The first question in a hiring process is changing. Increasingly, employers are asking what a candidate can do before asking where the candidate studied. Skills shortages, digital transformation and fast-changing job requirements are pushing employers to examine capability more directly. The change does not mean degrees have lost value. It means employers are questioning whether a degree should remain the default proxy for competence when roles evolve faster than curricula.
The World Economic Forum reports that 96% of Southeast Asian employers prioritise upskilling, while 60% in East and South Asia see skills gaps as barriers. To adapt, companies are diversifying; 60% of Indian employers use diverse talent pools and 30% are removing degree requirements to expand pipelines.
Hiring for What Candidates Can Do
A skills-first model starts with the work itself. Hiring teams define the capabilities a role requires, then assess candidates against those requirements through practical exercises, structured interviews, portfolios, tests, or verified credentials. Work experience remains important. The WEF expects 81% of employers to rely on it for assessing candidates between 2025 and 2030, while 48% expect to use skills assessments.
LinkedIn sees the same movement in Asian recruiter behaviour. Its analysis found that 80% of Southeast Asian recruiters prioritise skills-first hiring, alongside 78% of recruiters in India adopting the same approach. This data directly represents Asia, illustrating a massive regional shift in how digital recruiting systems now identify candidate capability based on practical merit rather than formal degrees.
Asia’s Talent Pool Expands
The attraction for Asian employers is practical. Removing unnecessary credentials can bring experienced workers, career switchers, vocational learners and people who built expertise outside conventional academic routes into consideration. LinkedIn’s Asia coverage has also highlighted skills-based hiring as a route toward more inclusive talent pools, including greater access for women.
India offers a useful regional example. The WEF reports that 67% of Indian employers expect tapping diverse talent pools to help address workforce needs. Skills-based hiring sits alongside investment in AI, robotics and other emerging technologies as organisations prepare for changing work.
The model also changes the question asked of candidates. Instead of asking whether someone possesses the conventional qualification, recruiters can ask whether the person can analyse data, manage stakeholders, write secure code, sell effectively or lead change. Such questions produce a closer connection between selection and actual work.
Technology Enters the Hiring Process
AI is accelerating this shift. Platforms can map skills to vacancies, identify adjacent capabilities, and search larger candidate pools, while digital credentials give candidates portable evidence of learning. However, while AI makes skills-based hiring easier to scale, it can also reproduce existing biases if the underlying data, job descriptions, or assessment criteria are flawed. The OECD notes that skills passports can combine education, employment experience and skills acquired through formal, informal and non-formal learning.
Yet technology cannot solve the validation problem alone. Employers still need reliable assessments and clear definitions of proficiency. The OECD identifies unequal access to digital tools, difficulties validating skills and employer reluctance to trust non-traditional credentials as barriers to a successful skills-first labour market.
Internal Mobility Becomes Part of the Equation
The most consequential change may occur after hiring. A genuine skills-first organisation maps employee capabilities, identifies adjacent skills and connects people with internal opportunities. Talent marketplaces can make those connections visible, helping companies redeploy existing expertise into projects, vacancies and development pathways.
Such systems matter as job requirements change. The World Economic Forum expects South Asia alone to add 180 million working-age adults by 2030, driving massive regional job creation in technology and advanced manufacturing. Employers therefore need mechanisms for moving people toward emerging work, alongside external recruitment.
More Demanding Standard
Skills-first hiring still needs discipline. A company that simply deletes “degree required” from a job description has not redesigned recruitment. It must identify essential skills, remove irrelevant filters, train hiring managers, standardise assessments and measure outcomes. Leaders also need to preserve degree requirements where regulation, professional standards or genuine role demands make them necessary.
The direction across Asia is therefore less about declaring degrees obsolete and more about widening the definition of merit. Credentials can remain useful evidence. Demonstrated capability, adaptability and the capacity to keep learning are becoming equally important signals.
The emerging talent market will reward employers that can recognise potential without lowering standards. The strongest skills-first systems will connect hiring, learning and internal mobility into one workforce architecture. Asia’s employers are starting to build that architecture, and the debate is moving from whether skills should matter more to how organisations can measure them fairly.
FAQ’s:
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