Skills-Based Hiring: How to Drop Degree Requirements Without Lowering the Bar

Moving to Skills-Based Hiring

Many employers are reconsidering degree requirements for roles where a degree is a proxy for skills they could assess directly. An earlier version of this article named specific companies and published an "evidence" table of applicant-pool, retention and time-to-fill gains, plus a validity coefficient. We removed all of it because we could not source it. The method below does not depend on those figures.

Implementation Guide

Step 1: Audit Your Requirements

Review every open requisition:

• Is the degree actually necessary for the role?
• Could a non-degreed candidate with the right skills succeed?
• Are you using a degree as a proxy for skills you should assess directly?

Rule of thumb: unless the role legally requires a qualification, such as a licensed profession, ask whether a degree is really needed.

Step 2: Define Required Skills

Replace "Bachelor's degree required" with specific, assessable skills.

Illustrative wording:

Before: "Bachelor's degree in Computer Science required"

After: "Proficiency in Python and SQL; experience building data pipelines; understanding of the software development lifecycle"

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Before: "MBA required"

After: "Experience with strategic planning, financial modeling and cross-functional project leadership"

Step 3: Build Skills Assessments

Keep each assessment as short as the role allows, and tell candidates how long it takes up front. Make sure each assessment is job-related and applied consistently to every candidate.

Step 4: Train Hiring Managers

Many hiring managers default to degree requirements because they are familiar:

• Share your own outcomes data on skills-based hires, once you have it
• Provide alternative assessment methods
• Model the behavior by removing requirements from their own postings
• Recognise successful hires from non-traditional backgrounds

Step 5: Update Systems

• Remove degree fields from screening filters in your ATS
• Add skills tags and assessment scores
• Update interview scorecards to focus on competencies
• Modify offer templates to remove degree verification where it is not required

Addressing Concerns

"How do I know they are qualified?" Assess the skills directly with work samples and structured interviews, and check the results against how your people perform on the job.

"What about foundational knowledge?" Assess it directly through interviews and tests, not indirectly through credentials.

"Will clients or partners judge us?" Ask them what they need. Often they care about the work, not the credential.

"What about specialized roles?" For roles requiring licensure, such as medical, legal or some engineering roles, keep the legal requirements. For everything else, assess skills directly.

Where Skills-Based Hires Come From

Treat these as places to look, not guarantees about any one candidate.

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