73% of companies used skills-based hiring in 2023, with 27% adopting it in just the last 12 months.
A hire based on skills (rather than education) is 5 × more likely to predict job performance.
Skills-based talent practices can save businesses 70-92% per employee when focusing on emerging skills rather than new hires.
For over a century, recruitment has relied on one outdated assumption: that 'past experience predicts future performance.'
CVs, cover letters, and keywords became the language of hiring — but in an age of AI-written résumés, automation, and rapidly evolving roles, those signals no longer mean what they used to.
Today, employers need more than polished paper.
They need proof.
Skills-based recruitment measures what people can 'do', not just what they've 'done'.
It's about assessing real-world capability through practical, job-relevant scenarios instead of credentials, titles, or buzzwords.
By putting candidates in simulated work situations — solving problems, handling customers, collaborating with teams — you see their true potential before Day One.
Fairer decisions. Stronger hires. Faster onboarding. Better retention.
Work has evolved faster than hiring has.
Technical skills change every 2—3 years.
AI blurs authorship of achievements.
Degree requirements are disappearing.
And new employment laws make every hire, higher-stakes.
Traditional hiring systems weren't built for this reality. They measure exposure, not competence. Presentation, not performance.
Skills-based recruitment restores accuracy, fairness, and confidence — the ability to say, "We know they can do the job."
Organisations using skills-based methods are 60% more likely to make successful hires.
They experience up to 82% faster time-to-hire, 74% lower cost-to-hire, and 89% higher retention.
Bias and attrition drop dramatically — because people are chosen for what truly matters: capability and cultural fit.
iQ's science draws on over 20 years of behavioural research and organisational psychology to isolate what drives performance across industries, levels, and cultures.
Most ATS platforms only 'store' data.
iQ turns it into evidence.
Through built-in situational testing, timed assessments, and AI-assisted analysis, iQ allows recruiters to:
Create realistic, role-specific scenarios.
Measure how candidates 'think, act, and respond' in real time.
Compare performance across the Four Pillars.
Visualise results instantly in beautiful, side-by-side dashboards.
No more relying on intuition or inflated résumés — just clear, objective proof of capability.
Discover why the world’s most forward-thinking organisations are moving beyond CVs and towards proof. Our latest white paper explores the data, psychology, and design thinking behind Skills-Based Recruitment — and how iQ makes it practical, measurable, and transformational.
Hire with certainty.
Reduce bias and risk.
Build stronger, longer-lasting teams.
With iQ, you don't have to guess who 'might' succeed — you'll know who will.
This is the future of hiring.
It's scientific. It's human.
And it's only possible with iQ — the world's first skills-first ATS.
