Skills-based hiring: what it means for career changers

In a job advert that hires on skills, you will usually see some of these:

• Essential criteria written as things you can do, such as “explain complex information to the public”, rather than a job title or a number of years in the sector.
• Assessment by examples you write or talk through, a test, a task or presentation, or questions about what you enjoy and do well.
• A qualification asked for only where the job legally or practically needs one.

For a career changer, that shifts the question from “have you done this job?” to “can you show you can do these things?”. Your evidence can come from a different sector, as long as it matches what the advert asks for.

The Civil Service recruits using a framework called Success Profiles (first published 18 June 2018, last updated 29 January 2025). It has five elements, and each job advert says which ones will be assessed and how:

• Behaviours: the actions and activities that result in effective performance in a job.
• Strengths: the things you do regularly, do well and that motivate you.
• Ability: the aptitude or potential to perform to the required standard, sometimes assessed with online tests.
• Experience: knowledge or mastery of an activity or subject gained through doing it.
• Technical: specific professional skills, knowledge or qualifications.

There are nine Civil Service behaviours: seeing the big picture, changing and improving, making effective decisions, leadership, communicating and influencing, working together, developing self and others, managing a quality service, delivering at pace. You will not be asked for all of them in one job.

Three points in the candidate overview matter most if you are changing career:

• Your examples of behaviours can come from work or from somewhere else, such as work experience, volunteering or a hobby.
• You may be asked for an anonymised CV that leaves out information such as your name, age or gender, and to include only educational qualifications relevant to the role.
• Interviews usually last 30 to 60 minutes and may include questions about your interests and what you enjoy, which assess your strengths.

Skills England also notes that behaviours “tend to be very transferable. They may be more similar across occupations than knowledge and skills” (What is an occupational standard?). That is useful even if you never start an apprenticeship: the standard for your target job lists, in employers' own words, the duties and skills they expect. Read it, tick off what you can already evidence, and you have a list of gaps and a vocabulary for your CV.

NHS Employers describes values-based recruitment as an approach that helps employers find people whose personal values match the organisation's, by assessing candidates' values and behaviours against the NHS Constitution (NHS Employers, 23 May 2024). If you apply for an NHS role, read the values in the NHS Constitution and prepare real examples of acting on them, in the same way as for Civil Service behaviours.

1. List the essential criteria. Copy each one from the advert or person specification onto its own line.
2. Find one example for each. Pick a real situation where you did the thing being asked for. GOV.UK's guide to competencies says to use evidence from work if you can, “though your examples don't need to be work related” (A brief guide to competencies).
3. Write it up with STAR. Situation (what was going on), Task (what you were trying to achieve), Action (what you did, how and why) and Result (what happened, and whether you met your goal).
4. Use the advert's words. If it says “stakeholder engagement”, use that phrase rather than your old sector's term for the same thing.
5. Practise any tests. The Civil Service says practice questions are available before its online tests.

Our transferable skills guide helps with the wording, and the career change CV guide shows where the examples go on your CV.