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0No degree, no problem: US employers look beyond college credentials
Companies such as IBM, GM and Walmart are focusing on applicants’ skills rather than education
Nov 20, 2024, Financial Times
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Chanelle Washington-Bacon reproached herself for years because she had not finished college. Long after she entered corporate life, she was haunted by her lack of a four-year degree.
But her feeling of inadequacy began to shift after the Atlanta project manager connected with OneTen, a coalition of top employers focused on developing the careers of black professionals and others without a college education.
Washington-Bacon moved to Cisco Systems, the Silicon Valley maker of routers and networking equipment, where she is now a business analyst enabling the US commercial sales team.
“Tech is not easy to get into, and usually you need to have the degree,” she says. But “it’s time for a change. Just because you don’t have that four-year degree doesn’t mean you don’t have the skills to do the job.”
Washington-Bacon belongs to the “new collar” workforce, people hired and promoted for their skill set, regardless of whether or not they graduated from college. Also known as skills-based hiring, the practice has gained momentum as a tighter labour market has pressured employers to put less emphasis on degrees.
New collar jobs can range from construction management to website development, from sales to event planning — the term is less about the role than how an employer fills it. Proponents say skills-based hiring has the potential to increase employment opportunities and raise wages for the nearly two-thirds of the US workforce that lacks a degree — a percentage that is higher among Black, Latino and indigenous workers. It can also reward employers with a wider talent pool and higher retention rates.
Companies adopting this approach include IBM, Aon, General Motors, Walmart and ExxonMobil. But critics warn that efforts to steer away from traditional degree-based hiring can be superficial — and that a greater effort is needed to make sure this shift does not become a fad.
