, said Lau, who is also Second Minister of State at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information.

Such practices, while not new, matter more today with jobs being transformed, skills going out of date sooner and career switches becoming more common, a process that artificial intelligence (AI) will speed up, she said.

The framework was co-authored by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency, National Trades Union Congress, Singapore Business Federation, Singapore National Employers Federation and the Singapore University of Social Sciences, following two years of research and conversations with industry players.

Its proposals include initiatives for employers to redesign jobs and hiring practices around skills that they will need, and to encourage workers to regularly review their skills and career goals.

The ideas proposed will be trialed with relevant stakeholders, while IAL will develop an observatory to study the implementation and effectiveness of such “skills-first” practices.

“Not every idea will necessarily work, and along the way, more ideas could emerge,” said Terence Ho, executive director and associate professor of practice at IAL. “But what’s important is that we experiment together, we learn together, and we build on what works.”