No Degree Necessary
One-third of new job postings have dropped college requirements. Will skills-based hiring solve today's talent issues?
If employers can’t find the talent they want in 2026, limiting themselves to hiring college graduates isn’t among the reasons why.
According to recent data, 30% of paid job postings on LinkedIn now omit professional-degree requirements, up from 19% in 2019. The stats indicate that more organizations are at least trying the skills-based approach to help them find workers. “Everyone is leaning into the approach,” says Renee Wahlen, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and leader in the firm’s Healthcare and Consumer Markets practices. But the question remains: Is it working?
The increased emphasis on skills comes during a soft job market in many parts of the world, and at a time when increasingly sophisticated software can rapidly sift through applications. Yet 72% of employers worldwide say they are struggling to find the skilled talent they need, up from 40% a decade ago. Organizations have thus begun focusing their evaluations on a candidate’s skills rather than their education or past work experience. That approach, say experts, is mixed news for the mounting number of graduates looking for work this summer: Their skills can help them, but their degrees may not.
In a survey Korn Ferry conducted last year, 67% of firms said they planned to adopt skills-based rewards by 2028. Early evidence suggests the approach can not only increase employee retention but also raise salaries for workers without degrees. “Organizations that reward people for the skills they bring—and build—will be better equipped to stay agile, innovative, and ready for what’s next,” says Douglas Maxfield, a Korn Ferry senior client partner in the firm’s Global Technology Industry practice.
Still, multiple obstacles have kept many organizations from embracing a skills-based approach entirely. As recently as last year, only 17% of firms told Korn Ferry that they felt ready to do so. For one thing, not every firm knows which specific skills they need to focus on. There’s often internal disagreement about which skills are truly critical to have in-house, which are nice to have, and which can be bought or rented from an outside party. Answering that question systematically can take time and resources that many organizations don’t or won’t commit to it. “Becoming a skills-based organization requires a significant change in mindsets, behaviors, and culture norms,” says Tracy Bosch, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and leader of the firm’s Work Measurement practice.
Because of how quickly their needs can change, some employers remain leery of skills-based hiring. Companies might know which skills they need now, but especially in the AI era, they don’t necessarily know which ones they’ll need in a few months—let alone in a couple of years. By 2030, the World Economic Forum has estimated, thanks to the AI revolution, nearly 40% of a worker’s core job skills will require updating or be rendered obsolete.
At a recent conference of talent professionals Wahlen attended, the skills-based approach was a leading topic of conversation. Everyone seems keen on the idea, she says, but it has yet to take hold: “No one is quite sure that they have it down pat. It’s all moving super fast.”
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