By Jean Saylor Doppenberg
How important is a college degree to land a job requiring a certain level of skills? For physicians and others who must attain advanced degrees to practice medicine and the law, higher education is a must. But for millions of workers without a degree, their resume may have routinely been thrown on the “reject” pile over the years simply because that paper diploma was beyond their reach.
“Tear the Paper Ceiling” (“paper” refers to a degree) is a national public service campaign that aims to convince companies to drop the four-year degree requirements for many jobs they are seeking to fill, greatly expanding the candidate pool in a time of low unemployment by focusing on applicants’ existing skills and experience. These people without degrees are being called STARs (skilled through alternative routes).
The Advertising Council, a national nonprofit that promotes public service announcements, created the campaign for Opportunity@Work, an organization that seeks to eliminate the opportunity gap in hiring and help millions of under-credentialed Americans find gainful employment. Opportunity@Work’s founding donor is Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn. The organization says of the estimated 70 million STARs in the workplace, approximately 4 million have found high-paying jobs without needing degrees.
According to tearthepaperceiling.org, STARs “reflect our nation’s racial and cultural diversity”: 61% of Black workers are STARs, 55% of Latinx workers, 50% of white workers, 66% of rural Americans and 61% of veterans. On the website, employers can download the STARs Hiring Playbook, which includes guides to help companies find skills-based talent and prepare for skills-based job interviews.
Shifting attitudes
College is not for everyone. For a multitude of reasons, many high school graduates do not go on to attend a four-year school. Perhaps the financing isn’t available for them to pursue a degree, they don’t want the burden of student loans following graduation or they prefer to enroll in a trade school to learn a specific skill.
The attitude toward colleges and universities is also shifting. A recent Gallup poll found that 36% of Americans have a lot of confidence in higher education, while 32% have “some confidence,” and 32% have “little or no confidence.” In 2015, by comparison, 57% had a lot of confidence in higher education, and only 10% had little or none.
In 2021, the Harvard Business Review reported that fewer high-school graduates pursued higher education in 2020 than in previous years. “College enrollments dropped by 6.8% in 2020, more than quadrupling the pre-pandemic rate of decline,” the study stated. “These trends, combined with the Great Resignation, have forced companies to rethink some of their more traditional hiring practices. When it comes to finding the right candidates, recruiters are now looking at talent pipelines outside of college pathways.”
In what’s called “down-credentialing” or a “degree reset,” some major employers such as IBM dropped degree requirements from more than half of its U.S. job postings beginning in 2021. By dropping degrees, job postings are worded more specifically to seek pertinent skills for a position, and particularly soft skills.
Focusing on skill sets
Ryan Buxbaum, president of Next One Staffing in Santa Rosa, says that having a degree for some jobs “has now moved from the ‘must-have’ category to the ‘nice-to-have’ category” for many employers.”
To illustrate his point, he says, “When you go fishing, if you catch a lot of fish you can be picky about the ones you keep and the ones you throw back. When unemployment rates are so low and you only have one or two applicants for a certain position, you can’t be picky.” [In May, the unemployment rate in California was 5.2%, while the national average in June was 4.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.]
“Personally, with everything I’ve done in my career, I can’t say that my degree helped me get here at all. I was a theater major.” —Pete Lawson, Inspire Talent
People are posting jobs but not getting a lot of response, he explains. “This is a trend we are seeing more often now, and in the past it was more important to exclude candidates for this or that reason. But now we want to include as many as we can. At our client intake we ask them how important a degree is to them and why it is necessary. If we can narrow down their search to the right skill set, we can work with that.”
“Most of my business clients don’t require degrees of their job applicants, but they do ask for specific certifications, such as for a medical assistant,” says Ginny Kuhel of KuhelBreez HR Consulting in Fairfax. “My clients are small businesses, and many will say ‘we want such and such skill or equivalent experience.’ I never felt that you had to have a degree, and when I’m interviewing I’m not looking for degrees. I have a degree myself, but it’s not in HR. I’m self-taught in HR.”
Pete Lawson, founder and principal at Inspire Talent in Novato, says that for the most part as he recruits tech talent for his clients, degrees are not deprioritized. “A degree doesn’t mean nothing, but as I’m searching for special skills a degree is not a top priority. But it is sometimes used to rationalize a decision to go with one job candidate or another.
“Personally, with everything I’ve done in my career, I can’t say that my degree helped me get here at all. I was a theater major.”
Brilliant and degree-less
In a previous position where Lawson worked to hire engineers, everyone who applied was offered an interview. “It was a first assessment of their skills, and some of the best engineers we hired were self-taught. They had taught themselves how to code in their mom’s basement or wherever, but most recruiting companies wouldn’t give them a chance. I’ve seen Harvard graduates not pass that first assessment interview, and then others with no degrees who went on to get the jobs. The wrong way to build a recruitment strategy is to base it on degrees. That said, there are key schools teaching tech skills that are grooming the best talent, and we do consider those credentials.”
Summer Jeffus says she has known many different business owners who never earned degrees. “Some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked with are the ones without degrees, and I look for that. They can be the best problem solvers and decision makers,” says the vice president of business development and marketing manager for California Statewide Certified Development Corporation in Santa Rosa.
The most successful businesspeople she knows are tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, “and they don’t have all that overhead of paying back student loans.”
She recalls what happened to a colleague many years ago who worked at a financial institution. When the company changed the education criteria for his position he was demoted because he didn’t have a degree. “When they later tried to find the talent they needed for other positions, they had to rewrite the policy [about degrees] to be more inclusive of potential candidates without them. And that’s what’s happening now, companies are having to make adjustments again.”
Unfortunately, she adds, there can be a sense of failure among parents if they can’t send their children to college. “But parents also may not be focused on what their kids really want to do, and they should take time to find out what their talents are.”
Degrees not discussed
Many employers are now looking more at candidates “who are outgoing and will be quick to learn skills,” says Buxbaum. “Like, if you need a bookkeeper and that person needs some experience with a software such as QuickBooks. If they don’t have that experience they can learn that program in a week on the job. So why filter out good candidates if you can teach them the software in a matter of days?”
However, Buxbaum says employers have a difficult time attracting talent to Sonoma County. “If they are young, they have to want to move here, but big cities tend to snatch those people up. We are also competing with candidates from other places. Remote work is a wonderful thing, and a lot of people in California work remotely. But if they can work remotely here then, say, someone in Michigan can also do that job just as effectively, or even someone in eastern Europe. It’s a tough labor market for sure.”
What his company is experiencing with postings of technology jobs is that having certifications in tech earned outside of college can qualify the applicant for a job that pays $50 to $80 an hour. “And a discussion about holding a degree doesn’t even come up. Frankly, there is some part of this generation in college right now who are very disenchanted that they might come out of school with a degree but facing $200,000 in debt.”
Next One finds qualified tech workers for several financial institutions in Sonoma County, who need skills in mastering specific software and programming. “These clients are not looking for a degree but a specific skill set, such as being a Python specialist. With that verified certification in hand, the college degree requirement was never brought up with a certain applicant because it simply wasn’t a criteria for qualifying for the job,” says Buxbaum.
Unfortunately, he adds, there can still be applicants who fudge the truth on their resume about having a degree. “In the early 2000s there was a run of shady diploma mills where you could send your information, write a thesis and be issued a master’s degree or a doctorate. We had to vet those credentials on resumes to spot the bogus ‘schools’ that were issuing that paper. It’s just not possible anymore to fake having a degree.”
Skills over formal education
Lawson says the concept of the “paper ceiling,” the invisible barrier that excludes capable individuals who lack formal degrees, resonates deeply with his hiring philosophy and the companies he works with. “We have consistently observed that candidates with strong portfolios, relevant work experience and demonstrable skills often outperform those who simply possess a degree. In the fast-paced tech landscape, what truly matters is an individual’s ability to deliver results, adapt to new technologies and contribute to innovative solutions.”
Many of the companies he recruits for have already shifted their hiring practices to prioritize these attributes over formal education. “This approach not only broadens the talent pool but also fosters a more diverse and inclusive workforce. We’ve seen first-hand how candidates from nontraditional backgrounds bring fresh perspectives that drive our companies forward.”
Gen Xers and millennials, he adds, are also attracted to companies that have a learning culture built in. “They like having the resources and ability to continue their education whether in their field or other skills beyond, so companies are trying to figure out the top benefits they can offer to attract the best talent. A priority for these candidates when applying is the opportunity for skills-based learning post-college.”
With thousands of workers laid off from tech jobs recently in the Bay Area, Lawson is seeing applicants without degrees or skills in any given area who are applying for everything. “They are trying to game the system enough so they will at least get a first interview. A lot of people who wouldn’t have considered certain jobs are now eating humble pie. I’m seeing some bias on the employer side, and some clients I’m working with don’t want to consider those folks who are actively looking for a job. A layoff doesn’t equal a bad job performance, but many clients want people who are still working.”
He recently recruited for a customer success director role and received 600 applications in three days. “How do you truly go through a big pile of resumes and understand who your top candidates are? With artificial intelligence being introduced into recruitment processes, that will change.”
Adapting quickly
A Harvard Business School report from 2017 stated that “a degree is a legitimate aspiration for all, and every effort should be made to remove barriers that impede any young person with the aptitude and motivation to attend [college].” It continued: “But the failure to earn a college degree should not become a barrier to entering the workforce or bar access to career paths that lead to economic independence…it undermines America’s competitiveness by constraining growth and consumer purchasing power.”
We’re moving into an exciting time, says Buxbaum, because by dropping some degree requirements, employers are going to start to find the best people for their jobs. “The companies that adapt quickly to this will have better outcomes in their hiring.”
The “paper ceiling”—what is it?
Many jobs require an academic qualification, such as a bachelor’s or master’s degree. This is referred to as the “paper ceiling,” a term created several years ago by the organization Opportunity@Work. Its former vice president of marketing and communications, Will Villota, says the phrase is meant to emphasize the skills of job candidates and to “pivot away from pedigree and credentials.”
These degree-less workers are known as STARs (skilled through alternative routes), and Villota says there are 70 million STARs in the U.S., accounting for about half of the nation’s workforce. They are people 25 years and older without a college degree but who may hold an associate degree, have robust on-the-job training experience, credits from community college work or certificate programs, and military service.
Yet many workers without degrees encounter a lifetime of lower earnings, limited options for promotions and few or no options to develop additional skills on the job.
Major companies that have committed to challenging the paper ceiling include Google, which created the Google Career Certificate in 2018 to train individuals in several digital-job areas. Google also offers the Grow with Google certificate, to train for specific jobs. The program is affordable and requires only a three- to six-month commitment.
For more information, visit tearthepaperceiling.org.
Well-paying jobs not requiring degrees
Contrary to popular belief, not every well-paying position available to job seekers requires time first spent earning a college degree. Some, however, require training that is specific to the job, which can be learned through courses at community colleges and trade schools.
According to Indeed.com, many jobs in California that don’t require a formal degree can still earn job seekers nearly $60,000 and more per year, based on national average salaries. Some examples include:
Boilermaker — $59,227 annually
Police officer — $59,621
Distribution manager — $77,376
Web developer — $77,791
HVAC supervisor — $80,337
Tanker driver — $84,461
Additional jobs not requiring a degree can include correctional officer, electrical technician, warehouse manager, construction supervisor, IT technician, solar installer, programmer, personal coach and dental assistant.
