Skills-based hiring has gained traction, with 29% of paid job posts on LinkedIn omitting professional degree requirements in 2022, up from 21% in 2019, according to an Aug. 29 report from LinkedIn — but employers are still struggling to translate that into actual hires.
Talent acquisition pros appear to be changing their habits. Last year, paid LinkedIn Recruiter users searched for candidates by their skills about five times more often than they searched by degrees.
“But here’s the critical question: Does dropping degree requirements actually translate into more hires of workers who don’t hold degrees?” Greg Lewis, a senior content marketing manager, wrote on LinkedIn’s Talent Blog.
“As we’ll see, the answer for many industries and functions is ‘no,’” he said. “While many have started to ‘talk the talk’ of skills-first hiring, relatively few are managing to ‘walk the walk.’”
In some industries, job posts without degree requirements are growing at a faster rate than those that require degrees. For instance, degreeless posts in financial services are growing 354% faster, followed by 282% faster in accommodation and food services and 240% faster in technology, information and media.
Certain functions are seeing faster growth as well. In accounting, the number of degreeless job posts are growing 453% faster than those without, compared to 92% faster for administrative roles and 68% faster for engineering roles.
In terms of actual hiring, though, the results are mixed. Degreeless hiring is growing, but the percentage of hires made often falls short of the job post rate. Accommodation and food service hires without professional degrees have grown 11% faster than those with degrees, followed by 6% faster growth in financial services and 3% faster growth in technology, information and media.
However, other industries are actively hiring more workers without degrees, such as consumer services, entertainment and government administration. Across all three of these top industries, project manager and administrative assistant roles were among the top five occupations filled by hires without degrees.
Across job functions, modest increases in degree-less hires have occurred for community and social services, media and communication and legal specialists such as paralegals.
Overall, the change in hiring is less dramatic than the change in job postings, Lewis noted, which could mean that intention is growing while hiring practices remain influenced by traditional degree requirements.
“This may suggest a breakdown between recruiters and hiring managers: While recruiters are increasingly searching for candidates by skills, rather than degrees, and degree requirements are disappearing from many job posts, it seems that hiring managers — who typically make the final hiring decision — are still predominantly hiring those with a professional degree, whether or not that’s actually required for the job,” Lewis wrote.
“Recruiters will need to partner with hiring managers as strategic advisors to effect real changes in hiring practices,” he said. “It’s a reminder that making a difference takes time and effort — and that talking the talk is just the first step.”
Job posts on LinkedIn that include relevant skills in the requirements section attract more applicants and have higher conversion rates, Lewis wrote in a June report. Candidates may be able to picture themselves in the role, even if they haven’t had the exact position before, he noted.
In addition, organizations that use skills-based practices and hiring tend to outperform their peers that don’t, according to a Deloitte report. However, companies are struggling to make significant changes amid calls for workplace agility.
For instance, many employers aren’t adopting skills-based hiring fast enough to meet the labor demand, according to a recent report. To overcome the gap, companies can focus on in-house training, apprenticeships and other nontraditional approaches to build talent pipelines.
