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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteRemoving a bachelor’s degree requirement from a job ad does not guarantee that applicants without degrees will be hired. A study of large firms found an average increase of about 3.5 percentage points in non-degree hires for roles where requirements were removed—but the overall effect was small, and hiring changes varied sharply by employer. The study tracks changes through 2023, so it is not a count of hiring in 2026.
What changed—and what did not
Employers can change the words in a job posting faster than the systems used to screen applicants and choose finalists. That is the central gap: a role may no longer formally require a degree while recruiters, application filters, or hiring managers continue to rely on familiar signals.
Indeed Hiring Lab found that 52% of U.S. postings on its platform had no formal education requirement mentioned in January 2024, compared with 48% in January 2019. In January 2024, 17.8% required at least a four-year degree. These are posting figures, not records of who applied or was hired; Indeed used the lowest education level mentioned when a posting listed multiple levels. Indeed Hiring Lab’s analysis therefore describes job-ad language, not hiring outcomes.
A separate study by Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work and Burning Glass Institute examined 11,300 firm-role combinations at large companies, drawing on career histories for 65 million U.S. workers. In roles where employers removed degree requirements, the share of hires without bachelor’s degrees rose by about 3.5 percentage points on average. Because the requirement was removed in only 3.6% of roles in the analyzed period, the authors estimated the aggregate incremental-hiring effect at 0.14%. The finding is meaningful at the affected-role level, but modest across the broader labor market. The HBS and Burning Glass report follows changes through 2023 and does not establish what all employers did afterward.
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Why employers’ follow-through differed
The HBS and Burning Glass analysis found that policy changes did not translate into hiring changes uniformly. About 37% of firms studied drove nearly all observed hiring change. Roughly 45% appeared to remove degree requirements “in name only,” while approximately one-fifth were classified as backsliders. Those categories describe the firms in that analysis, not every employer in the United States. The report’s findings show why a company-wide pledge or revised job template is not enough evidence that selection has changed.
The study documents the gap but does not experimentally identify one reason every firm failed to follow through. A plausible mechanism is that an old proxy can persist informally: a degree may still influence résumé review or interviews even after it disappears from the formal requirement. TestGorilla’s 2025 vendor survey found that many surveyed employers still used résumés, which can reveal education history, but that survey does not prove résumé screening caused the hiring gap. TestGorilla’s survey results should be read as reported practice, not matched hiring records.
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Skills-first does not mean experience- or degree-blind
“Skills-first” can mean that employers give job-relevant capabilities more weight; it does not necessarily mean they stop considering education, prior work, or other evidence. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 report says 81% of surveyed businesses expected to continue using work experience to assess skills over 2025–2030. That is an expectation, not observed behavior across the entire period. The World Economic Forum’s report also describes continued degree requirements among employers.
Survey findings suggest skills-based approaches are reported more often, but they should not be confused with proof that hiring outcomes have changed. SHRM and SHRM Foundation’s 2026 report, based on a 2025 survey, found 34% of organizations said they often or almost always used skills-first strategies in hiring. NACE’s 2026 Job Outlook survey found 70% of surveyed employers used skills-based hiring for entry-level hires, up from 65% in the prior year. These surveys differ in populations and wording, and neither measures the share of hires who gained access because of the practice. SHRM’s skills-first hiring findings and NACE’s survey are useful indicators of reported adoption, not direct updates to the HBS/Burning Glass outcome estimate.
How to tell whether a policy is changing actual hiring
For workers weighing whether a “no degree required” label changes their prospects, the useful question is how the employer evaluates candidates. A credible change replaces a degree proxy with a clear way to demonstrate skills relevant to the job, rather than simply removing a sentence from the posting.
- Role-specific criteria: The posting or application explains the capabilities needed, rather than treating “skills-first” as a generic promise.
- A way to demonstrate competence: Candidates can show relevant ability through work samples, structured assessments, experience, or another stated method. The method should fit the actual role.
- Consistent evaluation: Recruiters and interviewers assess candidates against shared criteria instead of relying only on unstructured impressions.
- Outcome tracking: The employer checks who applies, advances, and gets hired, including whether people without degrees are gaining access.
- Appropriate scope: The employer identifies which jobs changed and recognizes that some occupations may require credentials for legal or technical reasons.
These are practical signals of implementation, not a single assessment recipe established by the studies. The World Economic Forum describes employers’ reliance on experience and expected use of skills assessments, while NACE reports that employers may assess skills during screening and interviews. Together, they point to the practical challenge: selection needs credible, job-related evidence to replace a credential where that credential is not necessary.
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What newer evidence can—and cannot—tell job seekers
Recent surveys and policy reporting help describe interest and reported use, but they do not resolve whether employers’ actual hiring changed at the same pace as their advertisements. The 2024 matched analysis remains bounded by its sample of large firms and changes observed through 2023; Indeed’s figures cover postings on its U.S. platform. SHRM, NACE, WEF, and vendor surveys measure reported practices or expectations using different definitions.
There is also a public-sector dimension. The National Governors Association’s 2025 report says states with policies encouraging skills-based hiring saw faster growth in degree-free postings than states without such policies. That comparison concerns posting trends, not proof that policy alone caused more non-degree hires. The NGA also emphasizes tracking outcomes. Its broader message is captured by Center for Best Practices director Timothy Blute: “The shift away from degree requirements is a win for workers and for economic growth.” The NGA report offers a state-policy view, but postings remain an intermediate measure rather than the hiring result itself.
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For applicants, a degree-free posting is an opening to apply, not a guarantee that the employer has changed how it selects. Look for the stated skill criteria and assessment process, and judge an employer’s follow-through by outcomes—not just the wording of its ads.
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