How Qualification Requirements Affect Skills-Short Hiring

This article is part of the Training and Qualifications guide.

Every qualification requirement on a job description is a filter. In skills-short sectors, where the candidate pool is already constrained by geography, salary expectations and availability, adding qualification requirements that are not strictly necessary can reduce an already thin pool to an unworkable one.

Quantifying the effect

The effect of qualification requirements on candidate supply varies by sector, geography and qualification type. Some qualifications are widely held — most field engineers in certain disciplines will hold the relevant competency cards. Others are scarce — NEBOSH-qualified candidates in a specific region may number in the dozens.

Understanding the qualification profile of the candidate market in your sector and geography — not assuming it — is a prerequisite for setting requirements that are realistic. Optio’s market intelligence capability supports this analysis.

The interaction with salary and geography

Qualification requirements do not exist in isolation. They interact with salary and geography to determine the effective candidate pool.

A role requiring a specific qualification, paying at the lower end of the market range, in a geography with a small relevant population, can produce a pool of very few candidates — even before other requirements are applied.

Reviewing qualification requirements alongside salary and geography — as a combined offer review rather than in isolation — is how employers avoid inadvertently designing a role that nobody can fill.

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