Removing a bachelor’s degree requirement from a job ad does not guarantee that applicants without degrees will be hired. A 2024 analysis of large firms found a modest rise in non-degree hiring after requirements were dropped, but the change was concentrated in a minority of employers. The key distinction is between changing a posting and changing how candidates are screened, assessed, and selected.
What the hiring evidence shows
The strongest direct evidence comes from a 2024 analysis by Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute. Researchers examined 11,300 firm-role combinations at large firms, using career histories for 65 million U.S. workers to compare hiring before and after degree requirements were removed. The analysis follows changes through 2023; it is not a count of hiring in 2026 and does not represent every employer or job family. Read the report.
Posting changes produced a modest average hiring shift
In affected roles, the share of hires without bachelor’s degrees rose by about 3.5 percentage points on average. But the researchers estimated an aggregate incremental-hiring effect of 0.14 percent, because degree requirements were removed from only 3.6 percent of roles in the period they analyzed. Those numbers describe different scales: a change within roles whose requirements changed, and the smaller effect across the broader labor market.
Follow-through varied substantially by firm
The report characterized about 37 percent of studied firms as driving nearly all actual hiring change. Roughly 45 percent appeared to remove requirements “in name only,” while approximately one-fifth were classified as backsliders. These are categories in the study, not universal estimates for all employers.
Why a job-posting trend is not a hiring trend
Indeed Hiring Lab found that 52 percent of U.S. postings on its platform mentioned no formal education requirement in January 2024, compared with 48 percent in January 2019. In January 2024, 17.8 percent required at least a four-year degree. Indeed classified postings using the lowest educational level mentioned when multiple levels appeared. These figures describe advertisements on one platform—not all vacancies, applicant screening, or completed hires. See Indeed’s posting analysis.
The Indeed posting data and the HBS–Burning Glass hiring analysis should not be combined into a single trend line: one measures the language of online ads, while the other examines changes in who was hired in selected firm-role combinations. A more open posting is a sign of policy change, not proof that selection practices changed with it.
What may keep hiring practices from changing
The HBS–Burning Glass analysis documents uneven outcomes; it does not experimentally identify one cause for every employer that failed to follow through. The following are practical explanations consistent with the evidence, not proven universal causes.
Old screening habits can preserve the degree as an informal filter
If an employer removes a degree from the posting but leaves résumé screening and hiring criteria untouched, the credential may continue to influence decisions as an informal signal. TestGorilla’s 2025 vendor survey reported that 67 percent of respondents still used résumés alongside skills-based hiring. That finding suggests how degree status can remain visible, but it is self-reported survey evidence—not proof that résumé use caused the hiring gap. See TestGorilla’s survey findings.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesEmployers still need a way to assess competence
Replacing a degree requirement means finding credible, job-related evidence of ability; it does not mean abandoning assessment. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 report says 81 percent of surveyed businesses expected to continue using work experience to assess skills over 2025–2030. That is an expectation, not observed behavior across the full period. Read the Future of Jobs Report 2025.
NACE’s 2026 Job Outlook survey reported that 70 percent of surveyed employers used skills-based hiring for entry-level hires, up from 65 percent in the prior year. NACE also says employers often assess skills during screening and interviews. Together, these findings point to a practical requirement: specify what skills matter and how candidates can demonstrate them. They do not establish that all employers use the same assessment method or that the reported practice changed who was hired. See NACE’s Job Outlook 2026.
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Skills-first adoption figures measure different things
Recent surveys suggest growing use or interest in skills-first hiring, but their results are not interchangeable with observed hiring histories. The wording, populations, and measures differ.
| Source and date | Reported finding | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| SHRM and SHRM Foundation, 2026 report on a 2025 survey | 34 percent of organizations often or almost always used skills-first strategies in hiring. | Organizations’ self-reported frequency of using a strategy, not the share of hires affected. SHRM survey report. |
| NACE, 2026 Job Outlook survey | 70 percent of surveyed employers reported skills-based hiring for entry-level hires, up from 65 percent the prior year. | Reported use for entry-level hiring, not a matched count of hiring outcomes. NACE survey results. |
| World Economic Forum, 2025 | 81 percent of surveyed businesses expected to rely on work experience to assess skills over 2025–2030. | Employer expectations about an assessment mechanism, not completed hires over that period. WEF report. |
These findings can coexist: an employer may describe its approach as skills-based while still considering work experience, résumés, interviews, or degrees. They are indicators of stated practice and expectations, not direct updates to the HBS–Burning Glass hiring estimate, which follows outcomes through 2023. The available sources do not establish a comparable post-2023 matched hiring-outcome estimate.
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Best Value
- Author: Bungay Stanier, Michael.
- Publisher: Page Two
- Pages: 244
- Publication Date: 2016-02-29
- Edition: 1
How to tell whether an employer changed more than its ads
For workers evaluating an opportunity—or employers reviewing their process—the useful question is whether the job’s selection process makes skills visible and evaluates them consistently. Look for specific evidence rather than a general “skills-first” label:
- Role-specific criteria: The posting or application explains which capabilities matter for the work, rather than merely removing a degree line.
- A way to demonstrate ability: Candidates can show relevant skills through work samples, structured assessments, or clearly defined experience.
- Consistent evaluation: Recruiters and interviewers assess candidates against common, job-related criteria instead of relying only on unstructured impressions.
- Outcome tracking: The employer monitors who applies, advances, and is hired, including whether candidates without degrees gain access over time.
- Appropriate scope: The change specifies which jobs and locations it covers and recognizes that some work may require a credential for legal or technical reasons.
For a public-sector example, the National Governors Association’s 2025 report says states with policies encouraging skills-based hiring experienced faster growth in degree-free postings than states without such policies. It also highlights the need to track outcomes. Posting growth is evidence of policy or language change; by itself, it does not show who ultimately got hired. Read the NGA report.
What the evidence supports—and what it does not
The evidence supports a clear conclusion: employers can broaden job-posting language without changing hiring outcomes at the same pace, and follow-through varies. The 2024 matched analysis found a modest average gain in non-degree hiring in studied roles, concentrated among a minority of firms. Later surveys show reported use or plans for skills-first practices, while posting data show fewer explicit education requirements on Indeed’s U.S. platform.
Those sources do not establish that removing degree requirements alone causes a particular hiring result across employers, nor do the 2025–2026 surveys update the matched hiring estimate. A genuine shift is best judged by the selection criteria and by hiring outcomes—not by the wording of a job ad or a broad adoption pledge alone.
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