Inclusive recruitment · Public sector
When tasks come first, new opportunities open up
Inkluderingskraft Hallingdal – experiences with inclusive recruitment in Nesbyen municipality, Norway.
How can employers reach more suitable candidates by describing the work to be done, rather than starting with traditional education and previous job requirements? Inkluderingskraft Hallingdal explores new models for inclusive recruitment and skills matching. Nesbyen municipality tested the approach when recruiting a service worker in health and care. According to Vinn Hallingdal, the vacancy attracted significantly more applicants than comparable positions usually receive.
Tasks. People. New opportunities.
Labour shortages and untapped skills
Many employers struggle to find the people they need. At the same time, people with relevant experience, motivation and skills may not meet every requirement in a conventional job advertisement. The project explores how a more flexible, task-based approach can connect employers’ needs with the capabilities and potential of a wider range of candidates.
From formal requirements to concrete tasks
- 01
Identify the tasks the organisation needs performed
- 02
Assess the skills required for each task
- 03
Recognise relevant experience from other settings
- 04
Enable learning and development
Significantly more applicants than before
Vinn Hallingdal reports that Nesbyen municipality saw significantly greater interest in a health and care service worker vacancy than in comparable previous advertisements. The position emphasised tasks, motivation, potential and opportunities to learn on the job. These experiences provide a useful starting point for investigating new ways to describe jobs and skills needs.
Source: Vinn Hallingdal, 21 October 2026The experiences will be investigated further
Inkluderingskraft Hallingdal is owned by the Hallingdal Regional Council and led by Vinn Hallingdal. It brings together municipalities, Nav Hallingdal, Synchrocity and other organisations working with recruitment, skills and labour market inclusion. Synchrocity is a member of the preliminary project’s steering group. With funding from FORREGION Buskerud, the experiences will be investigated further with support from the Norwegian Computing Center (Norsk Regnesentral). The aim is to understand how job design, skills mapping and matching can support more inclusive recruitment.
These are preliminary experiences from a collaborative project. Research is not presented as completed, and the reported results are not attributed to Synchrocity or MIRA alone.
An approach aligned with the principles behind MIRA
MIRA starts with the work that actually needs to be done. A structured model connects tasks and roles to skills, enabling job requirements to be compared with people’s experience and capabilities across different backgrounds. The Hallingdal approach illustrates the relevance of this perspective to recruitment and labour market inclusion. This presentation does not establish the specific technical use of MIRA in Nesbyen.
Learn more about MIRASources and further reading
Interested in exploring a more task-based approach to skills and recruitment?
Synchrocity develops skills technology that describes tasks, identifies skills and creates stronger connections between people and the needs of working life.
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