August 2, 2022
"Degree Stigma" consists of requiring degrees and not focusing on candidates' skills or experience. Many employers demonstrate reluctance to relax traditional degree requirements, potentially due to their uncertainty on how to measure the value of alternative credentials.
The 2022 Employability Report Part 2 by Cengage Group found that 65% of employers are struggling to find talent. At the same time, 62% of employers looked at required degrees for entry-level jobs even though 43% of employers admit that skills and training are more important than degrees for potential candidates. As a part of the study, 26% of employer respondents said that degrees were required for entry level positions, either to filter the candidate pool or because that is the way it has always been done.
Cengage Group CEO Michael Hansen was quoted on njbia.com saying, ""Employers seem to be stuck in a contradictory cycle, where they recognize that a degree is not an indicator of job readiness, but nonetheless require them as part of their candidate screening process . . . This outdated mindset and degree stigma is not only widening the labor gap, it's costing businesses time and money and turning away potential talent."
Click here to access the study, and click here to read more on this story.
