Companies Are Trading Degree and Experience Requirements for a Brilliant Alternative

The secret to hiring the best fit, without the confines of traditional must-haves.

There was a time when employers were under fire to extinguish the requirement of bachelor’s degrees from job descriptions. Of course, it was a time after I had already borrowed nearly six figures for a four-year degree that I thought would be my ticket to success. The one that opened the door to my first foray into corporate America with a position that required a bachelor’s degree on paper and middle school-level math in practice. 

While the four-year degree requirement debate might seemingly be behind us, alongside cargo pants and corded phones, as nearly half of all companies say they plan to eliminate the bachelor’s degree requirement, businesses are now looking at a new strategy for hiring the best people: 

Remove experience requirements. 

In the same way Elon Musk uses the “2-hands test” instead of degrees to find top talent, employers that are cutting experience requirements could stand to reduce barriers and provide more opportunities to find the right candidate on the basis of their capabilities and potential as opposed to their previous tenure. But it can create room for failure, leading employers to hire candidates who aren’t equipped for the position — and it can cost businesses money and their team’s sanity. 

Yet, even with lengthy direct experience requirements, many employers still struggle to find the right fit, because they’re asking the wrong questions. But savvy employers have discovered a far more effective alternative: 

Instead of requiring a specific number of years of experience or a college degree, require practical experience. 

To find that person without restricting anyone to a set of rigid parameters, employers should instead seek candidates with the skills and aptitude to do the job at hand without an exhaustive amount of training — and draining your team’s energy in the process. 

Look beyond job titles and dive into duties and responsibilities

It may not matter how much time someone has sat in a role as much as it matters what they actually did in that role. There’s a tendency to assume that certain positions have universal duties and responsibilities, yet in reality these can vary greatly from employer to employer.  

For example, the office manager at one firm might handle everything from processing payroll, hiring new staff, and keeping the books to ordering supplies and making sure the bathrooms are clean and the groundskeepers are paid. Meanwhile, an office manager at another comparable firm might have a full-time bookkeeper and an assistant who is responsible for managing all service providers for the office. 

The reality is that while a job title might be the same from company to company, what the role actually entails likely differs. By centering interview questions on a candidate’s experience with the key aspects of your open role you can more effectively find the right fit who is most likely to hit the ground running. Of course, to do this without doubling the interview time, you’ll need to skip the generic interview questions. 

Skip the lofty interview questions that yield little practical information 

Interviews often consist of well-meaning interviewers asking generic and common interview questions, such as, “Name a time when you faced a challenge and explain how you overcame it,” or perhaps, “What achievement are you most proud of?” Or some variation along those lines. 

For half of the candidates, the answer says little to nothing about their skills, knowledge, or qualifications. It simply shows how quickly they can come up with a coherent answer that they feel will impress the interviewer. It also fails to say much about a candidate’s capabilities beyond their ability to think up a story on their toes. 

For example, the candidate who shares how they whipped a team into shape (not literally, we hope) doesn’t say much if you don’t know just how dire, unmotivated, or resistant the team was. 

The candidate who claims to be the sales rep with the highest commission three years in a row might sound impressive at first blush. But what they fail to mention is that many of their customers felt swindled after they were sold big promises that were never delivered. Perhaps they’re the reason for the company’s pile of poor reviews and deteriorating reputation. But, hey, they can sell circles around all of your other candidates. 

So instead of asking generic or lofty questions that yield little insights into a candidate’s ability to perform your open role, focus on questions that center on the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the role. The key to doing this is that interviewers need to more clearly understand the day-to-day responsibilities of the position they are hiring for — not just a list of skills necessary to do the job. 

Dig into what you really need and seek to discover candidates who have the skills, knowledge, and traits that will lead to success in the role and within your organization. Finding the right candidate isn’t easy, and it will take more work to uncover true potential than simply requiring a set number of years of experience. But if you do it right, it will give you a leg up on discovering the best staff who haven’t just done the job but are great for the job. 

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