It’s No Surprise That “Skills-Based” Hiring Has Not Worked
It’s No Surprise That “Skills-Based” Hiring Has Not Worked
A new report shows that, even after businesses announce dropping college degree requirements for jobs, most hire college graduates anyway.
This article outlines an opinion that organizations either tried skills based hiring and reverted to degree required hiring because it was warranted, or they didn't adapt their process in spite of executive vision.
Since this article is non industry specific, what are your observations or opinions of the technology sector? What about the general business sector?
Should first world employees of businesses be required to obtain degrees if they reasonably expect a business related job?
Do college experiences and academic rigor reveal higher achieving employees?
Is undergraduate education a minimum standard for a more enlightened society? Or a way to hold separation between classes of people and status?
Is a masters degree the new way to differentiate yourself where the undergrad degree was before?
Edit: multiple typos, I guess that's proof that I should have done more college 😄
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Code has been skills-based for as long as I’ve been working. The few places I’ve seen that really have a hard degree requirement are not places I’d work. Most CS degrees are also mostly worthless for most app jobs because the theory is not the practice. There are degree programs that focus on shipping applications. In my own hiring, I’m looking for experience over degree and potential over buzzword bingo.
I’m looking for experience over degree
In most cases, it's assumed you'd hire an experienced dev over one who has never held a job, and by that, I mean they have no proof of skill, if you consider a previous employment any proof of actual skill other than convicting someone to hire them :)
Assume you're hiring a new to workforce person. No previous employment:
- Do you hire a degree or no degree candidate with no previous employment record?
- What do you look for specifically if you are looking for skills?
- If your child/family member was going to pursue a career in dev/IT/whatever, would you push them to get a degree, or just build a portfolio of code/projects/whatever shows their skills in that field?
For junior IT roles, you’re screening for passion more than anything else. The best candidates are usually people that play with computers and are looking for growth. There’s a mix of “I have been taking computers apart since I was a kid” and “I’m getting an associates in IT.” Totally hit or miss. Sometimes the person with nothing pans out and the degree seeker won’t. Sometimes it’s the other way around. The deciding factor here is how the candidate meshes with the team.
For junior dev roles, someone with a college degree is usually looking for more than a junior salary but has nothing I would hire at higher levels. Someone without a degree might have been coding in their spare time or done a boot camp. A good portfolio might give you a leg up. I consider a portfolio to be evidence of growth, not a bunch of perfect code. I love seeing GitHub profiles that show really shitty code that matures into really solid code (or at least the signs someone is trying). That being said, what matters is the tech screen and a quick code test. If you can do what I validate in an interview and the team likes you, rad.
For someone with no experience, I tell them to figure out something they want to learn and put it on GitHub. Then repeat a fuck ton. Always expand the things you challenge yourself with and move on when your learning or passion has ceased. Sometimes that means you build yet another todo list. Other times that means you try to figure out how to build that cool Discord bot and fail utterly but learn a bunch of shit along the way.
Honestly at the end of the day it’s all fucking luck. If you get a hiring manager like me that’s slightly biased toward self-trained over degree, you have an easier chance on skills stuff. But that’s a crapshoot. I was lucky when I started and people took chances on me. In return I take chances on people I think could have great potential. That’s just dumb luck both from me and for the people I’m able to help grow.
I was lucky when I started and people took chances on me. In return I take chances on people I think could have great potential.
We have something in common here.
While posting code on GitHub is slightly dev specific, I think the principles you've shared likely goes across a lot of industry. If people show initiative, are life long learners, they'll probably land something, with or without a degree.