the short version
- In October 2026 the heads of the Singapore Business Federation, SNEF, NTUC and SUSS, with the chief executive of the Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA), put out a paper on Skills-First: looking at what a person can do when you hire, design jobs, move people around, train them and promote them.
- Qualifications still count. They stop being the only thing that counts.
- It is a discussion paper with pilot ideas, not a rule or a grant. Nobody has to do it yet.
- Most of the change has to come from employers. But a skill nobody can see doesn’t get used, so it pays to make yours easy to check.
Jump to your part: I run a small business · I’m mid-career · I’ve just graduated
three things per skill
The paper asks people to describe their experience as skills, keep a record of evidence, and get recommendations from people who saw the work. That comes down to three things for every skill you want noticed.
Say the skill in the employer’s words
Use the names in your sector’s Skills Framework, the national list other employers and the Careers & Skills Passport use. “Data analysis and visualisation”, not “Excel guru”.
Show something that happened
A work sample, a before-and-after number, an assessment, a test result. Something a stranger can look at.
Name someone who saw it
A supervisor, client or lecturer who can say “I saw them do this task”, and names the task.
pick your door
Four of the five decisions happen inside your company: designing jobs, moving people, training them, promoting them. LinkedIn doesn’t help with any of those. What helps is a written record of what each person has been seen doing.
- 1 · write the job as tasks
Rewrite one job ad
List the five tasks the person will do in the first three months, with the standard you expect. Keep the qualification line if you want; just stop letting it decide on its own.
wasHardworking, diploma preferred, good communication.
nowPick and pack 150 orders a day with fewer than two wrong items a week. Call back customers about late orders the same day. - 2 · test the task
A 30-minute work sample at interview
Give every candidate a small, made-up version of the real task. Score everyone on the same three or four points, written down before the first interview, so the result doesn’t depend on who happens to be interviewing.
- 3 · sign off what staff can do
One sheet per person
Task, date seen, who saw it, standard met. Fill it in when a supervisor watches someone do the task properly. Look at it before you move anyone, send them on a course or promote them. The sheet is below; print it.
- 4 · borrow the official words
Use the Skills Framework for your sector
Write tasks in your own words first. Then add the matching skill name from the Skills Framework ↗, so a record means the same thing to the next employer or a training provider. My Skills Training Landscape page shows the courses listed against the roles still open in each sector.
- why bother
Someone you have seen do the job is a safer bet
Hiring a stranger with the right certificate costs money and carries risk. One estimate in the series puts an SME’s cost of screening a hire at about 14% of a year’s salary. A person you have already watched doing the task is cheaper to move or promote, and less likely to surprise you.
Task sign-off sheet
Name: ____________________ Role: ____________________
| Task (with the standard) | Seen on | Seen by | Standard met? | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pack 150 orders a day, <2 wrong items a week | 3 Nov | Supervisor | Yes, 3 weeks running | Train on returns |
You have years of skill, but your CV probably describes it as job titles, and your best work belongs to your employer. The job is translation: titles into tasks, tasks into words employers search for.
- 1 · titles into tasks
Three to five tasks per job, each with a result
A job title says where you sat. A task with a result says what you can do.
wasSenior Executive, Operations, 2016–2025.
nowCut the weekly stock count from six hours to two by redoing the bin layout and labels. - 2 · borrow the official words
Match your tasks to the Skills Framework
Find your sector in the Skills Framework ↗ and put its skill name next to each task. Recruiters’ systems and the Careers & Skills Passport use those names. Switching sectors? Check which skills appear in both.
- 3 · prove it quietly
Write up confidential work without names
Half a page per piece of work: the problem, what you did, what changed. Leave out client names, prices and anything that identifies the company. That is enough for an interviewer to ask good questions.
- 4 · line up witnesses
Ask for recommendations before you leave
Ask a supervisor or client to name the task they saw you do, while they still remember it. The paper notes that automated CV screening drops good candidates. A direct recommendation goes around it.
- 5 · once a year
A skills stock-take
List what you added this year and what has gone stale. One paper in the series describes a reliable worker passed over because they hadn’t added new skills. It also cites a Singapore study where only a quarter of workers made planned job moves that paid off.
Role-to-tasks worksheet
| Role and years | Task | Result | Skill name (Skills Framework) | Proof | Witness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops exec, 2016–25 | Redid bin layout | Count 6h → 2h | Inventory control | Write-up, before/after photos | Ex-manager |
You don’t have years of work to point to, so your proof comes from what you did while studying. Most graduates have more of it than they think. It just isn’t written down.
- 1 · every project is a sample
Half a page for each one
Internship, work-study, final-year project, a CCA you ran. Write the brief, what you did yourself, the result, and what you would do differently next time.
wasCompleted a 6-month internship at a logistics company.
nowBuilt the weekly late-delivery report in Excel; the team used it to cut late orders from 9% to 5% over my last two months. - 2 · ask your school
Does it issue a skills record?
Some schools now issue a skills-based or co-curricular transcript alongside grades. SMU has had one since 2025. If yours does, attach it. If it doesn’t, your half-page write-ups do the same job.
- 3 · one witness per project
Someone who saw you do it
An internship supervisor or lecturer who will let you name them. Ask them now, while they remember the work.
- 4 · make one thing in public
Small and finished beats big and unfinished
GitHub for code or data, a portfolio page for design, a two-minute video for hands-on work. One finished piece in your field gives an interviewer something real to ask about.
- 5 · check the words
Use the words the job ads use
Read ten job ads for the role you want and look up the role in the Skills Framework ↗. Use the same skill names on your CV and LinkedIn.
Work-sample write-up
| Heading | Your notes (half a page in total) |
|---|---|
| Project and dates | |
| The brief: what was asked | |
| What I did myself | |
| Result, with a number if there is one | |
| Skill name (Skills Framework) | |
| What I would do differently | |
| Witness (name, role, OK to contact?) |
build one skill line
Type one skill and get two lines back: one for your CV, one for LinkedIn. Nothing you type leaves this page or gets saved.
Your line appears here as you type.
where to put it
No single place covers everything. Pick the ones that fit your work.
| Place | Good for | Watch out |
|---|---|---|
| Careers & Skills Passport | The national record, kept in MySkillsFuture. Records can now be shared straight to MyCareersFuture ↗. | Mostly holds course certificates so far. Keep it up to date anyway. |
| Where recruiters search. The Featured section takes work samples; recommendations can name a task. | Anyone can list any skill, so the samples and recommendations carry the weight. | |
| GitHub | Code, data or documents built in public. Every change is dated, so others can check. | Little use for hands-on, care or people work. |
| Portfolio page or YouTube | Visual or hands-on work: before-and-after photos, short “how I did it” videos. | Ask before showing anything from an employer or client. |
| Inside the company | Sign-off sheets, assessment records, project write-ups. This is what moves and promotions are decided on. | Ask for a copy before you leave. |
what this won’t fix
Making skills visible only helps if employers look. The first paper in the series cites a US finding: for every 100 jobs that dropped a degree requirement, fewer than four more people without degrees were hired. Changing the job ad wasn’t enough on its own.
So the SME door matters most. A worker can build a perfect record, but a company that writes jobs as tasks and signs off what staff can do is the part that changes who gets hired and promoted.
This site is my own attempt at the worker’s side. Each live page says when its data was last checked, and the code is public on GitHub ↗, so you can check rather than take my word for it.
Based on Skills-First: Framework for Action (Working Paper 6, October 2026) and earlier papers in the series from the Centre for Skills-First Practices at the Institute for Adult Learning, read on 19 Oct 2026. The worked examples are made up. The steps are my reading of the papers, not their wording. Not affiliated with or endorsed by IAL, SUSS, SkillsFuture or any of the paper’s partners.