Playbook offers states guidance for skills-based hiring in an ‘AI world’

Once the hallmark indicator of employment readiness, college degrees are becoming less relevant for some government jobs as states increasingly implement skills-based hiring. A new playbook looks to further help states transition to a skills-based framework, particularly as artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace. 

At least 33 states have implemented a skills-based hiring framework for certain roles since 2022, when Maryland became the first in the nation to remove four-year degree requirements for state government jobs in IT, administration and customer service. 

To help state leaders adopt and implement skills-based hiring, a playbook released last month from the nonprofit Opportunity@Work offers guidance for policy, rulemaking and legislative efforts. 

The playbook’s release comes as voters in 36 states “will be hiring a new governor in November,” Blair Corcorcan de Castillo, senior vice president of public sector and policy at Opportunity@Work, told Route Fifty. “Whether those leaders are entering office or setting priorities for another term, we see this playbook as giving them concrete policy options to strengthen their workforce, expand opportunity and deliver better public services.” 

As governments also prepare for an AI-driven future, “skills-based talent practices are going to be even more important in an AI world because it's going to change how agencies operate, what their technology and other departments need to do, [which is] going to come down to governments needing to recognize the skills workers have and help them build new ones,” she said.   

Indeed, states have been creating or expanding roles like the chief artificial intelligence officer, chief data officer and other positions to help the public sector navigate new technologies’ impact on government workforces, policies and services. 

One way state leaders and officials can advance skills-based hiring is to focus minimum qualifications in job classification on skills and competencies, which can help attract qualified candidates to apply for vacant positions and “build an agile and responsive talent system as work and roles continually evolve in the era of AI,” the playbook reads. 

While the public sector is seeing gains in application volume in recent years, state and local officials are reporting that they struggle to attract and retain qualified candidates. 

Less stringent and more accessible minimum qualifications can help human resources officials mitigate the chances that applications are automatically screened out of systems on the basis that, for example, a job candidate lacks a required number of years of experience, Corcoran de Castillo said. Hiring leaders could consider other qualifications, such as soft skills or defining hiring standards equivalent to degree requirements. 

The playbook also points to an opportunity for states to broaden skills-based hiring to apply to government contractors.

Particularly for IT and digital teams in state government, “we don’t want to make it harder for the businesses that are supporting governments to deliver services,” Corcoran de Castillo said. 

Kansas is one such state tackling skills-based hiring in state and government contracting, according to the playbook. State lawmakers passed a bill last year to remove postsecondary degree requirements from state and government contracting jobs. 

“Many such positions have experienced a phenomenon called degree inflation as more employers rely on a postsecondary degree as an indicator of career readiness, instead of using relevant work experience. These requirements limit opportunities for hard-working Americans and encourage unnecessary student debt,” according to the bill, which went into effect last July.

Corcoran de Castillo also emphasized that transitioning to a skills-based hiring framework requires sustained effort, and that states should view the model as an ongoing commitment beyond a one-time project. 

The playbook recommends that states invest in infrastructure that supports the practice of skills-based hiring, including a dedicated individual or team that can implement such policies and practices to data systems and other platforms that enable staff to implement the hiring model. 

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, for example, signed an executive order in 2022 appointing the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration’s Division of Human Resources as responsible for developing statewide guidance and strategies for skills-based hiring, according to the playbook.

In the same order, Polis allocated $700,000 in state funds to the Department of Personnel and Administration to support the necessary training, policy updates and tools for implementing a skills-based hiring framework across state agencies. The order also establishes that “costs needed for skills-based hiring beyond [fiscal] 2023-24 will be identified and requested through the annual budget process.” 

Another way to help establish and sustain skills-based hiring in state government is to develop shared resources and services “to ensure consistency across agencies,” the playbook reads. Such resources could include job description templates, application assessment frameworks and shared hiring training materials. 

The Louisiana State Civil Service agency created a hiring framework in 2024, the first three steps of which state agencies are required to adopt. The agency also created hiring templates to support consistent adoption statewide. 

Such efforts have helped Louisiana’s skills-based hiring approach contribute to a 14% increase in state government hiring, a 7% increase in career advancement and a 3% decrease in employee attrition among staff, Corcoran de Castillo said. 

Ultimately, if states “don't start to build the infrastructure and change our practices towards skills-based hiring, [they] are not going to be able to meet citizen services and other government responsibilities because [they’re] not going to have the staff who are going to be able to do it,” she said.