If we hire people based on their ability to do the job, why are so many hiring managers still focused on an increasingly narrow pool -- those with college degrees? Is that the only path to job success?
This is the question Kathleen Delanski has been studying for many years and what drove her to create the Education Design Lab in 2012, with the mission of reimagining education. The Lab has been successful as it is currently working with 800 higher education institutions on creating micro-credentials, which are short learning programs that develop specific competencies that lead to certifications.
This relatively new form of education, which moves away from the ingrained concept that someone needs a college degree in order to find a job, has quietly made traction. The best example is that of IBM. Five years ago, 90% of their jobs required a college degree. Today only 50% have that requirement with 20% of professional roles filled by non-college graduates.
Delanski is pleased to see this forward movement. “If you look at the recent survey from the Society of Human Resource Management a huge percentage, 73%, used skills-based hiring in 2023. And more employers want to move to this method rather than degree based as they see it as a strategy to become more agile to changing job needs and fill the skills gap.
“Employers who are early adopters of this practice are the companies that are most worried about where their talent pipeline will come from over the next decade or two. Those companies either have an aging workforce, and wonder where those new workers will come from, or the skills they need to operate are changing quickly and they need to have a process to reskill. If either of those two circumstances apply skill-based hiring is becoming a necessity, not a nice-to-have.”
A Paradigm Shift?
While the assumption might be that the C-suite needs to shift its perspective, Delanksi says that’s really not the case. “I feel that the C-suite gets the argument that we need to widen the aperture and look at learners that have different backgrounds and a broader array of life skills. And they are willing to open that aperture to do that. It’s more at the hiring manager level that you see a reluctance. It’s not that they are against it, it’s just a change management process to reconfigure job descriptions. A lot of employers struggle to name the skills that are universal across industries.”
Delanski points out that while the safety industry already has a number of certifications that are accepted by all employers across industries, other sectors haven’t achieved that yet. But they are working on it. She cites the example of how the Education Design Lab has been helping those companies setting up plants funded through the CHIPS Act create some entry-level roles that currently don’t exist. “In the semiconductor and green energy industries we need to certify people for the necessary skills and thus encourage them to join these industries,” she says.
Designing new jobs, with the intent of providing credentials is really just a new way of viewing education. In her book, “Who Needs College Anyway", she offers some parameters around designing a program.
Design Criteria for Employers
- Certifications must be industry recognized.
- Certifications must be universally understood by learners and employers.
- Apprenticeships must provide an authentic workplace that contributes to career growth.
- Learners need to be paid.
- Employers need to be incentivized, if not paid.
- Apprentices, particularly those in high school, need clear exit ramps or opportunities to explore more than one job role.
- Apprenticeships need to provide community, with coworkers, but even better with a cohort model for learners.
Paths to Building Job Skills
One path to obtaining necessary jobs skills is apprenticeships. Manufacturing companies have been using them successfully for a number of years. In fact, on average, employers realize an average return on investment of $1.47 for every $1 invested. Additionally, every $1 invested in apprenticeships leads to a public return of approximately $28 in benefits.
Delanski feels the apprenticeship model works well. “It’s the first step to get people in the door so they can be in the earn-and-learn step ladder.”
While that model is effective, it solves the issue of one company at a time and places the burden of education on the employer. Another option is certification, done through micro-credentials, where both current and future employees can learn universally accepted skills. A number of universities are offering microcredentials for manufacturing. And companies are responding. A survey done by Coursera in 2023 found that nearly 40% have hired someone with a microcredential.
An Industry Goal
Building on the tactics of using apprenticeships and microcrentials to provide the skills companies will need in the future, there also needs to be a structure that connects employers to education systems. And these are being created. “The Education Design Lab will organize a design session between a group of employers who have specific job needs, and local community colleges who are willing to put together a training program," explains Delanski. "And often the State becomes involved and this creates an ecosystem. The Education Design Lab has created 200 of these, which we call micropathways.”
These micropathways are comprised of stackable credentials that can be delivered in a short time period and often result in good- paying jobs that can lead to more education, such as an associate degree.
Building credentials within our education system is a first step to other forms of education that respond directly to the skills needed for current and future jobs. And it should be one that hiring managers utilize as they expand from a currently narrow view of mostly using college-based degree hiring.
The landscape of education is changing due to a variety of factors including costs and lack of matches between four-year degrees and jobs, as well as the economic circumstances of future employees. All of these factors are leading to an employment landscape that needs to include a wide variety of types of education that can narrow the skills gap while producing a pipeline of talent.
