Employers Eager to Hire Try a New Policy: 'No Experience Necessary'

Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to accelerate hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates, reports the Wall Street Journal . This move is helping self-taught programmers secure software engineering roles at Intel and GitHub, and raising the chances for high-school graduates who aspire to be branch managers at Bank of America and elsewhere. "Candidates have so many options today," says Adecco Group's Amy Glaser. "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." Glaser says slashing job-credential requirements is more common in cities such as Dallas and Louisville, where unemployment is lowest, as well as in recruiting for roles at call centers and warehouses within retail logistics operations. An analysis by Burning Glass Technologies of 15 million ads on websites such as Indeed and Craigslist found the share of job postings requesting a college degree fell to 30 percent in the first half of this year from 32 percent in 2017. Minimum qualifications have been declining since 2012, when companies wanted college graduates for 34 percent of those positions. Recruiters say the tightest job market in many years has left employers looking to shrink hiring costs with three options — offer more money upfront, lower their standards, or retrain current staff in coding, procurement, or other necessary skills.