Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed-up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates.
Latest News: Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed-up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates. Many companies added requirements to job postings after the recession, when millions were out of work and human-resource departments were stacked with resumes. Americans looking to land a first job or break into a dream career face their best odds of success in years.
Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed-up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates. Many companies added requirements to job postings after the recession, when millions were out of work and human-resource departments were stacked with resumes. Across incomes and industries, the lower bar to getting hired is helping self-taught programmers attain software engineering roles at Intel Corp. and GitHub Inc., the coding platform, and improving the odds for high-school graduates who aspire to be branch managers at Bank of America Corp. and Terminix pest control. “Candidates have so many options today,” said Amy Glaser, senior vice president of Adecco Group, a staffing agency with around 10,000 company clients in search of employees. “If a company requires a degree, two rounds of interviews and a test for hard-skills, candidates can go down the street to another employer who will make them an offer that day.”
It all marks a sharp reversal from the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, when employers could be pickier. Economists say job requirements were harder to track then, because many companies didn’t post positions publicly and many resumes weren’t delivered electronically. Now, recruiters say, the tightest job market in decades has left employers looking to tamp down hiring costs with three options: Offer more money upfront, lower their standards or...read more
Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed-up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates. Many companies added requirements to job postings after the recession, when millions were out of work and human-resource departments were stacked with resumes. Across incomes and industries, the lower bar to getting hired is helping self-taught programmers attain software engineering roles at Intel Corp. and GitHub Inc., the coding platform, and improving the odds for high-school graduates who aspire to be branch managers at Bank of America Corp. and Terminix pest control. “Candidates have so many options today,” said Amy Glaser, senior vice president of Adecco Group, a staffing agency with around 10,000 company clients in search of employees. “If a company requires a degree, two rounds of interviews and a test for hard-skills, candidates can go down the street to another employer who will make them an offer that day.”
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In the first half of 2018, the share of job postings requesting a college degree fell to 30% from 32% in 2017, according to an analysis by labor-market research firm Burning Glass Technologies of 15 million ads on websites like Indeed and Craigslist. Minimum qualifications have been drifting lower since 2012, when companies sought college graduates for 34% of those positions. Long work-history requirements have also relaxed: Only 23% of entry-level jobs now ask applicants for three or more years of experience, compared with 29% back in 2012, putting another 1.2 million jobs in closer reach of more applicants, Burning Glass data show. Through the end of last year, another one million new jobs were opened up to candidates with “no experience necessary,” making occupations like e-commerce analyst, purchasing assistant and preschool teacher available to novices and those without a degree.It all marks a sharp reversal from the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, when employers could be pickier. Economists say job requirements were harder to track then, because many companies didn’t post positions publicly and many resumes weren’t delivered electronically. Now, recruiters say, the tightest job market in decades has left employers looking to tamp down hiring costs with three options: Offer more money upfront, lower their standards or...read more
