According to recent studies and data, many organizations are switching to a new hiring model that prioritizes applicants’ skills over more conventional indicators, such years of experience or schooling.
Based on statistics from the job portal Indeed, the percentage of U.S. online job listings that specify a work tenure requirement has decreased by 10 percentage points to 30% in the two years ending in April 2024.
Furthermore, 52% of job postings do not require a formal education—a rise from 48% in 2019, according to Indeed. Indeed data indicates that during that period, mentions of college degrees have decreased in 87% of occupational groupings.
There has also been a shift toward “skills-based hiring,” which gives “competencies” precedence over traditional qualifications, according to a recent ZipRecruiter study of 2,000 businesses.
According to a ZipRecruiter poll, nearly half (45%) of employers eliminated degree requirements for certain roles in the last year, and 72% now give more weight to candidates’ talents than their qualifications.
According to ZipRecruiter, the trend that gives more weight to a candidate’s practical talents and work experience than their formal degree seems to be “gaining momentum.”
According to Cory Stahle, an economist at the employment site Indeed, hiring managers are becoming more detailed in their job adverts about the particular talents they are looking for in candidates.
Employers benefit from skill-based hiring
When the U.S. economy reopened in 2021 following early lockdowns during the epidemic, demand for workers soared to an all-time high. Due to a lack of skilled labor and intense competition, businesses had difficulty filling positions.
According to a recent collaborative study from the Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute, this hiring “pressure” caused firms to remove their college degree requirements, a filter that “disqualifies” roughly 62% of Americans without a degree.
Furthermore, according to the survey, businesses are now paying more attention to workplace equity.
According to recruiting firm Randstad USA, over 70% of Black, Hispanic, and rural workers lack a four-year degree and may have important abilities that have been missed because of the “paper ceiling.”
For surgeons and other professions, traditional job fit indicators like education will probably always be significant, but many companies are aware that these attributes aren’t necessarily a reliable indicator of job fit, according to Indeed’s Stahle.
According to him, job searchers gain from new employment chances that might not have existed in the past.
According to the Harvard-Burning Glass study, there are also observable, quantifiable “win-win” consequences of skills-based recruiting for companies and employees, such as increased retention rates among workers without college degrees and significant average compensation increases for such applicants.
However, there are certain restrictions, such as ingrained hiring managers’ habit.
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What this implies for those looking for Job
“If the [job ad’s] focus is on skills, the focus of your resume should be on skills as well,” Stahle stated.
Stahle continued, “While talents should be “prominent” in such instances, applicants shouldn’t disregard traditional information.
Since a hiring manager may still study an applicant’s résumé and appreciate their work experience and education, they would still want to provide an accurate portrayal of those things, he added.
But it’s not just the resume: Although the procedure differs from business to business, job seekers should be ready for potential employers to conduct some kind of skills test during the recruiting process, he continued.
