Final answer:
Employers focus on key competencies and transferable skills beyond technical know-how in hiring, valuing traits like adaptability and teamwork. Asymmetric information in hiring is mitigated by looking at education, accolades, and references. Ongoing development post-hiring and a move toward skill-based hiring practices are also observed.
Step-by-step explanation:
When making hiring decisions, employers are placing an increased emphasis on key competencies and transferable skills in addition to traditional measures like specific technical skills and work experience. These competencies include both hard skills, which are specifically related to the job's requirements, and soft skills, which are more personal attributes that enable a person to interact effectively with others. Today's job market values candidates who are not just technically capable, but also emotionally intelligent, adaptable, and able to collaborate effectively with a variety of teams and in different environments.
Employers often look for evidence of these skills and traits during the hiring process. Rather than simple assertions of abilities, they prefer concrete examples that demonstrate competency. Recognizing the challenges presented by asymmetric information in the labor market, where employer cannot directly observe all of an employee's attributes, employers look to pre-screening tools like education, accolades, and references. A diploma from a reputable institution, a high grade point average, awards, and glowing references can serve as proxies for a candidate's work ethic, energy, and other soft skills that are crucial to workplace success.
Even after hiring, the investment in human capital continues as bureaucracies engage in ongoing training and development to ensure their workforce remains competitive and effective. Employers also have started to shed unnecessary degree requirements to increase equity in the workforce and broaden their pool of potential candidates, focusing more on the essential skills and knowledge needed to perform job functions effectively.