Applicants without a four year bachelor’s degree previously need not apply to jobs in tech, so low were their chances of being hired. Today, however, leading tech companies such as IBM recruit based on skills, rather than credentials, for what they have termed “new collar” jobs.
This change likely stems from the fact that tech job openings currently outpace tech job applicants. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are approximately 500,000 open jobs in tech-related fields.
IBM plans to hire 6,000 employees in 2017, and as CEO Ginni Rometty explains, “we are hiring because the nature of work is evolving — and that is also why so many of these jobs remain hard to fill. As industries from manufacturing to agriculture are reshaped by data science and cloud computing, jobs are being created that demand new skills — which in turn requires new approaches to education, training and recruiting.”
Interestingly, as many as 1 in 3 IBM employees in locations across the country do not have a four-year degree. What matters more is that they possess the requisite vocational training to perform their tech-sector job.
As the number of jobs in the technology sector boom, leading tech companies are actively recruiting employees who have taken non-traditional educational avenues, such as coding programs and high school apprenticeship partnerships.
In other words, employee skills matter more in “new collar” jobs than level of educational attainment — a fact that is reshaping the traditional narrative that a four-year degree is the key to a successful future.
In addition to its recruiting practices, IBM is also reshaping higher education to better fit the needs of a constantly evolving 21st century global workplace.
Rather than waiting for higher education to change on its own, IBM designed a new educational model to fit its job needs. P-TECH, or Pathways in Technology Early College High School, is a six-year public high school in Brooklyn that combines a traditional curriculum with technology skills from community colleges, mentoring partnerships, and real-world apprenticeships.
Other companies are beginning to embrace the model as well, and Rometty claims there will soon be 100 schools of this kind.
Employers are beginning to demand something different than the traditional four year degree — rather than waiting for higher education to change from the bottom up, corporations are reshaping it from the top down. In a future when jobs could be threatened by the rise of artificial intelligence, education may evolve to be more skill-specific rather than credential-granting.
Kate Hardiman is pursuing a Masters in Education from Notre Dame and teaches English and Religion at a high school in Chicago.
