Merita Consulting

Skills First

In the ever-evolving landscape of business, one truth remains constant: a company is only as strong as its workforce. This is where skills-first hiring and promoting come to the forefront, offering a means to fill positions and a catalyst for driving your company’s growth. When you strategically hire for skills, you open doors to enhanced innovation, heightened productivity, and an overall surge in business success.

Skill Definitions

Determining the skills for each role is a critical first step in building an adaptive workforce. These definitions are the foundation for your job descriptions, job postings, career pathways, and workforce development programs, all of which provide the platform for implementing a skills-first hiring and promotion program.



Skills Assessments

Skills assessments are crucial to the skills-based hiring process. They are the litmus test that helps employers determine if a candidate’s abilities align with the role’s requirements. Yet evaluating technical skills alone is not enough.

You must embrace a holistic approach to skills assessments to find the perfect fit for your team.


Mark Kvamme to Help Knock the Rust off Ohio

Posted on by Dwayne Nesmith

It was 1996 and the head of CKS Group was impressed enough with a young, brash guy from Los Angeles to give him a bit of Angel Funding.  Eric Greenberg took that money, grabbed a few folks to get going, and put together a plan that attracted capital from Bill Davidow, Vinod Khosla, and Venetia Kontagouris, VCs from Mohr Davidow, Kleiner Perkins, and Trident Capital, respectively.

3 and a half years later, Viant (without Greenberg) and Scient (Greenberg’s next startup) had created a new way of providing consulting in the Internet age and were carrying public market caps of over $1B.  CKS’s investment of about $40,000 was cashed in during Viant’s follow-on offering for a bit over $1,000,000.

The leader of CKS at that time, Mark Kvamme, is now taking a leave from Sequoia Capital to help lead Ohio’s business development in a public service role.  He’ll be receiving $1 in compensation.  Can he find more straw to spin into gold?