What are core skills?

Core skills – or critical skills – are transferable skills that help employees perform well under different workplace conditions or circumstances. Examples of core skills include:

• Communication
• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Information and communication technology
• Problem-solving
• Creativity
• Adaptability
• Working well with others

How are core skills different from hard and soft skills?

Hard and soft skills can be considered ‘core skills’ if they are transferable and applicable to a range of different contexts. For example, numeracy and literacy are both hard skills, but they also function as core skills since they can help employees adapt to different situations and acquire additional skills. For example, strong core literacy skills can support learning to write bid proposals and basic numeracy can be essential when developing coding skills.

Even when hard skills such as knowledge of a particular coding language become redundant, a foundation in numeracy and information technology hard skills can help individuals adapt to learn various digital skills. Similarly, soft skills such as problem-solving and communication are considered core skills because they are valuable in nearly all roles that involve collaboration and engaging with others.

Can you train employees in core skills?

Employees can acquire core skills through experience, but sometimes they are innate personal traits or characteristics. However, core skills can often be refined through practice. For example, consider a candidate who is naturally skilled in conversation. After years working in a customer service, they have improved their ability to engage with customers, effectively guiding conversations and even encouraging purchases.

Why is it useful to recruit for core skills?

Core skills can strengthen an employee’s ability to develop other skills. For example, core problem-solving and adaptability skills can help an employee pick up new digital skills and adjust to evolving job requirements.

Because core skills are highly transferable, they can also help future-proof a business. Future proofing involves keeping a business and its strategies relevant through major industry changes. As explained in our guide on future proofing, this involves creating strategies that minimise, mitigate or eliminate foreseeable changes or challenges within your industry. 

While identifying and addressing skills gaps is a key future-proofing strategy, recruiting for core skills can work effectively alongside this. Core skills can help employees learn and grow even as their role responsibilities change, which may be an essential quality if a business undergoes workforce transformation.

Employers can identify candidates with strong core skills by using a skills-based hiring approach. While skills-based hiring often focuses on hard and soft skills, this approach can also be used to target core skills. In this next section, we explore how to do this effectively.

How do core skills inform skills-based recruitment?

To integrate core skills into skills-based recruitment, start by identifying the essential skills required for a role. Analyse the role’s key responsibilities and determine which core skills are critical for a candidate’s success. Once you have established these, focus on assessing them during the interview process.

Using behavioural questions to identify core skills

One of the most effective ways to evaluate core skills in candidates is through behavioural questions. These questions explore a candidate’s past experiences and decision-making processes, revealing transferable skills such as communication, adaptability, and problem-solving.

When assessing candidates, consider core skills alongside the necessary hard and soft skills required for the job, particularly in positions requiring a high level of technical expertise.

To identify core skills using behavioural questions, request candidates to demonstrate how they used a particular core skill in the past. Ask them to explain how it helped them achieve a goal. For example, asking ‘Describe how you solved a problem at work’ can help identify their problem-solving approach.

Using the STAR method to identify core skills

One of the most effective behavioural interview question formats is the STAR method. These questions explore a candidate’s past experiences and decision-making processes, revealing transferable skills such as communication, adaptability, and problem-solving.

• Situation: The candidate describes a real scenario they faced at work, school or in a personal setting that required problem-solving. Their response should be clear and relevant to the question.
• Task: A candidate explains the task at hand and the goal they needed to achieve, giving insight into their responsibilities in previous jobs.
• Action: The candidate details the steps they took to resolve the situation, showcasing their core skills in action.
• Results: The candidate explains the results of their actions, lessons learned and challenges faced, ideally quantifying their impact on their previous organisation.

Encouraging candidates to highlight their core skills during the ‘Action’ stage helps reveal how they apply these abilities in practice. Let’s look at how this can be achieved during a STAR interview.

For example, imagine a candidate applying for an IT-related role. If asked about how they have used problem-solving skills to overcome a technical challenge, they might highlight an example of when they led a coding project in their previous job and came up against significant issues (Situation). Next, they would explain their task and what needed to be resolved (Task) and discuss how they used problem-solving and technical skills to address the issue (Action). Finally, they would share the outcome, detailing what they learned and how it benefited their team or employer (Results).

Based on this response, the interviewer could note problem-solving as a key core skill demonstrated by the candidate. They might also record additional insights, such as the technical skills applied and their relevance to the role.

By structuring interviews this way, employers can effectively assess core skills alongside hard and soft skills, making skills-based recruitment more comprehensive and future-focused.

Core skills differ from hard and soft skills because they are highly transferable, making them valuable across a wide range of roles, scenarios and industries. For businesses focused on future-proofing their workforce, recruiting candidates with these adaptable skills can be key to retaining employees and ensuring long-term success.