What are skills?

Skills are earned. They’re built through repetition, application and real-world practice, whether in a classroom, on a job site, in the military or anywhere else someone has had to figure out how to get something done.

Being able to change the spark plugs in a car is a skill because it’s something someone learns how to do, either from an expert or through their own trial and error.

Skills show up in candidates, some of whom have never held a job with a title that matches the role you’re hiring for.

Someone who coordinated logistics during a military deployment, managed the scheduling and communication demands of caregiving or navigated the accommodation and service process for a family member with a disability has likely built real project management, problem-solving and communication skills, developed outside any traditional job description.

When evaluating candidates for a job listing, some skills you might assess include:

• How quickly the candidate can type
• A potential hire’s literacy with certain computer programs
• Someone’s written and verbal communication skills
• A candidate’s organizational or project management skills
• How a candidate works as a member of a team
• Whether a new hire can code in a specific programming language

Skills can be separated into two categories: hard and durable. Hard skills are also referred to as technical skills because they require specific knowledge and experience, such as when a programmer shows the ability to write programs in the coding languages a business uses most often.

Durable skills (sometimes called “soft skills”) are the type of skills someone can use in multiple roles across their career, such as the ability to lead a team or communicate effectively.

What are talents?

Talents are naturally occurring, and they’re often confused for skills.

While some people can learn to communicate more effectively, others have a natural knack for reading the room or motivating those around them. Many talents can be considered intangible traits because they don’t require training or experience to obtain.

Assessing skills vs talents when reviewing applications

When you’re looking for the right candidate to fill a role at your company, flexibility can help you consider a wider range of qualified candidates. You may prefer applicants that have degrees and experience in their fields, but you could miss out if you don’t pay attention to skills and talents on people’s resumes.

While education and experience are valuable qualifications to consider, it may help your recruiting strategy if you focus on intangibles that your candidates can’t acquire through education or work experience alone. If these skills matter for the role, ask for them directly in the job description rather than assuming they’ll surface on their own.

Depending on the role you’re trying to fill, previous work experience, talents and skills may be considered a substitute for education. This isn’t ideal in every role, so make sure you evaluate your business needs and what the minimum qualifications you’re willing to accept will be.

For example, accountants may be required to have some form of degree in business management or finance to be considered viable candidates.

Before you post a new job listing, consider what qualities the right candidate should possess and how important their qualifications are to the role. Skills Map by Indeed can help you identify in-demand skills for different roles and explore how skill requirements vary across industries and locations.

Helping new hires reach their true potential with skills training

One great way to develop talent is to provide opportunities through entry-level positions and to offer comprehensive onboarding and training programs to help new hires gain skills while they fulfill their duties. This matters more than ever as AI reshapes entry-level work: many of the routine tasks that once served as a new hire’s first rung on the ladder are shifting.

This can give teams the opportunity to provide greater value sooner, through on-the-job learning that happens via mentorship and structured onboarding. A new salesperson with limited experience can learn skills on the job that could help increase their closing rate, or an up-and-coming programmer could learn to type more quickly with practice, for example.

Mentorship plays an outsized role here.

According to Carly Roszkowski, vice president of financial resilience programming at AARP, “mentorship works best when it flows in both directions: older workers help younger workers develop the skills needed to handle difficult workplace situations and manage teams, while younger workers introduce new perspectives and communication styles to the workplace.”

In fact, according to AARP research on multigenerational workforces and mentoring, 91% of workers who’ve been mentored point to practical training and job-skill advice as the most valuable part of the relationship, and 86% say mentorship was important to their overall professional growth.

Pairing structured onboarding with real mentorship gives new hires a faster, more durable path to building the skills that lead to career advancement.

Talents and skills can make workers stand out for promotions

If you’re planning to hire for a new position from within, you can offer the role to someone within your organization who has acquired knowledge of the role and displayed the intangible talents that would allow them to succeed in their duties.

A good example of this is when you need to find a new team lead. Rather than recruiting from outside of your business, you can review each team member’s performance and consider whether they have the communication skills, ability to motivate others and organizational skills to handle a leadership role.

Mentorship often plays a role here, too. Employees who’ve been mentored may be more likely to be ready to step into expanded responsibility when the opportunity comes.

You don’t need to invest as much time or money getting someone up to speed if they’re already familiar with your company culture, processes and expectations for the role. This makes promoting from within much more attractive when filling some roles than recruiting from outside of your organization.

Evaluating knowledge, skills and talents on resumes

Before you post a new job listing, consider what qualities the right candidate should possess and how important their qualifications are to the role. When you’re reviewing resumes and narrowing your field of applicants, consider whether their experiences and unique skills could be an asset for your organization.

If they lack the qualifications to fill the role you’re looking for, do they have skills that would be useful at another position of need?

One of the mistakes some recruiters make is being too stringent on certain requirements. This can make you overlook a potential new hire who can learn the skills for the position with some training and work experience. This is especially true for older candidates, who are often assumed to be behind on technology when the data suggests otherwise.

According to AARP research on workplace technology trends, workers age 50 and older have increased the tech skills listed on their profiles by 25% over the past five years, nearly double the growth rate of younger workers, and are closing the tech-skills gap once assumed to favor younger candidates.

“When older workers combine their tech skills with those built over decades, such as leadership, judgment, and collaboration, employers reap the rewards in the form increased productivity, stronger teams and innovation,” said Roszkowski.

Recruiters who screen out candidates based on outdated assumptions about age and technology may be passing over exactly the kind of adaptable, skilled talent they’re trying to find.

Bringing it together

Qualifications, skills and talents each tell you something different about a candidate, and hiring well means knowing how to weigh all three. Qualifications show what someone has completed.

Skills show what someone can do, built through practice, work, military service, caregiving, or any other real-world application, regardless of whether it shows up under a matching job title. Talents show the natural strengths someone brings that no training program created.

The candidates worth a second look are often the ones who are strong in one or two of these areas but light in the third, and recognizing that difference can keep a good hire from getting screened out before they ever get the chance to show what they can do.