Degree-based or Skills-based Hiring? It Should Be Both.

LaShana Lewis tells a story familiar to anyone with workforce skills but no college degree. “I tried for many years to get jobs in the tech sector, only to be told that I could not get a job because I did not finish a degree. I was never tested on my technical skills or made it past the first interview.”

Then LaShana discovered CoderGirl, a tech job-prep program from LaunchCode, a nonprofit helping people find jobs in the technology field. The discovery led to an apprenticeship with Mastercard and then a job as a systems engineer. In 2018, LaShana started L.M. Lewis Consulting to improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace.   

LaShana still doesn’t have a college degree, but she’s become skilled through alternative routes. She’s an example of how employers are turning from evaluating a job seeker’s degree credentials – degree-based hiring – to evaluating a job seeker’s practical knowledge and experience – skill-based hiring.

Skill-based hiring is being used by the likes of Google, Apple, IBM, Mastercard, and Bank of America, with big implications for how schools, colleges, and other programs prepare people for jobs and careers.

President Biden highlighted this approach in his State of the Union address, asking employers to “give workers a fair shot . . . hire them based on their skills not just their degrees.” Days later, Maryland Republican governor Larry Hogan announced a partnership with Opportunity@Work to implement a statewide hiring plan that did away with degree requirements for thousands of state jobs.

Employers aren’t dispensing with the need for degrees in hiring. Degrees remain a “signal,” a quick way to know if job applicants have basic knowledge and skills for many jobs. But using college degrees as the only criterion for hiring has major downsides. Here are four.

First, qualified individuals don’t get a fair shot at a job. An Opportunity@Work study shows that focusing on degrees eliminates 79 percent of Latinos, 68 percent of African-Americans, 73 percent of rural residents, and 66 percent of veterans from jobs that they are otherwise qualified to perform with the skills they have.

Second, good middle-skill jobs exist for high school graduates, including jobs like construction, auto technicians, computer systems managers, and diagnostic technicians.

Third, degree fixation creates degree inflation, where people need degrees for jobs that didn’t previously require them. For example, in 2015 only 16 percent of production supervisors had college degrees. Today, two-thirds (67 percent) of those job postings require degrees, though the skills needed haven’t changed.

Finally, young people view college differently than previous generations. Fewer than half of Generation Z high schoolers want a four-year college degree, down 23 percentage points from May 2020. Nearly one-third want several one-year-or-less educational experiences rather than a college experience.

There’s good news: communities are creating programs to meet the challenges of skill-based hiring. These career-pathways programs include apprenticeships, internships, and career and technical education; dual enrollment in high school and postsecondary institutions; career academies; boot camps for getting specific knowledge or skills; and staffing, placement, and other support services for job seekers.

Governors from both political parties support these programs. Delaware Pathways began in 2014 under Democratic governor Jack Markell. It includes a paid senior-employer internship and students taking career courses for an associate degree or certificate. Tennessee’s Drive to 55 Alliance began in 2015 under Republican governor Bill Haslam. This private sector, nonprofit, and state partnership offers five state-funded programs for schools, colleges, and workforce training.  

K-12 schools, employers, and community partners are creating pathways programs like 3-D Education in Atlanta, YouthForce NOLA in New Orleans, Cristo Rey – a network of 38 Catholic high schools in 23 states – and Washington, D.C.’s CityWorks DC.

Existing institutions like community colleges are reinventing themselves. Come to Believe Network, a new community college, gives students academic support, meals, tutoring, and work experience leading to associate degrees and employment.

Skill-based hiring and pathways programs don’t abandon the college-degree option but replace it with opportunity pluralism, offering individuals many pathways to work and career. This is different than the old high school vocational education that tracked students into occupations based on family backgrounds.

The American public is ready for skills-based hiring. Seven in ten Americans believe that employers should hire job candidates based on skills and experience rather than requiring a college degree, though fewer than half say that their employers do so. Another survey of parents of 11- to 24-year-olds found almost half (46 percent) want post-high school pathways programs plus the college pathway.

“Our education and workforce system is set up to screen out anyone who doesn’t fit the image of the traditionally educated worker,” LaShana Lewis says. “Employers’ reliance on the college degree is leading them to overlook millions of people with the skills to get the job done.”

It’s time we embraced opportunity pluralism for the good of current and future workers – and the good of American society.