Employers across a range of industries are dropping a job requirement once considered a ticket to a higher paying job and financial security: a college degree.
Today’s tight labor market has led more companies instead to take a more skills-based approach to hiring, as evidenced on job search sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter.
“Part of it is employers realizing they may be able to do a better job finding the right talent by looking for the skills or competencies someone needs to do the job and not letting a degree get in the way of that,” Parisa Fatehi-Weeks, senior director of environmental, social and governance (ESG) for hiring platform Indeed told CBS MoneyWatch.
I’ve said it for years and years, it’s not what you know but who you know. That isn’t 100% true but it’s true more than it’s false.
It’s dumb, but really to get good jobs that tends to be the normal. I’m a great example of that. 7 months ago a previous boss reached out and offered me a new position making 50% more than I was. 100% remote, no on-call, no end-users, no hardware, etc. I jumped at it.
Would I have gotten it or even know there was an opening otherwise? Highly unlikely.
That’s at least my experience in IT, I doubt it’s unique.
I applied for an internal position 3 times as it came up frequently at a company I worked for for more money, and it wasn’t until I found out someone I met happened to know the person that position reports to talked me up that I actually got it. I never forgot got that and it definitely reflected in me leaving eventually.
As a recipient of something similar…I agree, but I wish it wasn’t that way. I got my current gig 2 years ago and just got a promo to senior with a sizeable pay raise and bonus. I work remote and out of state from a zero income tax state while keeping my HCOL pay scale.
I think I could go higher, but I’m against the same thing that is helping me out in my current position.
I also wish it wasn’t that way, but if you’ve ever tried to hire for a job requiring specific skills you’ll understand why it is that way.
A vast majority of candidates are completely unqualified and/or poor workers. By poor worker, I don’t mean someone that does their job 9-5 and goes home. I mean the dudes that sit on Reddit all day or simply don’t work most of the day and then blame their spouse/kid/dog/cousin/etc as to why they are unproductive. I’m sorry, but if it takes you 2 days to change the text on a label in a web project, then you are slacking. I say this as someone intimately familiar with the web project and understand exactly the work needed.
Networking solves a lot of that. I reach out to excoworkers all the time because they have proven they are both knowledgeable and not a slacker.