Is It Time to Ditch Degree Requirements?

The economy continues to shift, and recruiting practices must change to keep up. One trend in recruiting is the elimination of degree requirements.This practice has been adopted by many major companies, including Google and Apple.

What benefits are companies deriving from this change?

As it turns out, degree requirements are a fairly recent practice. “A lot of trends factored into four-year degree requirements,” says Manjari Raman, a researcher who co-authored the report “Dismissed by Degrees.” “As more jobs relied on automation, for example, degree requirements became an assurance that candidates would be able to handle sophisticated software.”

Many companies now realize that there are drawbacks to that approach, she says. Four-year degree candidates in middle-skill-level jobs show low engagement, a deep lack of job satisfaction and high turnover rates.

“Everyone's looking for the perfect candidate, but nobody's looking for the right candidate,” Raman says.

Here are three ways to find the right candidates for your organization.

Focus on Skills

While having employees with a bachelor’s degree may seem like a boon for your organization, four-year degrees may not be the best measures of job fit. “Instead of recruiting based on who has a four-year degree, try sourcing candidates with years of experience in their work history that align directly with the must-haves in the job description,” says Veronica Jenkins, head of global talent and co-founder of Hive.

Raman agrees. “You can't just source at the bachelor’s degree level. To find the best candidates, you have to source at the level of a skill set,” she says. For example, the natural gas “fracking” boom required experience with underwater welding, but the most experienced candidates didn’t have degrees — they were coming out of Navy training. They had the necessary skills, but didn’t have a degree to show for it.

Be Aware of AI Filtering

When trying to find the right candidate, make sure your artificial intelligence programs are working for you, not against you. “There are candidates out there with the right skill set and experience for a job, but they don’t make it through the system because they’re being filtered out for lacking a four-year degree,” Raman says.

To avoid this, Jenkins suggests realigning the value placed on certain elements. For example, have your AI algorithms place higher value on experience sections and skill-related terms so you don’t automatically eliminate experienced candidates.

Customize Your AI to Work for You

You can take AI recruiting a step further by customizing what you’re scanning for. “A lot of people think AI tech is just plug and play, but it's not,” Jenkins says. “You can actually go in and modify the requirements for each position.” Jenkins suggests adding alternate keywords, or “buzzwords.”

This simple addition puts skills at the forefront of every search, and gives non-degreed — but still qualified — candidates a fair chance. “You’ll want to tweak the AI enough so that those candidates who are an actual match for the position don't get sifted out because they don’t have a bachelor’s degree,” Jenkins says.