It’s time to ‘tear the paper ceiling’ and rethink degree requirements

It wasn’t so long ago that employers routinely required a bachelor’s degree for a wide range of positions, even if a four-year degree had little to do with getting the job done. When employers began posting open positions online—visible to the masses—they often found themselves inundated with applications. Sheer volume made the already difficult task of sifting through candidate credentials even more unwieldy.

Requiring bachelor’s degrees for most positions, even for positions that didn’t really require them became a quick way to narrow the field. Then, along came the labor shortage, and many employers began taking another look at what they were requiring. And now, the voices calling for employers to shed degree requirements, or “tear the paper ceiling,” are getting louder.

Employers launching a reset

Companies are changing degree requirements for a variety of reasons. Some are finding that certificate programs, bootcamps, and on-the-job experience produce employees as good or better than four-year college programs. Google, Bank of America, IBM, and Accenture are among the major employers that have removed degree requirements from some of their jobs.

A February 2022 report in the Harvard Business Review points out that the early 2000s saw employers adding four-year degree requirements to job descriptions that once didn’t include them.