The pandemic broke some old conventions and accelerated other trends. One convention that, for many tech employers, fell by the wayside was requiring degrees for every position. A trend that accelerated during the pandemic was skills-based hiring.
For decades, degree requirements have been added to more and more jobs. The degree ratchet increasingly screened out skilled applicants, expanded the opportunity gap and made upward mobility more elusive.
For six years, former McKinsey partner Byron Auguste has been arguing that degrees are a bad proxy for critical skills. He founded Opportunity@Work to connect employers to “a huge, largely invisible talent pool of capable people” they call STARs – workers who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes, rather than through four-year degrees. STARs have skills picked up through community college, workforce training, bootcamps, certificate programs, military service or on-the-job learning, but are often overlooked by employers and are blocked by arbitrary degree requirements.