Why Your Career Destiny Is No Longer Determined By Your College Degree

Skills-first hiring recognizes that the real worth of an employee is not what they achieved in the past, but what they’re capable of in the future.

A college degree used to be the golden ticket to a winning career—leaving those without letters behind their name out in the cold. But now, those days are over. Between the ballooning cost of college and the rise of alternative training pathways, many students are wondering: is college really worth it anymore?

Hiring managers are starting to wonder the same thing. After all, the real worth of an employee is not what they achieved in the past, but what they are capable of in the future. And this, in essence, is why hiring for skills rather than degrees is gaining momentum as a powerful way to discover and engage top talent—no matter where that talent comes from.

Skills-first hiring, says Sue Duke, VP of Global Public Policy & Economic Graph at LinkedIn, means putting skills at the forefront of talent strategies by recognizing an individual for their capabilities and breaking down roles into the capabilities required to do them well.

I connected with Duke recently to discuss LinkedIn’s Skills-First Report and why hiring for skills not only makes good business sense, but also democratizes the hiring process for skilled people everywhere. Here’s what we covered.

The mismatch

According to recent data, nearly 70% of jobs in the U.S. require a bachelor’s degree, but only 37% of the U.S. workforce actually has one. “This effectively eliminates over 50% of the candidates for roles—yet these people may have the skills to succeed despite their lack of a college degree,” says Duke.

That’s a huge mismatch, further borne out by a study by Harvard Business School that found that 88% of hirers are screening out highly skilled candidates just because they lack traditional credentials such as past job title or degree. Contrast that with a skills-first labor market, where people can find or stay in jobs that match their skills and skill-building potential.

“Expanding the talent search to include workers with relevant skills means less competition over the same small pool of candidates, more focused hiring as businesses are able to directly match the skills needed for that specific job posting, and it allows companies’ hiring practices to keep pace with the changing nature of work,” says Duke.

How it works

How exactly does skills-first hiring improve the outcome for companies and candidates alike? Duke shared the example of how the talent pool increases by almost 22x for the role of digital marketing manager when a skills-first approach is used. “Many of the skills associated with this job are common across other jobs and industries,” says Duke. “In this case, about 30 separate job titles across the U.S. have relevant skills for this job—but most companies would overlook those candidates.”

Duke argues that a skills-first approach democratizes access to opportunity for job seekers, broadens the talent pool for companies and, ultimately, helps increase the diversity of organizations. “Our Skills-first Report shows that talent pools expand nearly 10x across the globe when using a skills-first approach. In the U.S. it’s nearly 20x,” she notes.

So that’s great, but how do hirers actually go about implementing a skills-first approach? The secret is to get really good at uncovering transferable skills. “Generally, employers are looking for candidates with transferable in-demand skills such as leadership and specific technological abilities,” says Duke. “In nearly all cases, employers will find that candidates always have skills that can be applied to a position, even if the candidate is coming from a vastly different industry. This increases the talent pool and makes it easier for employers to find good candidates.”

Missed opportunities

Duke believes that the current labor market is full of missed opportunities as candidates are not getting matched to roles where they can succeed. “A skills-first labor market creates more opportunities, because it matches businesses and people based on skills,” she says. “Businesses can hire and grow their people based on the skills they need and can begin to look at a candidate’s qualifications outside of a degree or job title.”

There’s also a major opportunity to level the playing field for women, says Duke, especially in occupations where women are underrepresented, including technology, engineering and construction. She observes that the talent pool of women in the U.S. increases 26% more than it does for men in jobs where women are underrepresented.

A skills-first approach to hiring also has positive generational implications. “It increases the talent pool for Gen X workers by 8.5x, 9x for Millennial workers and 10.3x for Gen Z workers,” says Duke. “From an industry perspective, the effects of skills-first hiring could be seen all over the United States, especially where labor shortages have been more pronounced. The talent pipelines in supply chain and transportation could increase 28.8x; utilities could increase 11.2x; oil & gas 13.5x; retail 38.9x; and manufacturing 31.4x.”

Finally, says Duke, skills-based hiring can also apply internally by giving current employees chances they would not have otherwise had. “Our data shows that workers who have made an internal move at their organization have a 64% chance of remaining there after three years, compared to 45% for those who haven’t,” she says. “Likewise, companies that excel at internal mobility are able to retain employees for an average of 5.4 years. That’s nearly 2x as long as companies that struggle with it.”

Is this it for college?

Though skills-first hiring may seem to eliminate college entirely from the hiring picture, upon closer examination it doesn’t. Skills are the deciding factor, and those can still be acquired at a traditional university.

The shift is this: college no longer reigns supreme as the single litmus test to find the right person for the role. “A skills-based approach doesn’t mean we should ignore traditional hiring systems/criteria altogether, but there’s a massive opportunity to enhance hiring to widen opportunities throughout the workforce,” says Duke.

The smartest skills-first hiring strategies will not discount the degree, but rather look at it in tandem with other proofs of ability. “Prioritizing skills does not ignore traditional hiring and development systems that already work but enhances them to better match talent with opportunity,” says Duke.

Getting skilled

How does skills-first hiring affect those members of Gen Z who are in the early days of their careers? Duke believes that while the latest entrants to the workforce have not yet had the time to hold a variety of roles the way that older workers have, they nonetheless are building skills that can be relevant to a range of jobs—especially those jobs of lower seniority.

To prepare for a skills-first job market, younger workers can build and hone in-demand skills. “LinkedIn has created a list of in-demand skills featured in 78% of global job postings since 2015,” says Duke. “This includes soft skills like leadership, communication, and problem-solving and hard skills like digital marketing, financial analysis, and business development. This list also contains top skills by industry so people can focus on learning the right skills in their unique job functions.”

Additionally, Duke advises job seekers to create a list of positions they’d like to apply for and to help assess the skills needed for those positions. “With a solid list, the next step is making a plan to learn—whether that’s through taking online courses or certificate programs, finding opportunities to learn in their current job, or through volunteer opportunities.”

Why skills-based hiring is taking hold

As the world continues to change, more and more companies are adapting their talent strategy to look at candidates from a skills-first perspective. Duke notes that in the last year, more than 45% of hirers on LinkedIn explicitly used skills data to fill their roles, up 12% year over year. “And, roughly one in five job postings (19%) in the US no longer requires degrees, up from 15% in 2021,” she adds.

To make a skills-first labor market a universal reality, Duke argues that governments and businesses must be the catalysts. “To democratize access to jobs, they can start by removing degree requirements from state jobs and implementing merit-based reforms to encourage skills-first hiring,” she says.

In any case, the skills-first shift is already well underway—making your career destiny more about the skills you bring rather than the degree you did (or did not) earn.