The Skills First Coalition is comprised of businesses and innovative education and training providers to advance policies that invest in and strengthen the alignment between education and training for jobs that are in-demand and expand career opportunities for millions of Americans.
Skills-based hiring is more important than ever in the age of AI because rapid technological change is reshaping job roles faster than traditional credentials can keep pace, making demonstrated skills, adaptability, and continuous learning more reliable indicators of success than degrees alone. As AI automates routine tasks and elevates the importance of human capabilities like critical thinking, digital literacy, and problem-solving, employers must look beyond static résumés to identify workers who can evolve with changing demands. By focusing on skills, organizations can expand talent pools, promote economic mobility, reduce inequities in access to opportunity, and ensure they are building a resilient, future-ready workforce capable of effectively leveraging AI rather than being displaced by it.
Promote Multiple Pathways
Coalition members are committed to improving access to and promoting traditional and nontraditional pathways to employment to help more job-seekers, across all demographics, access in-demand, skills-related education and training programs. Policies to pursue include:
Shifting the focus from traditional four-year degrees as proxies for knowledge to verifiable competencies and skills and expanding applicant pools
Scaling work-based learning opportunities, including earn-while-you-learn programs, apprenticeships, internships, and other on-the-job training initiatives
Expanding Pell grants to fund shorter-term, quality workforce-related education and training programs, including online learning
Streamlining the apprenticeship registration process to expand access to nontraditional pathways
Make Postsecondary Education and Training More Affordable
Coalition members support making the cost of education and training affordable for all learners, ensuring there is a return on investments through good-paying, in-demand job placements. Policies to pursue include:
Moving beyond the traditional time-based education marketplace toward a competency-based education system
Addressing gaps in the recognition and verification of knowledge and skills attained by job seekers in prior work and life experience
Improving the transfer of credits between institutions of higher education
Better aligning skills and competencies for career pathways with industry
Encourage Innovation
Coalition members support modernizing the delivery of education and training through innovation and flexibility to better meet learner needs. Policies to pursue include:
Promoting multiple models for training—including online and hybrid —to better meet the schedules of students, job seekers, and workers
Embrace new modes of credentialing and skills verification, in partnership with industry, that assure privacy and security for the individual and empower employers to easily identify talent
Improve Link Between Education and Employment
Coalition members support improving the link between education and employment so that learners are preparing for jobs that are in-demand. Policies to pursue include:
Enhancing skills-based hiring and training by leveraging assessment tools to identify and reward talent.
Establishing partnerships between employers and education institutions to create skills frameworks that define credentials and post-secondary courses at scale, particularly in high-demand industries such as healthcare, technology, and logistics
Support the modernization of the Department of Labor’s O*NET to include employers and education providers to better define skills for jobs. Data must be real-time for the labor market to better define skills for jobs
Enhance data-driven decision-making in federal, regional, state, and local job training initiatives by better connecting to Unemployment Insurance wage records and other data sources
