Degrees still matter for career advancement

For much of the last decade, skills-based hiring became a serious threat to degrees for jobs, with major companies from Google to IBM proudly dropping degree requirements.

After watching this transformation unfold across hundreds of organizations, it's become clear the pendulum swung too far. 

And for a not-so-obvious reason: Skills-based hiring has created an unintended two-tiered workforce where skilled workers without degrees hit invisible ceilings. Research shows that despite removing degree requirements, employers are still hiring the same people they were before for leadership roles, according to Harvard Business School.

Consider someone moving from a specialized technical role to general management. They've learned the technical platform, but what about finance skills, or even basic people skills? Without knowledge of organizational development or business, how many things can they realistically get upskilled on to become a great manager? 

Leadership roles require foundational knowledge that extends far beyond technical competence such as communication skills, strategic thinking, budget management and navigating complex organizational dynamics.

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Despite publicly embracing skills-based hiring, many companies continue spending millions on degree programs through tuition reimbursement. This reveals a hidden truth: Organizational policies support degrees centrally, while skills-based hiring gets decentralized to individual managers. 

It's understandable how we got to this point. For many years employers engaged in a form of "degree inflation," requiring bachelor's degrees for jobs that had never needed them before. Then with COVID came the Great Correction: Skills-based hiring became the rallying cry. 

Today, 85% of employers claim to use skills-based hiring, according to TestGorilla's latest annual report. Yet only 32% of these same employers believe degrees are less important now than five years ago — meaning more than half really haven't made up their minds.

This reflects a serious misunderstanding of how skills and knowledge work together.

The medical field illustrates this perfectly. You can't skip med school and all the coursework in anatomy, physiology and chemistry and just get upskilled in arthroscopic surgery. Compare this to IT, where upskilling makes perfect sense because technology changes rapidly. But even in tech, foundational knowledge matters for advancement.

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The AI factor changes everything

Artificial intelligence is reshaping this debate in unexpected ways. Rather than making degrees obsolete, AI highlights why foundational knowledge matters more than ever. AI can handle functional work, but what's missing are things like empathy, understanding, and grace, which are qualities learned in comprehensive educational environments.

AI won't teach someone how to read a room and zero in on the employee that needs a pep talk because they are struggling with imposter syndrome. Yes, that is a very specific scenario, but those are the types of things that happen across every organization every day. AI tools can get you part way there (prepping you on how to have the conversation, providing tips on talking points, etc.), but the experiential part of this work remains something different. 

Experience vs. training

This brings us to the most misunderstood aspect of this debate: soft skills development. These aren't learned; they're experienced. Degree programs excel here because they're more well-rounded and comprehensive.

When I send a memo to my team, I'm referencing stories from history books or political science courses. Making something relatable to broad groups of people with diverse skills and backgrounds comes through understanding multiple viewpoints, not just zeroing in on a particular skill.

Rather than choosing sides, smart companies start with what problem they're trying to solve.

If technical skills are needed — manufacturing, IT — the answer is probably skills over degrees. If the worry is about succession planning and leadership capability, it's different. Is it realistic to upskill someone with no foundational knowledge in marketing, management and finance? That's a lot to take on.

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The solution isn't either-or thinking. It's doing both — with intentionality. 

This requires moving beyond resume screening to competency-based assessment. 

Social and economic forces will continue creating oscillation, but smart organizations must rise above the noise. Don't think about best practice. Think about smart practice. After all, companies don't have identical problems.

The truth is credentials will only get an employee so far. Employers need to be more transparent about career progression and what it takes to get to the top. One of management's hardest conversations is when someone doesn't get promoted and asks why. We must have good answers — not arbitrary requirements — about the foundational soft skills needed for advancement, like communication, collaboration, critical thinking and presence. 

American workers deserve better than a false choice between skills and education. They deserve hiring systems that recognize talent wherever it's developed, combined with honest conversations about the requirements for advancement.