The
Emerging
Degree Reset
How the Shift to Skills-Based Hiring Holds
the Keys to Growing the U.S. Workforce
at a Time of Talent Shortage

Contents

Executive Summary 										3Introduction											4Ups and Downs: How This Crisis is Different From the Great Recession		

7

Two Types of Reset: Structural and Cyclical						

9Room to Grow in Hiring Practice								14Analyzing How Skill Requirements Change 						

17Potential Impact											20Conclusion												22Appendix 												23Authors												27Endnotes												28

© 2022 The Burning Glass Institute2

The Emerging Degree ResetExecutive Summary
Employers are resetting degree requirements in a wide range of roles, dropping therequirement for a bachelor’s degree in many middle-skill and even some higherskill roles. This reverses a trend toward degree inflation in job postings going backto the Great Recession. And while the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this process,this reset began before the crisis and is likely to continue after it.
• Some 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations experienced

material degree resets between 2017 and 2019.

• Only 27% of the changing occupations could be considered “cyclical resets,”or short-term responses to the pandemic. The majority (63%) appear to be“structural resets” that began before the pandemic, representing a measured
and potentially permanent shift in hiring practices.

• When employers drop degrees, they become more specific about skills in job

postings, spelling out the soft skills that may have been assumed to come with acollege education, such as writing, communication, and being detail-oriented.

This reset could have major implications for how employers find talent and open
up opportunities for the two-thirds of Americans without a college education.
Based on these trends, we project that an additional 1.4 million jobs could open toworkers without college degrees over the next five years.

The Emerging Degree Reset3

Introduction
Jobs do not require four-year college degrees.
Employers do. The last decade was characterized
by a widespread phenomenon of “degree
inflation.” Employers who had not asked fora four-year college degree historically started
adding college degrees as minimum education
requirements even for jobs that had notmaterially changed.1
The widespread increase in demand for degrees
concentrated itself among the 15.7 million
jobs that represent a middle ground between
the roughly 25% of jobs, like physicians, civilengineers, and marketing managers, that have
universal degree requirements and the 39% ofjobs like short-order cooks, retail workers, andtruck drivers that operate out of the scope ofhigher education.
By definition, adding requirements serves
as a filter for reducing the pool of applicantseligible to be considered. At a time whenemployers struggle to find talent, including a
degree requirement immediately eliminatesfrom consideration the 64% of working-aged
adults who do not hold a bachelor’s degree.2 At
the same time, traditional middle-skilled jobs,
defined as positions requiring some education
or training beyond high-school, but short of acollege degree, have long served as an important
stepping stone to the middle class. As more andmore of these jobs closed to workers withouta bachelor’s degree, key avenues for upward
mobility were closed to roughly 80 million prime
working age Americans3 at a time when income
inequality was already widening.

4

Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing
the Future of Work, Emsi Burning Glass, andnow the Burning Glass Institute have been
tracking the arc of degree requirements andtheir impact on middle-skill jobs in a series ofreports dating back to 2014. That research foundthat, among middle-skilled occupations, theskill requirements of those openings that requiredegrees are, for the most part, not significantly
different from those openings for which nodegree is required. Degree requirements seemed
to function instead as a proxy used to simplify
the hiring process, a shorthand for certain skills
and a screen to reduce the number of candidates
whom recruiters needed to evaluate.4
Today, across a wide array of fields, demand fortalent far outstrips supply. Amidst the undeniable
reality of talent shortage, a growing number ofcompanies and even the U.S. government havereconsidered degree requirements. In June 2020and January 2021, the White House announced
limits on the use of educational requirements infavor of adopting a skills-based approach whenhiring IT professionals.5 Many employers havejoined the federal government in prioritizing
skills over degrees. For example, IBM announced
in 2021 that it had stripped bachelor’s degree
requirements from more than half of their U.S.
job postings and will continue to rethink theutility of degree requirements in the future. We
call this phenomenon “downcredentialing,” or a“degree reset.”
The U.S. labor market is facing a number ofchallenges that are motivating employers to
adopt skills-based hiring. The accelerating
rate of technological change is reshaping skills
requirements faster than providers can respond.

The Emerging Degree ResetThat further worsens the shortage of skilled
talent with or without a degree – especially injobs based on digital technologies. Evaluating
applicants on their demonstrated skills andaptitudes, rather than on their level of academic
attainment, can simultaneously help companies
address skills shortages while creating more
opportunities for Americans aspiring to improvetheir employment circumstances. It opens more
pathways to well-paying careers to workers
often hidden from employers’ considerations bydegree requirements.6 This can help to reduce
inequity by creating a more diverse workforce,since Blacks, LatinX, and other minority
communities are materially less likely to havebachelor’s degrees than non-Hispanic whites andAsian Americans.7 Degree reset, while widely
discussed, has only been studied occasionally.8
By analyzing over 51 million job postings, thisreport reveals the prevalence of this degree
reset and explores the potential for skills-based
hiring in the U.S. Our goal is to address somefundamental questions of relevance to various
stakeholders, including employers, workers,
and recruiters. Are there discernible changes in
the corporate recruiting standards that suggest
companies are beginning to move away fromdegree requirements in favor of skills-based
hiring? Is the shift to skills-based hiring gaining
momentum? In which occupations is thedecline most pronounced? Do employers adjust
their skill demands when removing degree
requirements and what do such changes imply
about the value they have historically placed on
degrees? And what role, if any, has the Covid-19
pandemic played to catalyze such changes?

The Emerging Degree Reset

Based on our analysis, we find that after asustained period of degree inflation, employers’
demand for bachelor’s and post-graduate
degrees is starting to decrease perceptibly. Our
major findings include:• Some 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill9 occupations experienced material
degree resets between 2017 and 2019.10• Degree resets occurred in multiple sectors

before the onset of Covid-19 and accelerated
as a function of the pandemic, spreading to
new occupations. If these trends continue,
we project that an additional 1.4 million
jobs could open to workers without college
degrees over the next five years.

• However, overall, 37% of middle-skilled jobs

do not show a reduction in requiring a college
degree, effectively stripping 15.7 million
people11 out of their candidate pool, even as
employers struggle to find enough workers.

• Multiple technology companies have publicly

announced their commitment to prioritize
skills over degrees in IT occupations. Several,most notably Accenture and IBM, have madematerial changes in job requirements acrosstheir organizations. Others have made only
modest changes in their requirements for
specific positions, suggesting that corporate
commitments have yet to translate topractical implementation of skills-based
hiring strategies.

• Removing degree requirements spurs

employers to be more specific about the skills

5they seek. Employers that remove degree
requirements often add to the hard, technical,
and soft, social skills they require or prefer
for the job. As such, the degree reset does
not seem to reflect any diminution in thecomplexity of work; quite the contrary, jobs
that undergo a degree reset are more likely to
specify high-level skills.
• Those changes suggest that employers havehistorically inferred that college graduates
possessed superior social skills such ascommunication, teamwork, attention todetail, and negotiating skills, motivatingthem to institute degree requirements.

Of the full set of occupations we analyzed, justover 60% of them were considered middle- andhigh-skill occupations in 2017.12 We eliminatedfrom the analysis set occupations where morethan 90% of postings required a bachelor’s
degree or more — jobs that are highly unlikely
to ever drop the degree requirement. This left us
with just over half of occupations classified as
open to a degree reset.
Occupations affected by a degree reset can bedivided into two groups. One is “cyclical reset”(27% of occupations), those for which employers
appear to have reduced degree requirements indirect response to the Covid-19 pandemic and job
market crisis between 2019 and 2020.
The other is “structural reset” (63% ofoccupations), those that decreased their degree6requirements between 2017 and 2019, well before
the pandemic. This is much more significant.
A cyclical reset may reverse when conditions
change. But in the structural resets, employers
were clearly rethinking job requirements overtime and deciding the degree was no longer
appropriate. These measured judgements byemployers on what is and isn’t needed are far
more likely to stick for the long term. Degree
resets are much more pronounced in middleskill than high-skill occupations, as expected.
Previous research indicated a distinct trend
toward degree inflation or “upcredentialing”
for middle-skill jobs through 2015. The apparent
reversal of that trend suggests that employers are
beginning to revisit their reliance on bachelor's
degrees in assessing job applicants.
Our analysis demonstrates a growing reset insegments of the U.S. labor market and shows
the acceleration of this phenomenon due toa shortage of workers during the pandemic.
The Covid-19 crisis continues to pose a huge
disruption: It may cause employers making
cyclical changes to rethink their hiring
preferences permanently. While some employers
have been nudged toward a degree reset by the
pandemic, others like Accenture and IBM are
responding to sustained shortages of skilledworkers by rethinking both the attributes they
are seeking in new employees and their approachto qualifying candidates.

The Emerging Degree Reset

Ups and Downs:
How This Crisis is
Different From theGreat Recession

service, transportation and logistics, health care,etc., that are predominantly low skills — wesearched for changes in degree requirements
across and within all occupational skill levels.

The Covid-19 Pandemic Led to a Surgein Demand for Sub-BA jobs

Researchers found that degree inflation
accelerated after the Great Recession from 2008
to 2010. In the aftermath of the recession, thepercent of vacancies requiring a bachelor’s
degree or higher rose by more than 10 percentage
points13 and then receded gradually during
the subsequent slow recovery (see Figure 1).
However, it remained considerably higher thanhistorical levels between the end of that recession
and the onset of Covid-19.
By contrast, the Covid-19 economic slowdown
led to a sudden, sharp drop in the share ofjobs requiring a college degree. In order tounderstand the extent to which that phenomenon
merely reflected a surge in demand for workers
who were deemed “essential” — frontline
workers in positions in public safety, food

FIGURE 1: Relationship between minimum

The pandemic did indeed materially alter the mixof job postings (Figure 2). The demand for subBA jobs,14 like Warehouse and Delivery Workers,
surged during the pandemic and it is likely
to remain strong due to the rise of the remoteeconomy. Historically, such workers could be
hired temporarily and at lower wages relative tohigh-skill workers. And while the growth rate
in compensation offered by employers ranging
from Amazon to Costco is likely to slow as theNotes: The shaded areas indicate the Great Recession
and the Covid-19 Recession.

education requirements in job postings andunemployment rate
Unemployment Rate

Education Requirement

30

8
25
6
20

4
2008

2010

The Emerging Degree Reset

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020
7

Share of Postings Requiring BA+ %Source: Analysis of data from Emsi Burning Glass andBureau of Labor Statistics, 2007-2021.

10
Unemployment Rate %We analyzed over 51 million job postings from
Emsi Burning Glass in 2017, and from 2019 toMarch 2021. Our aim was to understand how
much of the shift over the period was a functionof changes in the pattern of demand, whether
such changes reflected a shift toward skills-based
hiring, and what the implications are for job
seekers, companies, and skills providers.

dislocation by Covid-19 abates, talent shortages
and shifts appear likely to be long-term.
Moreover, Covid-19 inflicted great uncertainty on
companies, inhibiting hiring for high-skill roles.
The share of postings in high-skill jobs decreasedby 5 percentage points in the year between March
2020 and March 2021. The share of postings in
middle-skill roles, like Bookkeepers or Legal
Secretaries, appears to have remained relatively
stable.

Did Covid-19 Drive the Degree Reset?
Part of the decrease in bachelor’s degree
requirements (Figure 1) during the crisis reflects
a predictable shift in the mix of occupational
hiring given the disruption depicted in Figure 2.
What is not evident from Figure 2 is any decreasein bachelor‘s requirements within middle- andhigh-skill occupations that was emerging before
March 2020.

In order to understand this phenomenon, we
dissected degree requirements in postings for
middle- and high-skill jobs, occupation by
occupation, between 2017 and 2020. We founddegree requirements for middle-skill jobs were
gradually receding even before the pandemic.
The trend is far less pronounced for occupationalgroups traditionally reserved for those with afour-year college background, such as analytical
8

FIGURE 2: The Covid-19 crisis increased

demand for sub-BA jobs
Notes: The figure shows the demand for low-, middleand high-skill workers from January 2019 until
March 2021. The red dotted line marks the start ofthe pandemic. Low-skill occupations are those witha share of bachelor and above (BA+) below 25%,
middle-skill below 50%, and high-skill above 50%.
Source: Analysis of data from Emsi Burning Glass.

Low-skill

Middle-skill

High-skill

60

50
Share of Postings %In this report, we set out to understand theextent of that reset in specific occupations andacross sectors. Such changes are not universal;
an occupation does not go from generally
requiring a bachelor’s degree to having nosuch requirement overnight. Instead, some
employers may retain such a requirement
while others dispense with it. This evolution
can become marked over time. For example,
81% of E-Commerce Analyst postings requireda bachelor’s degree in 2017. In 2020, only 62%
required a degree.

and scientific occupations. Nonetheless, ouranalysis indicates that between 2017 and 2019,46% of the middle-skill and 31% of the high-skill
occupations we studied experienced material
declines in degree requirements. This shift
occurred to some degree in 63% of occupations,with the most pronounced declines in finance,business management, engineering, and healthcare occupations. In some instances, the declines
were relatively modest; in others surprisingly
substantial.

40

30

20

10
Jan19

Jun19

Jan20

Jun20

Jan21

The Emerging Degree ResetTwo Types ofReset: Structural
and Cyclical

Structural Reset

Our analysis of degree requirements for the 2017–2020 period revealed a clear distinction between
the recovery following the Great Recession and
the Covid-19 pandemic. Two distinctly different
types of reset occurred (Figure 3). Over thecourse of the decade beginning in 2017, somesustained structural reset occurred. A second,
Covid-19-induced wave followed, as employers
lowered barriers for applicants in the face ofan unprecedented surge in demand for certain
occupations. Thus, we distinguish two types ofchange that have reduced degree requirements inalmost one million jobs over the past two years:

In these occupations, the share of postingsrequiring a bachelor’s degree decreased between
2017 to 2019. In some occupations, that trend
has been consistent over an extended period,
suggesting that, in these jobs, the removal of
job requirements is likely to be permanent.
This type of reset is most evident in IT andmanagerial occupations (see Table 1 andAppendix Table 1). A pattern emerged in thehigh-skill occupations experiencing the greatest
degree of change: Employers limited their use of
credential requirements in occupations featuringsignificant technical or analytical requirements.
For example, the share of postings stipulatinga bachelor’s degree for Telecommunications
Engineering Specialist declined from 66% to 58%
between 2017 and 2019.

FIGURE 3: Distinction between structural and cyclical degree resets15
Notes: Shown are examples for occupations that experience resets removing degree requirements between
2017 and 2019 and 2019 and 2020.
Source: Analysis of Emsi Burning Glass data.

Structural

65%

2017

81%
59%

2019

54%

2020

1. Paralegal / Legal AssistantCyclical

56%

2017

67%

2019

34%

2017

28%

2019

74%

62%

26%

2020

2. Transportation Supervisor

2017

2019

2020

3. E-Commerce Analyst

35%
60%

2020

4. Customer Service Manager

The Emerging Degree Reset

24%

2017

23%

2019

2020

5. Intensive / Critical Care Nurse

32%

2017

34%

2019

29%

2020

6. Billing Clerk / Specialist

9Across a wide array of occupations, demand forskilled workers nowadays far exceeds supply.16
This supply-demand imbalance appears to haveencouraged employers to suspend the use ofproxies, such as degree completion, in order toexpand their pool of prospective candidates. Thatappears to have been most true for occupations
requiring specific skills or competencies that canbe evaluated accurately through mechanisms
like pre-employment aptitude testing. However,degree resets are most evident in the middleskill domain. In total, over 363,000 job postings
were affected by structural resets in the past two
years.17

Cyclical Reset
Since the start of the pandemic, resets removing
degree requirements occurred in 27% ofoccupations (Table 2 and Appendix Table 2).
This affected middle- and high-skill occupations,such as Critical/Intensive Care Nurses orRegistered Nurses in the health care sector, which
experienced a surge in demand as a direct resultof the pandemic.
Those occupations usually require specificcredentials other than a traditional higher
education degree, including health-specificcertifications, state-licensing requirements, or
certain measurable skills. The dramatic rise indemand for skilled health care workers during
the pandemic led to resets in those occupations.
For example, in 2020, the share of postings

10

for Registered Nurses specifically asking fora bachelor’s degree declined by 5 percentage
points compared to 2019, from 38% to 33%.
Other health occupations usually filled bymiddle-skill workers like Intensive/Critical Care
Nurses also experienced resets in the face ofthe biggest health crisis of modern times. Morethan a third (35%) of those positions required abachelor’s degree in 2019; only 23% did in 2020.
In these occupations, the reset is more recent andtherefore it is not yet clear whether it is anything
more than an immediate response to cyclicallabor shortage. In total, over 548,000 job postings
were affected by cyclical degree reset in the past
two years.

Why Degree Resets are Focused on
Middle-Skill Occupations
There are significant differences in the extent
of this reset between middle- and high-skill
occupations. Historically, degree inflation rosesteadily in middle skills jobs through 2015.18 In
many such positions, a substantial “degree gap“
— the difference between the percentage of job
postings requiring a degree and the percentage ofthe current occupants of that position possessing
one — emerged. In jobs ranging from front-line
supervisors in everything from landscaping
to construction, from Surveying and MappingTechnicians to Executive Secretaries, degree gapsof 40% or more existed.19 As Figure 3 indicates,that pattern appears to have begun to reverse
itself.

The Emerging Degree ResetWhile few high-skill occupations experienced
resets, the phenomenon is much more
pronounced in middle-skill jobs. For instance,
in a high-skill position like IT Project Manager,
degree requirements have barely changed,
decreasing by a single percentage point from
92% to 91% between 2017 and 2019. Significant
reductions in degree requirements of above 5%
remain rare in high-skill jobs broadly. That said,
there are a handful of examples of high-skill
occupations that exhibit greater rates of change:
For example, the share of postings requiring a BA
or above for Computer Programmers declined
from 83% to 79% between 2017 and 2019.

Is this trend here to stay?
The gradual reversal of degree inflation in
many middle skill jobs, and particularly those
we categorize as experiencing structural resets,suggests that employers are revisiting their use ofacademic attainment as a job requirement. That
undoubtedly reflects their response to a broadly
tightening labor market between 2017 and 2019
and the growing scarcity of workers with digitaland technical skills. It may also suggest that some
employers have found that degree requirements
are superfluous. Employers that have relaxed
their academic requirements during the
pandemic will have the opportunity to reassess
the necessity of reinstating them in the future.20
But the pattern that followed the Great Recession— a quick raising of the bar and then a gradualreconsideration and reset — suggests that the
recent changes may endure for a time, if not
become permanent. In both the case of structuraland cyclical reset, the competitors of firms thathave chosen to eliminate degree requirements
may want to consider whether they, too, should
broaden the pool of candidates available to themin the future.

The Emerging Degree Reset

11

TABLE 1: The biggest occupations experiencing significant structural reset, divided into middle-

and high-skill categories based on their BA+ shares
Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+ share
2017 (%)

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share2019 (%)

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020 (%)

Number of
postings
2020

High-Skill Structural Reset Occupations
Insurance
Sales Agent

Finance-32.98%-11.95%61.52%

121,51641.23%

164,74236.30%

219,140

Personal
Financial
AdvisorFinance-8.56%-8.06%

84.06%

75,98476.87%

68,80470.67%

55,586

Loan Officer

Finance-11.21%-16.90%58.90%

64,94252.29%

72,82843.46%

117,071

Paralegal/
Legal AssistantLaw, Compliance,
and Public
Safety-9.30%-8.52%

65.07%

47,31359.02%

84,42953.99%

74,928ClaimsSpecialist/
Adjuster/Examiner

Finance-8.51%-4.88%

61.47%

37,40656.24%

49,80253.50%

43,521

Middle-Skill Structural Reset Occupations
Retail StoreManager/Supervisor

Sales-9.81%-15.47%26.31%

542,530

23.73%

682,705

20.06%

682,283

Real Estate
Agent/
BrokerSales-23.64%-22.53%43.35%

84,07633.10%

121,294

25.64%

145,403

Maintenance/
ServiceSupervisor

Maintenance,
Repair, andInstallation-14.39%-11.98%33.14%

77,29228.37%

119,388

24.97%

126,702

Property/
Real Estate/Community
ManagerBusiness
Management andOperations-16.41%-10.24%49.58%

41,11841.44%

87,84637.20%

102,156

Human
Resources
Assistant

Human
Resources-5.16%-5.19%

32.98%

25,52431.28%

34,44729.66%

29,473

Source: Emsi Burning Glass data. Occupations are sorted by the number of postings in 2017.

12

The Emerging Degree ResetTABLE 2: The biggest occupations experiencing significant cyclical reset, divided into middle-

and high-skill categories based on their BA+ shares
Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+
share
2017 (%)

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share2019 (%)

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020 (%)

Number of
postings
2020

High-Skill Cyclical Reset Occupations
Sales RepresentativeSales+14.17%-10.57%45.05%

590,557

51.43%

854,87146.00%

766,935

Recruiter

Human
Resources+4.45%-8.11%

65.63%

120,745

68.54%

164,674

62.98%

119,639

Clinical CaseManager

Health Care
includingNursing+23.85%-6.19%

44.47%

86,78755.08%

117,52151.67%

116,039

Customer
Service Manager

Customerand Client
Support+19.47%-10.87%56.16%

28,58367.1%

46,18559.80%

41,450Banking
Branch Manager

Finance+5.81%-8.72%

51.56%

41,48854.56%

42,24449.80%

34,710

Middle-Skill Cyclical Reset Occupations
Registered
Nurse

Health Care
includingNursing+16.74%-15.11%32.85%

1,314,799

38.34%

1,070,791

32.55%

1,330,373

Bookkeeper/
Accounting
Clerk

Finance+1.30%-6.85%

42.58%

245,618

43.13%

301,81240.18%

270,446

Intensive/
Critical Care
Nurse

Health Care
includingNursing+45.46%-33.51%24.18%

244,00735.18%

168,70723.39%

263,206

Sales AssistantSales+16.23%-5.69%

29.32%

36,85334.08%

42,38132.14%

33,312

Billing Clerk/
Specialist

Clerical and
Administrative+4.91%-13.78%32.29%

32,41433.87%

42,27029.20%

36,847

Source: Emsi Burning Glass data. Occupations are sorted by the number of postings in 2019.

The Emerging Degree Reset13

Room to Grow in
Hiring Practice
How the Degree Reset is Playing Out
Across the Tech Sector
Companies intent on broadening theirapplicant pools can reverse degree inflation bymaking changes in their hiring policies. Many
Information Technology (IT) sector leaders havemade strong public commitments to strippingjobs of their degree requirements, while a host oftech mavericks, from Mark Zuckerberg to Elon
Musk, hold themselves up as examples of what
can be achieved without a degree. “We don’tcare if you have a degree, we just care if you cancode,” is a common mantra in Silicon Valley. As
such, studying the uneven progress of major techfirms provides a window both into what can beachieved and what remains to be done.
Our analysis finds that, even for the same role,
there is considerable variance across tech firms as
to the prevalence of degree requirements. Figure
4 shows for a selection of IT roles the percentage
of postings requiring a bachelor’s degree, acrossa range of tech companies. Overall, we find that,for most of the IT occupations we studied, thesetech leaders continue to have a higher demandfor college degrees than the national average.
Oracle, for example, requires degrees in well over
90% of postings across the sampled roles.
That said, there are marked differences in
the prevalence of requiring a degree acrossfirms. For example, only 26% of Accenture’s
Software QA Engineer postings specify a degree
requirement, and 29% of IBM’s, vs. 100% of these
postings at Oracle, 94% at Intel, 92% at HP, and
90% at Apple.
This indicates that, with few exceptions, there
is still significant work that remains. That said,
notwithstanding the continued strong demandfor degrees at many tech firms, we wanted tounderstand their progress to date.
Figure 5 shows the percentage of IT occupation
postings at major tech companies that requirea bachelor’s degree or above, and how that haschanged over the past five years.
A few employers are noteworthy in their efforts
to reevaluate degree requirements.

FIGURE 4: Degree requirements across tech firms for select IT occupations
Notes: Orange shading reflects a higher prevalence of degree requirement than the national average for thatoccupation. Green shading reflects a lower prevalence.
Source: Analysis of Emsi Burning Glass data, 2021.
National

AmazonApple

GoogleMicrosoft

Accenture

IBM

Facebook

Intel

HP

OracleComputer Support
Specialist

24%

11%

55%

55%

54%

9%

42%

50%

50%

6%

93%

Software Developer /Engineer

60%

76%

65%

80%

62%

40%

31%

84%

98%

84%

99%

Software QA Engineer

54%

80%

90%

84%

87%

26%

29%

66%

94%

92%

100%

Network Administrator

52%

59%

73%

76%

21%

50%

34%

91%

84%

71%

100%

14

The Emerging Degree ResetIBM, the largest American technology company
by employment, is well ahead of its peers in
stripping degree requirements from job postings.
Overall, only 29% of its postings for IT roles
require a degree. While this is up somewhat
from 2017 when only 21% of its IT postingsrequired a degree, IBM still stands alone in
the extent to which it has fulfilled on its public
commitment to reducing demand for degrees. In
fact, the company issued the following statementin January 2021:“IBM has now stripped bachelor’s degree
requirements for more than half of our US job
openings, and we’re continuously reevaluating ourroles to prioritize skills over specific degrees.”21
The eight-point rise in the share of the company’s
IT postings that specify a degree is itself instructive.
It suggests that real-world success demands morethan just removing language from job ads. Rather,companies will need to reevaluate these changes
continually to understand where degrees aresuperfluous and where they are effective indicatorsof required skill.
Accenture, one of the world’s largest technology
services companies, and a competitor of IBM’sin some lines of business, has made a similar
pledge to emphasize skills in the hiring process.
A comparison of Accenture’s IT hiring profile
in 2021 vs. 2017 reflects how even a company
that was already ahead of its peers can continue
to make substantial progress, with the shareof postings specifying a BA or higher down to
43% in 2021 from 54% in 2017. These reductions
have borne out across 71% of the firm’s IT roles.
Figure 6 shows the extent of Accenture’s degree
reset in various IT roles. For example, just 20%of Accenture’s Data Warehousing Specialist
postings now specify a bachelor’s degree orabove, down from 69% in 2017. Similarly, by
2021, only 23% of its Business Intelligence
Architect / Developer postings specify a BA or
The Emerging Degree Reset

FIGURE 5: Share of BA+ postings in IT

occupations at big tech employers
Notes: Bars show the vacancy-weighted share ofBA+ postings in the occupations group Information
Technologies for big tech employers and Accenture.
Source: Emsi Burning Glass 2017 and 2021.

2017

2021

Intel

GoogleApple

Facebook

Microsoft

Accenture

IBM

0

20

40

60

80

100

Share of postings requiring BA+ %above vs. 56% in 2017. Only 9% of its Computer
Support Specialist postings specify a BA or abovevs. 46% in 2017.
While Apple and Google still both demonstratea heavy reliance on degrees in their postings,
the two firms are noteworthy for the progress
they have made thus far. Figure 5 shows thatthe share of postings at Apple that specify abachelor’s degree or above are down 18%, from
88% to 72%, while the share of postings at Googlethat specify a bachelor’s degree or above aredown 17%, from 93% to 77%.22

15

2017

2021

60

40

20

Software Developer/ Engineer

Network Engineer/ Architect

Database
Architect

Database
Administrator

Data Warehousing
Specialist

Computer Systems
Engineer / Architect

Computer Support
Specialist

Computer
Programmer

0
Business Intelligence
Architect / Developer

Share of postings requiring BA+ %80

FIGURE 6: Accenture: Degree reset in IT occupations
Notes: Bars show the vacancy-weighted share of BA+ postings in specific IT occupations at Accenture. Source:
Analysis of Emsi Burning Glass data, 2017 and 2021.

We do not see an equivalent change in job postings
for other big tech employers like Facebook, Intel,
or Microsoft -- all of which have announced some
reduction in their degree requirements. As reflected
in Figure 5, these firms have not materially reduced
the number of actual positions requiring degree. In
fact, Intel has seen a material increase in its relianceon degree-based hiring, with the percentage of IT
postings specifying a bachelor’s degree or above16

now up to 96% vs. 87% in 2017. This suggests
a lag between corporate rhetoric and practicalimplementation of skills-based hiring strategies.
There appears to be a significant opportunity formore companies in the technology sector to follow
through on implementing broad policy changes
that revise the requirements for specific positions,following in the footsteps of IBM and Accenture.

The Emerging Degree ResetAnalyzing How
Skill Requirements
Changeas Employers Drop Degree
Requirements
Prior research indicates that employers often
rely on bachelor’s degrees as proxies for otherskills that graduates are assumed to possess. As
employers strip out degree requirements, do theyfind other ways of signaling their demand forsuch skills? Analyzing how skill requirementschange as employers drop degree requirements
provides an opportunity for identifying more
concretely the perceived proxy value of degrees.
Our analysis of 33 million job postings between
2017 and 2019 shows that employers thatcut credential requirements also sought job

candidates with a wider and deeper set of skills
than were required previously: For occupations
traditionally reserved for degree holders, a reset
requires employers to be more articulate about
the skills they require for the job. When theacademic hurdle is lowered, other, more specifichurdles are raised. Figure 5 shows examples forskill demand changes in occupations that saw
degree resets between 2017 and 2019.
A pattern emerges from the change in emphasis
placed on specific skills: The biggest increases inrequirements are related to soft or social skills.
Conversely, in the past, employers appeared to
imply that those who have not earned a degree
possess inferior soft skills and a lesser ability todevelop them on the job than their counterparts
with degrees. Having eliminated a degree
requirement, many employers explicitly stipulatethat candidates should possess a range of
specific soft skills. That suggests that companies
previously associated having a degree with

FIGURE 7: Skill Percentage Point Changes in Degree Reset Occupations Between 2017 and 2019
Notes: The graphs show examples of skill changes in occupations that saw degree resets between 2017 and2019. Percentage point changes are shown.
Source: Analysis of data from Emsi Burning Glass.

Personal Financial Advisor

Insurance Sales Agent

Real Estate Agent Broker

Communication Skills

Insurance Underwriting

Leasing

Customer Contact

Purchasing

Organizational Skills

Computer Literacy

Communication Skills

Detail-Oriented

Planning

Sales Goals

Real Estate Experience

Investment Strategy

Self-Starter

Property Management

Wealth Management

Health-insurance Sales

Teamwork / Collaboration

Financial Services Industry

Multi-tasking

Computer Literacy

Multi-tasking

BudgetingMicrosoft Office

Scheduling

Appointment Setting

Yardi Software

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Excel

Written Communication

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10%

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

BA+ share change-9%

The Emerging Degree Reset

-33%

-24%

17

FIGURE 8: Human Skill Percentage Point Changes in Occupations Undergoing Degree Resets

Between 2017 and 2019
Notes: The graphs show examples of soft skill changes in occupations undergoing degree resets between 2017and 2019.
Source: Analysis of data from Emsi Burning Glass.

Career Counselor

Cargo Coordinator /Frieght Forwarder

Insurance Sales Agent

Medical Office /Practice Manager

Detail-Oriented

Organizational Skills

Communication Skills

Detail-Oriented

Physical Abilities

Detail-Oriented

Self-Starter

Multi-tasking

Communication Skills

Communication Skills

Multi-tasking

Teamwork / Collaboration

Research

Multi-tasking

SpanishSpanishOrganizational Skills

Problem Solving

Written Communication

Leadership

Multi-tasking

EnglishProblem Solving

Energetic

Troubleshooting

Written Communication

Verbal Communication

Positive Disposition

Problem Solving

Computer Literacy

Building Effective Relationships English

Computer Literacy

Physical Abilities

Bilingual

Organizational Skills

Time Management

Time Management

EnglishTroubleshooting

0% 5% 10% 15%

0% 2% 4% 6%

0% 2% 4% 6%

0% 2% 4% 6%

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

-30%

-40%

-33%

-11%

Personal Finance
AdvisorReal Estate Agent /BrokerSurveillance Officer /Investigator

Telemarketer

Communication Skills

Organizational Skills

Communication Skills

Communication Skills

Computer Literacy

Detail-Oriented

Critical Thinking

EnglishPlanning

Teamwork / Collaboration

Self-Starter

Telephone Skills

Multi-tasking

Computer Literacy

Oral Communication

Energetic

Writing

Written Communication

SpanishSpanishSelf-Starter

Problem Solving

Preparing Reports

Leadership

Written Communication

Positive Disposition

Written Communication

Positive Disposition

Problem Solving

Self-Starter

Building Effective Relationships Written Communication

Creativity

Time Management

Organizational Skills

Multi-tasking

Research

Multi-tasking

Meeting Deadlines

Problem Solving

8%0% 5% 10% 15%

0% 2% 4% 6%

0% 2% 4% 6%

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

BA+ share change

0%

-9%

18

4%

-24%

-12%

-47%

The Emerging Degree Resetsuperior social and soft skills, ranging from thosethat are more easily evaluated, such as written
and oral communications, to those less easily
defined, such as commitment, self-discipline, andthe ability to participate effectively in unfamiliargroups. This validates that degrees served inlarge part as a reassuring proxy for employers
in terms of the breadth, depth, and durability ofsocial skills they could expect from a graduate.23
This becomes more apparent when one isolateschanges in soft skills sought by employers
for occupations that historically required abachelor’s degree. For example, the degree
requirements for Insurance Sales Agents dropped
by 33% between 2017 and 2019. However, in thesame period the demand for communication
skills in this occupation increased by over 5
percentage points (Figure 6). This phenomenon
is not restricted to certain occupational groups
or industries. Job postings for Career Counselorsin the educational sector increased explicit
references to being detail-oriented by 10
percentage points between 2017 and 2019, while
the bachelor’s degree requirement fell by 30%.
The same pattern is also visible in careers ranging
from managerial positions (Medical Office/
Practice Manager), to finance (Personal Finance
Advisor), to sales (Real Estate Agent/Broker).
Replacing bachelor’s degree requirements withmore explicit skill mandates is an important stepin offering clear signals to workers and training
partners alike. By highlighting specific softskill requirements, employers make applicants
more aware of the importance of developing
such skills and of highlighting them in their job
applications. Skills providers will also be mademore aware of the necessity of incorporating soft
skills development in coursework in both general
education and CTE programs.

The Emerging Degree Reset

19

Potential Impact
The discernible, albeit hesitant, shift towardremoving degree requirements for middle-skill
jobs has potentially important implications for
major constituents in the labor market:
EMPLOYERS: Skills-based hiring can provide

a mechanism for companies to close importantskill gaps and compete in a tight labor market by
expanding the pool of candidates they consider.
In 2015, 63% of employers said it was difficult
to find suitable candidates for their middleskill job openings.24 Yet job posting data shows
employers were simultaneously ratcheting up
degree requirements for those very same middleskill positions. That artificially constrained thetalent pool on which they were drawing, making
it harder to fill vacant positions, fast. Researchhas demonstrated that degree holders in middleskilled positions have higher rates of voluntary
turnover and lower levels of engagement, whilecommanding a material wage premium eventhough their performance more often is notequal to or worse than the performance of theirexperienced, non-degree holding colleagues inthe same job.25 When viewed in its totality, thatis a poor tradeoff. Widening the aperture of therecruiting process to include more non-degree
holders can generate real economic returns for
employers by reducing the mean time to fillpositions and turnover with no major associatedreduction in productivity.
Accessing that talent pool will require
employers to change their hiring practices.26
Specifically, they should consider:• Say what you mean: The use of a bachelor’s

degree as a proxy for soft skills in middleskill work raises multiple issues, but oneof the less-appreciated problems is that itmeans employers are essentially speaking in

20

code. If employers value skills like written
and oral communication, collaboration,and creativity, they should come out andsay so. The example of Insurance Sales
Agents cited above is a case in point: Clearly,
employers favor candidates with superior
communications skills for this position.
To call that out specifically sends a moreaccurate signal to jobseekers and skills
providers alike about how they should
prepare for a career.
• Mean what you say: Job descriptions are

too often an afterthought for employers,
especially for middle-skill positions. Yet the
specific job requirements have a powerful
influence on who applies for jobs, how they
are screened, and whether the company’s
own policy goals get implemented.
Descriptions should be updated more oftenwith an eye toward eliminating dated or
secondary skills requirements. Skills thatare known to be paramount in contributing
to a worker’s success should be madeexplicit; secondary and tertiary skills should
be labeled as such or simply eliminated.
Recruiters should compose job descriptions
and, indeed, review the entire application
process through a user-experience (UX) lens:
How will this be understood by a job-seeker?

• Recalibrate filters used in initial applicant

screening: The vast majority of largeand medium-sized companies rely on
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to process
submissions and rank applicants in theinitial phase of the hiring process. Thosesystems rely on instructions provided by theemployer to filter out undesirable candidates
and rank the pool of applicants that remain.
Level of educational attainment is frequently
employed to filter and rank applicants, as
are attributes ranging from continuity of
The Emerging Degree Resetemployment (are there gaps of more thansix months in the work history?) to thepossession of specific hard skills or relevant
experiences. Expanding the talent pool will
require revisiting the relevance of such filters
and recalibrating them so as to eliminate
those that act to exclude qualified, nondegreed candidates for reasons other thaneducational attainment level.
• Consider incumbent workers: It has neverbeen more difficult to fill a company’s open
positions by relying on the “spot market“for labor. Employers too often fail to survey
their current workforce for experienced
workers with proven track records, but
who lack degrees. Opening pathways forincumbent workers to advance, regardless of
their degree status, allows employers to fill
an important position with the confidence
instilled by the contents of a personnel file,rather than the representations made in an
applicant’s resume and job application.

WORKERS: Skills-based hiring will create

opportunities for non-degree holders with
non-traditional backgrounds. Most employers
value soft skills like communication, teamwork,and organizational skills, as well as “hard“
technical skills like proficiency in Microsoft
Office or the ability to program in Python.
Workers need to be cognizant of the growing
importance to employers of soft skills andneed to emphasize their relevant experienceand aptitude in demonstrating these skills inpresenting their credentials. They will also
want to take advantage of the growing array of
online skills building opportunities to burnish
their credentials.27 The value of such badges
or alternative credentials will only grow as
initiatives like the Open Skills Network gain
momentum.

The Emerging Degree Reset

SKILLS PROVIDERS: Educators face two daunting

challenges. The pace of change in job requirements
is such that it is nearly impossible for many
institutions to keep pace. That is made apparent by
the recent actions of major technology providers,which have turned to creating and offering theirown curricula to educators, rather than waiting
for skills providers to close the gap. For example,
Google has launched career certificates in areas
such as Project Management and Data Analytics,
and treated them as the equivalent of a degree inthe recruiting process. Skills providers will needto innovate by partnering with leading employers,
introducing more hybrid and work-based learning
programs and developing platforms to share
curriculum with other institutions if they hope to
avoid falling further behind the state of the art injobs that are founded on digital technology.
They face a still greater challenge. Social skills are
increasingly required for good paying jobs at alllevels of the skills hierarchy, but skills providers
and the education system are not configured toteach them. Lesson plans in K through 12 aredesigned to teach the fundamental conceptsof specific topics, not social skills. Chemistry
instructors teach about chemical reactions, not thereactions of lab partners. English instructors teachthe rules of grammar, not the rules of etiquettein the workplace. Social skills are learned in K
through 12 by induction, not by design. Educatorsneed to consider how to introduce the acquisitionof soft skills to their curriculum by design and not
rely solely on socialization. Providers of teachingmaterials should develop innovative offerings
that respond to this need to blend learning subject
matter with developing the capacity to put thatknowledge to use.

21

Conclusion
Removing barriers that allow more aspiring workers to qualify for goodpaying jobs without investing four years in a degree is an essential stepin reducing inequity in the American labor market. Decreasing degree
requirements will open opportunities for a more diverse and inclusive
workforce, especially in the middle skills positions, which many
non-degree holders are well-qualified to occupy through experience.
Rethinking the use of blunt filters like degree attainment will also beessential to companies demonstrating meaningful improvement in theirlevels of diversity and inclusion. Only 26% of African Americans and
19% of Hispanics aged 25 and older hold bachelor’s or post-graduate
degrees, compared with 40% of non-Hispanic Caucasians and 58% of
Asian Americans according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Diversity in theworkforce should be a matter of skill, aptitude, and commitment, noteducational pedigree.
Our analysis shows that employers are slowly beginning to reevaluate
their hiring preferences. More employers need to set aside dated
assumptions and revisit their use of such blunt instruments to assess theworthiness of willing applicants from a shrinking labor force. That would
mark an important next step in helping the previously overlooked topursue attractive career pathways – even without a four-year degree.

22

The Emerging Degree ResetAppendix
APPENDIX TABLE 1: The ten biggest occupations experiencing significant structural reset,

divided into middle- and high-skill categories based on their BA+ shares

Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+ share
2017

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share
2019

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020

Number of
postings
2020

10 Biggest High-Skill Structural Degree Reset Occupations
Healthcare
Administrator

HealthCare
includingNursing-1.72%-1.02%

86.17%

132,872

84.69%

162,947

83.83%

161,841

Insurance
Sales Agent

Finance-32.98%-11.95%61.52%

121,51641.23%

164,74236.30%

219,140

Network/
Systems Administrator

Information Technology-2.83%-2.13%

82.20%

121,082

79.87%

128,070

78.17%

102,900

General Manager

Business
Management andOperations-4.29%-2.17%

79.45%

102,85876.04%

140,068

74.39%

131,365

Personal
Financial
AdvisorFinance-8.56%-8.06%

84.06%

75,98476.87%

68,80470.67%

55,586

Construction
Manager

Construction,
Extraction,
and Architecture-3.80%-3.43%

75.75%

71,51572.87%

128,51070.37%

129,720

Loan Officer

Finance-11.21%-16.90%58.90%

64,94252.29%

72,82843.46%

117,071

Office Manager

Clericaland Administrative-1.72%-7.90%

56.14%

63,45855.17%

91,73650.81%

75,470Computer
Programmer

Information Technology-4.88%-0.14%

82.9%

63,12478.86%

83,90478.75%

75,832Compensation/Benefits
AnalystHuman
Resources-2.39%-0.42%

88.73%

56,15186.60%

58,77286.24%

43,371The Emerging Degree Reset23

Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+ share
2017

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share
2019

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020

Number of
postings
2020

10 Biggest Middle-Skill Structural Degree Reset Occupations
Retail StoreManager/Supervisor

Sales-9.81%-15.47%26.31%

542,530

23.73%

682,705

20.06%

682,283

Real Estate
Agent /Broker

Sales-23.64%-22.53%43.35%

84,07633.1%

121,294

25.64%

145,403

Maintenance/
Service Supervisor

Maintenance,
Repair, andInstallation-14.39%-11.98%33.14%

77,29228.37%

119,388

24.97%

126,702

Preschool/
Childcare
Teacher

Education
and Training-12.01%-18.56%25.36%

72,41222.31%

149,438

18.17%

154,476

Production
Supervisor

Manufacturing and
Production-2.84%-9.75%

37.62%

59,69236.55%

74,72832.99%

77,690

Coach

Education
and Training-20.77%-2.63%

41.19%

51,24732.64%

97,35831.78%

88,597

Sales Supervisor

Sales-3.19%-6.76%

39.86%

49,86738.59%

64,86535.98%

55,191

Property/
Real Estate/Community
ManagerBusiness
Management andOperations-16.41%-10.24%49.58%

41,11841.44%

87,84637.20%

102,156

Bill andAccount Collector

Clericaland Administrative-3.79%-16.64%25.89%

34,21924.91%

46,49820.76%

47,051

Human
Resources
Assistant

Human
Resources-5.16%-5.19%

32.98%

25,52431.28%

34,44729.66%

29,473

Source: Emsi Burning Glass Data. Occupations are sorted by the number of postings in 2017.

24

The Emerging Degree ResetAPPENDIX TABLE 2: The biggest occupations experiencing significant cyclical reset, divided into

middle- and high-skill categories based on their BA+ shares

Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+ share
2017

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share
2019

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020

Number of
postings
2020

10 Biggest High-Skill Cyclical Degree Reset Occupations
Sales RepresentativeSales+14.17%-10.57%45.05%

590,557

51.43%

854,87146.00%

766,935

Recruiter

Human
Resources+4.45%-8.11%

65.63%

120,745

68.54%

164,674

62.98%

119,639

Software QA
Engineer/
TesterInformation Technology+0.46%-2.40%

88.65%

99,33089.06%

137,943

86.92%

110,389

Human Resources/ Labor Relations
Specialist

Human
Resources+3.87%-1.82%

68.88%

89,14471.55%

120,766

70.24%

103,733

Database
Administrator

Information Technology+7.48%-1.50%

76.82%

104,179

82.57%

117,932

81.33%

94,834

Clinical CaseManager

HealthCare
includingNursing+23.85%-6.19%

44.47%

86,78755.08%

117,52151.67%

116,039

Nursing
Manager/Supervisor

HealthCare
includingNursing+12.15%-2.31%

48.41%

105,11954.29%

100,56453.04%

102,637

Executive
Assistant

Clericaland Administrative+3.22%-4.01%

53.12%

57,55754.83%

83,66352.63%

59,570

Customer
Service
Manager

Customerand Client
Support+19.47%-10.87%56.16%

28,58367.10%

46,18559.80%

41,450Banking
BranchManager

Finance+5.81%-8.72%

51.56%

41,48854.56%

42,24449.80%

34,710The Emerging Degree Reset25

Occupation

CareerFamilyChange2017 –
2019 (%)

Change2019 –
2020 (%)

BA+ share
2017

Number of
postings
2017

BA+ share
2019

Number of
postings
2019

BA+
share
2020

Number of
postings
2020

10 Biggest Middle-Skill Cyclical Degree Reset Occupations
Registered
Nurse

HealthCare
includingNursing+16.74%-15.11%32.85%

1,314,799

38.34%

1,070,791

32.55%

1,330,373

Bookkeeper/
Accounting
Clerk

Finance+1.30%-6.85%

42.58%

245,618

43.13%

301,81240.18%

270,446

ComputerSupportSpecialist

Information Technology+0.65%-3.64%

44.42%

182,80144.71%

231,30343.08%

198,189

Intensive/
Critical Care
Nurse

Health Care
includingNursing+45.46%-33.51%24.18%

244,00735.18%

168,70723.39%

263,206

Sales AssistantSales+16.23%-5.69%

29.32%

36,85334.08%

42,38132.14%

33,312

Billing Clerk/
Specialist

Clerical and
Administrative+4.91%-13.78%32.29%

32,41433.87%

42,27029.20%

36,847

Construction
ForemanConstruction,
Extraction,
and Architecture+0.76%-17.07%39.31%

21,48539.61%

36,09332.85%

41,682

Interpreter/
Translator

Design,Media, andWriting+31.28%-12.86%29.07%

29,52638.17%

26,00633.26%

26,184

Insurance
Claims/Policy
Clerk

Finance+27.89%-15.92%28.48%

16,93036.42%

21,02730.63%

17,961

Residential
Assistant/
AdvisorCommunity
and Social
Services+2.96%-14.16%25.84%

16,03326.60%

20,93222.84

25,564

Source: Emsi Burning Glass Data. Occupations are sorted by the number of postings in 2017.

26

The Emerging Degree ResetAuthors

JOSEPH B. FULLER is a Professor ofManagement Practice at Harvard Business
School, where he co-chairs the school’s project,
Managing the Future of Work and Harvard
University’s Project on the Workforce

CHRISTINA L ANGER is a Visiting Research

Fellow at the Project on Workforce at Harvard,
PhD candidate at the Catholic University ofEichstaett-Ingolstadt, and Guest Researcher at
the ifo institute in Munich

JULIA NITSCHKE is a Senior Research Analyst

at Emsi Burning GlassL AYL A O’KANE is a Research Manager at Emsi

Burning Glass

MAT T SIGELMAN is President of The Burning

Glass Institute, Chairman of Emsi Burning
Glass, and a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard
Kennedy School

BLEDI TASKA is Executive Vice President andChief Economist at Emsi Burning GlassThe Emerging Degree Reset27

Endnotes
1

See Fuller, J., Raman, M., et al. (October 2017). Dismissed By Degrees.

Published by Accenture, Grads of Life, Harvard Business School and Peter Q. Blair, Tomas G.
Castagnino, et. al., Searching for STARs: Work Experience as a Market Signal for Workers Without
Bachelor’s Degrees, National Bureau of Economics Working Paper #26884
2
New data from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/educationalattainment.html.
3
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm (total working age population, Nov 2021,
seasonally adjusted, without a college degree)4
See Fuller, J., Raman, M., et al. (October 2017). Dismissed By Degrees.
Published by Accenture, Grads of Life, Harvard Business School and Peter Q. Blair, Tomas G.
Castagnino, et. al., Searching for STARs: Work Experience as a Market Signal for Workers Without
Bachelor’s Degrees, National Bureau of Economics Working Paper #26884
5
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-modernizingreforming-assessment-hiring-federal-job-candidates/ and https://www.whitehouse.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/Limiting-Use-of-Educational-Requirements-in-Federal-Service-Contracts.
pdf
6
Fuller, J., Raman, M., Sage-Gavin, E., Hines, K., et al (September 2021). Hidden Workers:
Untapped Talent. Published by Harvard Business School Project on Managing the Future of Work andAccenture.
7

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/bachelors-degree-attainment.html

8
See Forsythe, Eliza, Lisa B. Kahn, Fabian Lange, and David G. Wiczer. Searching, recalls, andtightness: An interim report on the covid labor market. No. w28083. National Bureau of Economic
Research, 2020.
Hershbein, Brad, and Lisa B. Kahn. “Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change?
Evidence from Vacancy Postings.” The American Economic Review 108, no. 7 (2018): 1737.
Wardrip, Keith, Stuart T. Andreason, and Mels De Zeeuw. “Uneven Opportunity: Exploring
Employers’ Educational. Preferences for Middle-Skills Jobs.” Special Report of the Federal Reserve
Banks of Philadelphia, and Atlanta (2017).
Modestino et al. 2020. “Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skills When Workers Are
Plentiful?”.
Modestino, A., Shoag, D., and Ballance, J. 2016. “Downskilling: Changes in Employer Skill
Requirements Over the Business Cycle.” Labour Economics, (41): 333-347,
Auguste, Shad Ahmed, Fernando Garcia Diaz, and Cristian Bonavida, Searching for Stars:
Work Experience as a Job Market Signal for Workers without Bachelor’s Degrees, National Bureau of
Economic Research Working Paper, http://www.nber.org/papers/w26844.
9

We define low-skill jobs as those with a BA+ share below 25%, middle-skill as those between

25% and 50%, and high-skill as those above 50%. The focus of our analysis lies on occupations withan average BA+ share between 25% and 90% in 2017.
10
We define material downcredentialing as a reduction in the BA+ share of over 5% in middleand high-skill occupations.
11
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm (total working age population, Nov 2021,
seasonally adjusted, without a college degree).
12
We used the Burning Glass Occupation taxonomy, which contains 679 distinct occupations.
411 of them were considered middle- or high-skill.
13
Modestino et al. (2020) – Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skills When Workers Are
Plentiful?
14

Sub-BA jobs have a BA+-share below 50%, BA+ jobs have a BA+-share equal to or above 50%.

15Structural occupations experience a decrease in degree requirements between 2017 and 2019.
If this trend continues between 2019 and 2020, we also refer to those occupations as structural. By
contrast, cyclical refers to a decrease only during the pandemic period between 2019 and 2020, not theearlier years.
16

https://www.conference-board.org/pdfdownload.cfm?masterProductID=38217.

17

In total, structural occupations account for 15.6% of postings in 2017 and 16.5% in 2019.

18
Fuller, J., Raman, M., et al. (October 2017). Dismissed By Degrees. Published by Accenture,
Grads of Life, Harvard Business School.
19

Ibid, p. 8.

20

As of June 2021, we could detect no rebound in bachelor’s degree requirements in occupations
affected by cyclical reset.
21
https://www.ibm.com/policy/education-skills/.
22
It should be noted that some employers, most notably Google, have launched certificate programs in a number of technical areas. They treat completion of those programs, which they offer toskills providers free of charge, as the equivalent of a college degree for hiring purposes. See https://grow.
google/certificates-edu/.
Fuller, J., Raman, M., et al. (October 2017). Dismissed By Degrees. Published by Accenture,
Grads of Life, Harvard Business School.

23
24

Ibid, p. 14

25

Ibid, p. 20-23.

26
Fuller, J., Raman, M., Sage-Gavin, E., Hines, K., et al (September 2021). Hidden Workers:
Untapped Talent. Published by Harvard Business School Project on Managing the Future of Work andAccenture.
27
Deming, D.The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market, The Quarterly
Journal of Economics (2017), 1593–1640. doi:10.1093/qje/qjx022.

Situated at the intersection of learning and work, the Burning Glass Institute advances data-driven
research and practice on the future of work and of workers. We work with educators, employers,and policymakers to develop solutions that build mobility, opportunity, and equity through skills.

burningglassinstitute.org