Phenom and Opportunity@Work Help States Hire for Skills, Creating New Career Pathways for Public Sector Talent

As states swap degrees for skills, AI, agents and automation for HR turns policy into measurable hiring outcomes

Phenom, the leader in applied AI built to redesign work operations for hiring faster, developing better and retaining longer, and Opportunity@Work, a national nonprofit focused on expanding economic opportunity for workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs), announced a strategic partnership to help public sector organizations make skills-based hiring a lasting part of their workforce strategies.

“Government agencies have some of the best proof that skills-first hiring works… This partnership gives states a practical way to connect that proof to the technology they already use to hire,” said Byron Auguste, CEO and co-founder of Opportunity@Work.

States across the country are eliminating degree requirements and adopting skills-first hiring to meet their evolving talent needs and to broaden pathways into public service. While public sector hiring may be less challenging than at the height of the pandemic, it is far from easy. In a 2026 survey of state and local government HR leaders, 89% said their organization hired in the past year, yet most still struggle to fill critical roles in areas like public safety, health care, skilled trades, and dispatch.

The Phenom and Opportunity@Work partnership is designed to close these talent gaps, helping state agencies move from skills-first policy to skills-first hiring practice. The partnership pairs Opportunity@Work’s workforce expertise and data on worker skills and transitions, with Phenom AI, agents, and automation, giving agencies the tools to source, screen, and hire on demonstrated skills rather than credentials.

Early results show what is possible when policy change reaches daily hiring practice. In Louisiana, for example, the state experienced a 14% increase in STAR hires, 7% increase in STAR advancement and an almost 4% reduction in attrition of STARs after helping practitioners connect existing tools and practices into a clear, statewide skills-based approach to hiring and advancement. Nationally, Opportunity@Work’s network had nearly 600,000 private-sector and 246,129 public-sector job postings open to STARs in 2025. More than 90,000 STARs in its partner network have moved into higher-wage roles since 2022.

“States that dropped degree requirements collectively gained access to millions more qualified candidates, but they have no way to find them,” said Saumil Gandhi, Sr. Vice President of Corporate Development at Phenom. “Phenom’s partnership with Opportunity@Work gives agencies the skills data and AI to reach those workers, close the vacancies slowing down public services, and back all hiring decisions with evidence.”

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Aligning AI with Skills Insights for State Agencies

Removing degree requirements is an important first step, but it does not change how candidates discover roles or how hiring teams evaluate talent. Agencies need technology that surfaces relevant roles based on skills, experience, and certifications, transparent methods for evaluating role-critical skills, and evidence that the shift is delivering measurable returns. Without these capabilities, skills-based hiring remains a set of guidelines instead of daily practice.

Phenom’s applied AI, enhanced with insights from Opportunity@Work, closes this gap and helps states make skills-based hiring operational at scale while:

• Improving discoverability of civil service jobs for qualified candidates by delivering personalized recommendations
• Surfacing adjacent opportunities based on transferable skills and experience
• Reducing disinterest caused by unnecessary degree requirements
• Connecting candidates to roles aligned with their qualifications and career pathways

Rather than relying solely on traditional education pathways, Phenom uses AI to personalize job matching around each candidate’s skills, experience and certifications. Candidates can see how their capabilities align with specific roles, receive tailored recommendations for relevant opportunities and better understand alternative pathways into government careers. This helps them identify positions they may have assumed were out of reach while giving agencies a more complete view of the talent available to them.

Proprietary ontologies built around public sector skill relationships match candidates to roles based on what they can do rather than where they went to school, surfacing opportunities for people with military service, apprenticeships, associate degrees, or partial coursework who might otherwise screen themselves out. Candidates see how their capabilities map to specific openings and find adjacent roles they may have assumed were out of reach. Recruiters and hiring managers get a larger, better-qualified talent pool and streamline the process from application to hire.

State government agencies can then orchestrate workflows across recruiters, hiring managers, HR teams and compliance stakeholders with Phenom WorkOps, a governance system that coordinates AI agents, automation, and keeping humans in the loop, while enforcing compliance policies in real time. Everything runs inside existing hiring workflows and civil service frameworks, with pre-built integrations for more than 200 ATS and HRIS systems, so teams can avoid overhauling their tech stack. Teams gain the visibility and intelligent automation needed to move qualified candidates forward faster, reduce administrative friction, and maintain the consistency public sector hiring demands. The result is a more agile, skills-focused talent operation that helps agencies compete for critical talent while delivering on their missions.

“Government agencies have some of the best proof that skills-first hiring works, and STARs are ready to fill roles the moment agencies can see what they can do,” said Byron Auguste, CEO and co-founder of Opportunity@Work. “This partnership gives states a practical way to connect that proof to the technology they already use to hire.”

Making Skills-Based Hiring Transparent and Auditable

To give agencies confidence in every hiring decision, Phenom’s tool is built on explainable AI. Fit scores and recommendations are fully transparent, configurable and audit-ready, so agencies can see exactly why candidates receive the scores they do.

With transparent fit scoring and pathway analytics, agencies can adjust weighting according to job requirements, demonstrate how skills-first policies are affecting outcomes and defend hiring decisions to oversight bodies and the public.

The effort comes at a time when states are expected not only to modernize workforce policy, but also to prove that new approaches are working. For public sector agencies, implementing skills-based hiring requires a shift in how talent is discovered and advanced across the talent lifecycle.

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