PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 30, 2026--
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), today announced a strategic partnership to help public sector organizations make skills-based hiring a lasting part of their workforce strategies.
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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.”
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:
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.
Phenom’s recent webinar offers practical strategies for hiring faster, developing talent more effectively, and retaining mission-critical employees. Sign up here to watch it on demand.
For more details about Phenom’s FedRAMP Ready applied AI, click here.
About Phenom
Phenom is the leader in applied AI built to redesign work operations for hiring faster, developing better and retaining longer. It understands unique industry and business needs for departments, teams, employees and candidates. This is AI that knows company DNA, powered by Engines that harmonize data and facilitate orchestration, Ontologies that guide every decision, X AI that creates hyper-personalized experiences, and Agents that work alongside teams with unprecedented speed and precision. Driven by a purpose to help a billion people find the right work, this is responsible AI that is enterprise-secure, compliant, and always explainable.
Phenom has earned accolades including: Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing companies (7 consecutive years), Deloitte Technology's Fast 500 (5 years), 11 Brandon Hall ‘Excellence in Technology’ awards including Gold for ‘Best Advance in Generative AI for Business Impact,’ Business Intelligence Group’s Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards (3 consecutive years), 2026 and 2025 CODiE Awards, The Cloud Awards 2025/2024, The A.I. Awards 2024 and 2025, and a regional Timmy Award for launching and optimizing HelpOneBillion.com (2020).
Headquartered in Greater Philadelphia, Phenom also has offices in Canada, India, Israel, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.
For more information, please visit www.phenom.com. Connect with Phenom on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
About Opportunity@Work
Opportunity@Work is a 501(c)3 nonprofit social enterprise on a mission to rewire the labor market so all Americans can work, learn, and earn to their full potential. Our work advances economic opportunities for the 70+ million U.S. workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs) instead of through a bachelor's degree. Opportunity@Work engages with corporate, public sector, talent technology, and philanthropic partners through landmark research and labor market data analysis, public awareness and narrative change, STARs-centric software tools, and multi-sector networks. Our goal is to enable upward mobility for 1 million STARs by opening up 10 million jobs, and boost their earnings by 100 billion dollars by 2035. Learn more at opportunityatwork.org.
Phenom 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.
