What it actually takes to trust a hiring decision

Most "skills" data on the market is inference dressed up as fact, and talent teams are staking real decisions on it. Workera's Taylor Sullivan and Falen Milton unpack what separates a guess from evidence you can defend: how a rigorous assessment is actually engineered, what "decision-grade" really means, and how to stand behind a hiring decision — including on fairness and adverse impact — when a committee, a candidate, or a stakeholder asks you to show your work. Accessible on the science, practical on the takeaways.

What we'll cover

• The three tiers that change how you read every skills claim: inferred, validated, and verified
• What "decision-grade" evidence means in practice, and how to know when you have it
• How verified skills data takes unconscious bias out of the decision: evidence that's fair by design, not just defensible after the fact
• Why rigor has to be designed into an assessment from the start rather than bolted on afterward
• How to defend a hiring decision when a committee, a candidate, or the board asks you to show your work

What you'll leave with: A practical test for telling real skills evidence from inference dressed up as fact, and the confidence to defend a decision to a committee, candidate, or stakeholders.