Lessons from Da Vinci on Skills-Based Hiring
By Rhodri Jones
When Leonardo Da Vinci wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan in 1482 outlining his core skills and why he should be given a job, he would have had little idea that his note would form the blueprint for modern-day job seekers.
That letter is now widely acknowledged as the first known example of the CV. It’s the universal document that enables potential employers to assess your suitability for a role by providing a full picture of your background.
But its modern incarnation, summarising work experience and achievements, using degrees, job titles and years of service as shorthand for competence, is dangerously outdated. Those parameters are breaking down under the weight of rapid digital transformation and the pace at which skills are evolving.
In short, the way we evaluate candidates has not kept pace with the way we work. What’s the solution to this conundrum? Skills-based hiring.
Outdated hiring models
Traditional hiring methods are built for stability, rewarding predictability and experience gained over time spent in specific sectors. But economic success lies in adaptability and learning. In most roles, the knowledge and tools that defined success a decade ago have already been replaced. The meteoric rise in the use of AI has accelerated that change and, according to the World Economic Forum, nearly four in 10 of the core skills employers depend on today will change by 2030.
“Employers expect 39% of key skills required in the job market will change by 2030. This figure represents significant disruption but is down from 44% in 2023. A growing focus on continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling programmes has enabled companies to better anticipate and manage future skill requirements.” Future of Jobs Report (2025), WEF
Relying on a candidate’s past titles or tenure in one sector tells you little about their ability to solve tomorrow’s problems. Companies can no longer rely on veterans who may excel at yesterday’s challenges but lack the skills needed for transformation, data literacy or digital collaboration. Businesses that are hiring purely on past credentials will struggle to keep up with the pace of change.
At the same time, work itself is fragmenting. Businesses are hiring for roles that did not exist three years ago and, in some cases, for work that has yet to be defined.
Workforce planning is increasingly focused on building the capabilities needed for these next-wave roles rather than filling traditional headcount.
How skills-based hiring drives success
What exactly is skills-based hiring? It can be defined as making hiring decisions based primarily on the capabilities, behaviours and potential required to succeed in a role, rather than on traditional indicators such as degrees, job titles or time spent in one sector. Restricting senior hiring to those with perfect titles or familiar pedigrees only narrows the available pool. But a skills-based hiring mindset does the opposite, allowing companies to consider leaders from adjacent sectors, internal high-performing employees, or professionals with transferable skills and fresh perspectives gained in different industries.
Another WEF report, Putting Skills First, highlights a crucial point: how skills are acquired matters less than the fact that they are present. Organisations that ignore this risk being left behind as more agile competitors embrace capability over convention. Hiring for skills is not only fairer; it is commercially smarter.
Analysis by Forbes found that companies prioritising capability over credentials cut bad hires by up to 90 per cent and are significantly more likely to retain top performers.
A study by Deloitte found that businesses using a capability-driven model can redeploy talent efficiently across projects, geographies and divisions rather than waiting to “backfill” a traditional role. The result is greater agility, faster delivery and higher return on talent investment.
Importantly, removing rigid sector filters broadens leadership diversity. It brings new thinking and reduces the “echo chamber” effect that can limit innovation. Diverse teams built around complementary skills, rather than identical backgrounds, are more creative, more resilient and better equipped to navigate uncertainty.
How to make skills-based hiring work
While the evidence shows a widespread awareness of the need for skills-first hiring, a persistent reluctance exists to move away from traditional selection habits. Many companies have announced skills-based hiring policies, yet internal behaviour tells a different story.
Research by Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute found that in some firms, fewer than 0.1% of new hires were people without degrees. This reveals a clear credibility gap, where the bias towards safe hires with familiar titles or blue-chip backgrounds remains strong, especially for senior roles.
“The shift towards skills-based hiring is not a passing trend. It reflects a deeper structural change in how work is created, delivered and valued.”
That disconnect carries risk. Leadership rhetoric promises agility and inclusion while hiring decisions reinforce old hierarchies, impacting credibility. Candidates, employees and investors can all see when the door is still closed. Over time, that erodes trust and weakens employer brands.
Implementing a skills-first approach is not simply about rewriting job descriptions. It requires a different mindset, new tools and strong sponsorship from the top. At senior levels, the task becomes even harder. Only a minority of HR leaders can effectively map and classify the skills their organisation needs for specific roles. Capabilities such as strategic sense-making, transformational leadership, digital acumen, stakeholder management and resilience are less tangible but equally critical to success.
Assessing those skills demands more than a traditional CV and interview. It requires an in-depth knowledge of a candidate’s capabilities, clear evidence of learning agility and benchmarking processes, but many organisations do not yet have the systems or resources to evaluate senior talent in this way. This is where specialist recruitment partners can make a real difference, providing the networks, expertise and assessment tools that give employers the confidence to look beyond their usual markets.
Changing senior hiring criteria is also a cultural challenge. Boards, executive teams and hiring committees must redefine what good leadership looks like, potentially risking their own credibility. The privileges of the veteran must give way to the qualities of the capable leader. Senior leaders must actively champion the shift, reinforcing the idea that future value lies in what a person can contribute in the future, not what they have done before.
The path forward
The shift towards skills-based hiring is not a passing trend. It reflects a deeper structural change in how work is created, delivered and valued. Senior leaders need to treat this as a strategic agenda, not an HR experiment, defining future capabilities that will matter most in their business, aligning hiring and development around them.
The question for every leadership team is simple: when was the last time you updated your criteria for success and hiring methods to reflect what the business will need tomorrow rather than what worked yesterday? Successful businesses will not be defined by what titles their leaders held but judged on what they deliver.
So what exactly did Da Vinci put in his CV to secure the job? How did he convince the Duke of Milan that he was the best person to develop the city? As with most things, Da Vinci was ahead of his time, focusing on his skills as an engineer and sculptor, giving examples of what he’d done, the impact it had, and what he would bring to the role.
You probably already know that Da Vinci got the job. It’s a case study in why skills, not seniority, are the true measure of success.
