What Makes an Ideal Candidate? Is Education Everything?

In today’s job market, employers are overwhelmed with applications. The average small business receives 69 applications for one hire. Larger companies can easily get hundreds of applicants for a single job posting. Because of all the competition, the ideal candidate must stand out with exceptional (and often irrelevant) experience.

Because there are so many, hiring managers must look for ways to reduce the time it takes to review all these applications. Sometimes, employers may add non-essential but desirable qualifications to a job posting to receive fewer and higher quality applications. These criteria often include educational requirements in a specific field.

Unfortunately, this method doesn’t always lead to hiring the ideal candidate. Worse yet, non-essential educational requirements may discriminate against the millions of Americans who don’t have these credentials but would otherwise be fit for the job. For these reasons, many government and private sector employers are removing educational requirements.

The State of Education

Companies like IBM are removing educational requirements simply because not everyone has them. In general, more people are getting postsecondary education. But many obstacles continue to get in the way of people—especially equity deserving groups—receiving formal education. There are many reasons a person can’t get the education needed to meet the criteria of some job postings, including moving costs and caretaking obligations.

An Alternative Approach to Finding the Ideal Candidate

Opportunity@Work defines qualified, non-degree workers as STARs. STAR stands for skilled through alternative routes. The idea is to recognize qualified candidates regardless of their educational background. Last March, Maryland removed degree requirements for thousands of government jobs. According to the governor, half of the jobs for the state of Maryland could be performed by qualified people who don’t hold four-year degrees.

Other states have adopted this approach, too. Private sector employers are also pivoting their recruitment criteria. Those with paid Recruiter licenses on LinkedIn are five times more likely to search for candidates by skills than by degree. On top of this, an increasing amount of job postings on LinkedIn do not require a degree.

By favoring knowledge, skills, and abilities over traditional educational requirements, employers give more candidates an opportunity to prove their talent in the recruitment process. Though the hiring managers may spend more time reviewing résumés, they will often hire a higher-quality candidate. In some cases, these hired candidates may have originally been eliminated from the running because of a lack of education.

Assessing the Ideal Candidate

How do you know someone is a good fit if they don’t have academic credentials? We recommend the STAR method of interviewing (not to be confused with STARs, workers who are skilled through alternative routes).

By using the STAR method, hiring managers are more likely to hire based on observable behaviors and predictors of success in the role. On the other hand, education often does little to predict how well someone will perform on the job.

Do Job Descriptions Need Educational Requirements?

Not having a formal degree doesn’t mean someone isn’t the ideal candidate. There are some professions where educational requirements will continue to exist. Few patients would be thrilled to have a doctor without a MDPhD. But many jobs don’t need these specific requirements. Financial services; accommodation and food services; and technology, information, and media are among the industries that are posting jobs without degrees more than those with educational requirements.

Not all job descriptions require educational requirements. What makes an effective job description is the plain communication of essential, bona fide occupational qualifications. Where an ideal candidate receives these qualifications isn’t as important as their ability to demonstrate them effectively. That’s why many organizations are turning to competency-based hiring to recruit candidates who have the right mix of knowledge, skills, motivations, and abilities required for success in the job.

Promoting Skills and Competencies Over Degrees

This focus on capabilities over education leads to new talent management strategies, too. Organizations should invest in apprenticeships or partnerships with community colleges to develop the skills and competencies that are the most critical to business needs.

To start developing talent, leaders should help employees assess their current performance level and identify gaps. Multi-level competencies are highly valued for their ability to define success in objective and measurable terms. Competency-based management programs use behavioral indicators to precisely measure employee progress. To get started, download our free sample pack of core competencies, including behavioral indicators.

The Evidence-Based Approach

HRSG has been helping organizations develop and build successful competency programs for over 30 years. Our methods are based on the principle that competencies should be in the hands of every employee. When it comes to hiring, competencies paint a holistic picture of all the candidate is capable of. In some cases, the ideal candidate may not have a formal education, but they do have the competencies identified for success. Develop job descriptions and job posts using expert-backed competencies to find your own ideal candidate with Quinto.