State’s job openings look beyond degrees for best candidates
Joining a trend that’s already occurring in private industry, Gov. Maura Healey filed an executive order last week that eliminates degree requirements for most state government job listings, and instructs hiring managers instead to use a “skillsbased” app
Healey announced this policy change during a speech to the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, in part to encourage companies to rethink their approaches to hiring. She noted that career success shouldn’t be limited to the portion of the state’s population — nearly half, per a recent Census count — with a bachelor’s degree.
That “paper ceiling” prevents many deserving individuals from attaining positions that through experience, match their qualifications.
The order requires state hiring managers to consider a “full set of competencies” that candidates bring to the job beyond educational attainment. Job classifications issued or updated in the future won’t specify a minimum level of education as a requirement.
Healey’s decree makes an exception for jobs that the state’s Human Resources Division determines demand certain educational requirements. Even with that exclusion, state officials estimate that the executive order would apply to more than 90% of the state’s upcoming job openings.
“It will not only expand our applicant pool, it will get us more talent,” Healey told the gathering of businesspeople Jan. 25 at the Marriott hotel in Newton. “Over time, it will help us build a more inclusive, skilled workforce than ever before.”
As noted, this shift toward “skills- based hiring” has already begun in the private sector.
Many business publications, including Business Insider, have reported on this sea change in the hiring process.
It noted that after the Great Recession of 2008, degree requirements locked out nearly two- thirds of American workers from millions of high-paying jobs that didn’t actually call for a four-year college education.
Now, with Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook questioning the need for college degrees, more companies have come to realize that requirement puts them at a competitive disadvantage as labor shortages shrink their hiring pools.
As of February 2023, the jobless rate for American high school graduates was 5.8%, compared to 2.9% for those with a bachelor’s degree. That gap represents millions of workers with untapped potential who just don’t happen to have a college degree.
A number of companies have scrapped degree requirements to increase the number of potential employees and diversify their workforce. From 2017 to 2019 employers cut degree requirements for 46% of middle- skill and 31% of highskill jobs. That’s been most pronounced in finance, business management, engineering, and health- care occupations, the think tank Burning Glass Institute reported in 2022. The vast majority of these “degree resets” are expected to be permanent.
These companies are tapping into the over 70 million workers nationwide who’ve obtained skills and experience outside of the fouryear college route, whether through community college, military service, boot camps, or working on the job, as estimated by the workforce development nonprofit Opportunity@work.
As more companies cut degree requirements, Burning Glass Institute predicts another 1.4 million jobs will open to these workers in the next five years.
Corporations adjusting employment requirements include some of this country’s most iconic.
Walmart, IBM, Accenture, Dell, Google, and Bank of America have all eliminated a college- degree requirement from many of their employment positions.
Google counts its online certificate program as the equivalent of a four-year degree if students apply for entry- level positions.
JD Chesloff, president of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, said several of his members with a national presence, including Verizon and American Tower, have already dropped degree requirements while emphasizing skills.
Chesloff said this shift could help employers address the challenge of finding qualified workers while also broadening access to good- paying jobs.
“The executive order they announced today eliminates barriers to people who are currently here and sidelined, to get them into the workforce,” Chesloff said.
Given the fierce competition for talent in both the private and public sector, the governor made a necessary decision in opting for a skills-level approach to the hiring process.
With the increasingly unaffordable price of a fouryear college education, highschool grads will be looking for other ways to enter the job market.
All these options present the opportunity to hone skills that employers seek for jobs that often can’t be filled due to a perceived lack of qualified candidates.
And for those pursuing a four-year college degree, it would be wise to select a concentration that actually fills a need in the workplace.
Because competition for that entry- level corporate job will include those with real-world experience.
Eliminating that college requirement can open up a plethora of employment possibilities.