A degree requirement is the simplest filter to configure in an applicant tracking system (ATS). One required field, one knockout question, or one line in a job description template, and every resume without a matching credential leaves the queue before a person reads it. The rule feels neutral and objective. The research suggests it often stands in for something the employer cares about more, such as skills, reliability, or the ability to learn.

What the Hidden Workers Research Says About Degrees

Harvard Business School and Accenture published Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent in September 2021. The authors describe how screening systems lean on shortcuts: "For example, most use proxies (such as a college degree or possession of precisely described skills) for attributes such as skills, work ethic, and self-efficacy." They then describe what happens to people who lack the shortcut: "Applicants with the work or life experiences to do a job but lacking the proxy on which the employer is relying, such as a college degree or an unbroken, continuous history of employment, are excluded from consideration."

The report also points back to the authors' earlier work, Dismissed by Degrees (2017), which found that "employers were inflicting a skills shortage on themselves by adding a four-year college degree requirement to middle-skills occupations," including positions already held by people who did not have a college degree. For the wider survey findings behind these quotes, see our overview of how ATS filtering produces hidden workers.

Dropping the Requirement on Paper Is Not the Same as Hiring Differently

Many employers responded by announcing that degrees were no longer required. The Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School tested whether hiring followed. Their February 2024 report opens with this finding: "Many companies have announced dropping degree requirements, but sustained hiring changes remain elusive for most."

The numbers explain why. The report found that the share of workers without a bachelor's degree hired into affected roles rose about 3.5 percentage points on average, but that shift applied only to the 3.6 percent of roles that dropped a requirement during the period studied. The authors put the net result this way: "the net effect is a change of only 0.14 percentage points in incremental hiring of candidates without degrees." That translated to new opportunity for roughly 97,000 workers a year out of 77 million yearly hires, which the authors describe as "not even 1 in 700 hires last year."

The report also sorted firms by what happened after they changed their postings. One group stands out: "In Name Only: Approximately 45% of firms seem to make a change in name only, with no meaningful difference in actual hiring behavior following their removal of stated requirements from their postings." The authors conclude that "successful adoption of Skills-Based Hiring involves more than simply stripping language from job postings."

The study did not examine how each firm configured its software, so the explanation for any single employer is open. It does point to a place worth checking. A posting can say a degree is optional while an ATS template, a knockout question, or a recruiter's saved search still sorts by it.

What the Same Report Found on Retention and Pay

The 2024 report also looked at what happened after employers did change how they hire. At the firms it classed as Skills-Based Hiring Leaders, "non-degreed workers have a retention rate 10 percentage points higher than their degree-holder colleagues." The authors also report that "non-degreed workers hired into roles that previously required degrees experience a 25 percent salary increase on average."

These are averages for a defined group of firms in a February 2024 analysis. They do not show that any individual hire will stay or succeed, and they do not argue for dropping every degree requirement. Some roles legally require a license or a degree. The finding is narrower: where the degree is a proxy and not a requirement of the work, the filter can remove people who stay at higher rates once hired.

Where Degree Filters Hide in an ATS

Hidden Workers reports that 72% of employers surveyed in 2021 used an existing job posting, or a slightly modified one, when creating a new posting for middle-skills workers. That habit carries old requirements forward. The authors compare the result to "the rings on a tree trunk," with new requirements added to those accumulated over time. Four places to look:

A Review You Can Run This Month

List every open role that requires a degree. Include the posting, the template behind it, and any knockout or ranking rule that references education.

Ask what the degree stands in for. For each role, write down the skill, knowledge, or behavior the degree is meant to signal. If the answer is a skill, the posting can ask for the skill.

Replace the proxy with a skill statement. The Hidden Workers authors recommend filters that seek skills and experience directly, with examples such as multiple experiences working in team settings. Our post on skills-based hiring without lowering the bar covers how to do this without loosening standards.

Remove the rule from the software, not only the posting. Confirm the knockout, ranking, and search filters match the new posting.

Compare outcomes. Track how many applicants without degrees reached interview and offer before and after the change. The 2024 report suggests that without this check, a policy change can leave hiring unchanged.

How TrueScan HR Helps

TrueScan HR scores a resume against the job description and shows the matched and missing skills behind each score, so a reviewer can judge a candidate on demonstrated skills instead of a single credential. A narrative assessment explains each score in plain language. Veteran Mode translates military codes, duties, and clearances into civilian skills, which helps when relevant experience was gained outside a classroom. The reviewer makes the decision.

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