Hire the skills, not the résumé.

In Monster’s 2026 survey, 30% of employers cite skills gaps as a hiring hurdle. Many of the same employers still screen first on degrees, exact titles and industry matches. The skills they say they can’t find are often sitting in the reject pile.

My own career ran from database administration, to owning a hospitality business, to the mortgage industry, to leading global IT operations. A strict keyword filter would have rejected me at almost every turn. Each of those steps is part of why I lead the way I do.

How to hire for skills:

1. Test skills directly. A work sample or a real scenario tells you more than a credential.
2. Drop requirements the work doesn’t need. Starting with degrees for roles that don’t use them.
3. Read a nonlinear career as range, not risk. A strict keyword filter would have rejected me at almost every turn.
4. Treat “overqualified” as a question, not a verdict. Ask the candidate what they want.

Skills gaps close faster when you stop rejecting the skills in front of you.

Next in the series: Friday’s wrap-up — a playbook for fixing the hiring paradox.

Hiring managers: what’s the most valuable thing you brought to a job that never showed up as a keyword match?