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Removing a degree requirement changes who is formally eligible to apply. It does not, by itself, change whom a company screens, interviews, or hires. A 2024 study by Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute found a modest increase in hiring workers without degrees in the roles it examined, with nearly all of the measured change concentrated in a minority of the firms studied. The gap between a revised job ad and a changed hiring process is the key.
Do companies hire more workers without degrees after dropping degree requirements?
In the roles covered by the 2024 Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute study, hiring of candidates without degrees increased by 3.5 percentage points after employers removed degree requirements. Nearly all of the observed change in actual hiring was concentrated in 37% of the firms studied, according to a summary from the Harvard Kennedy School.
These are sample-specific findings, not a forecast for every employer or proof that changing job-ad wording alone caused the hiring change. The summaries describe tracking job postings and hiring patterns at U.S. employers over time; they do not provide enough detail to treat the figures as a universal causal estimate. The findings do establish an important distinction: a company can drop a credential from its postings without substantially changing who gets hired.
Why a changed job ad may leave hiring unchanged
A degree line is only one possible filter. If recruiters still favor applicants with degrees, managers continue to use education as a shortcut for readiness, or interviews reward experience that non-degree candidates have had fewer chances to gain, the practical selection process may remain much the same.
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Removing a stated requirement can widen the advertised pool, but employers also need to specify what the job requires and how candidates can demonstrate it. A vague “degree or equivalent” condition may not help if reviewers have no shared definition of equivalent evidence. That is an implementation risk, not a quantified finding from the study.
| Approach | What it changes | Strength | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remove the degree line from the posting | Formal eligibility language | Opens the advertised application pool | Screening preferences, interview practices, and selection criteria may remain unchanged; the study found that posting changes did not reliably translate into hiring changes. Harvard Business School study; Harvard Kennedy School summary |
| Redesign qualifications and assessment | Job criteria, evaluation, and review of outcomes | Allows candidates to demonstrate job-related ability through more than one pathway and lets the employer check whether behavior changed | Requires job analysis, assessment design, consistent manager use, and follow-through; there is no one-size-fits-all implementation established by the cited guidance. OPM competencies guidance; OPM assessment guidance |
What skills-based hiring means in practice
Skills-based hiring means that a candidate’s relevant capabilities materially affect qualification and selection—not simply that a posting lists skills or omits a degree. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) describes qualifications in terms of job-related knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies that may be shown through education, experience, and/or training. A degree can be evidence of preparation, but it is not the only possible evidence.
OPM defines an assessment tool as “a device or method used to measure the degree to which an applicant possesses the KSAs/competencies necessary for successful job performance.” Its federal guidance is a useful model for thinking about job-related evaluation, but it is not automatically binding on private employers.
Choose evidence that resembles the work
Possible methods include a work sample, structured interview, job-knowledge test, or situational judgment test. The right choice depends on the role: an assessment should measure capabilities needed for the actual work, not unrelated polish or access to prior opportunities. OPM cautions agencies against relying solely on applicants’ self-assessments.
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Apply the same criteria consistently
Define what a strong answer or performance looks like before reviewing candidates. Use the same core questions or task criteria across applicants, and give interviewers scoring guidance. This makes it easier to compare evidence from different educational and work histories without substituting an informal degree preference for a stated requirement.
How employers can replace a degree requirement with job-related criteria
- Analyze the job. Identify the tasks and competencies needed to perform the role. Ask whether a degree is legally required or demonstrably connected to those duties, rather than carrying forward a legacy condition. OPM’s federal guidance says qualification requirements should be job-related and relevant; employers should also check applicable laws and licensing rules for their own roles. OPM General Schedule Qualification Policies
- Write down acceptable evidence. State which experience, training, or demonstrated skills can satisfy each requirement. Make alternatives concrete enough that candidates and reviewers understand what qualifies.
- Choose a job-relevant assessment. Select a work sample, structured interview, job-knowledge test, or scenario-based exercise tied to the competencies. Set scoring guidance and use it consistently. OPM assessment strategy
- Prepare hiring managers. Make sure managers can recognize relevant evidence gained through different pathways and follow the same rubric. Manager practice and organizational culture matter to implementation; commentary by Fuller and Sigelman discusses these challenges, but is not an independent causal evaluation. Harvard Business Review commentary
- Review the hiring funnel. Compare the share of hires without degrees before and after the change, and examine progression through application, screening, assessment, interview, offer, and retention. Break results out by role and hiring team so an organization-wide policy does not conceal teams where practice has not shifted. This is a practical monitoring recommendation, not a universal metric prescribed for private employers by OPM.
What employers and applicants should take away
For employers, removing a credential is the start of a process redesign, not its finish. The meaningful test is whether job-related evidence—not a degree acting as an informal proxy—can qualify candidates and influence selection. For applicants, a posting without a degree requirement signals formal eligibility, but it cannot guarantee that every employer has changed its screening or evaluation practices.
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Some jobs do require specific education, training, or licensure. The sound approach is to validate each requirement against the work and applicable law, then offer credible ways to demonstrate competence wherever a degree is not essential.
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