You can also access this resource, and many others, in Issue 368 of my Talent Edge Weekly newsletter.
As more organizations claim that they are adopting skills-based talent practices, a common challenge is showing whether those practices are making a difference in the outcomes that matter most. This new 21-page toolkit, written for state governments but relevant to any employer, prioritizes nine metrics for measuring skills-based practices and outlines the data fields, calculation steps, and common data issues for each one. While the toolkit includes many useful insights, the one I want to focus on relates to academic degree requirements in job postings, since removing unnecessary ones is a common step toward skills-based hiring. The toolkit includes two separate measures here. The first is the share of postings that do not require a degree, which helps confirm whether a policy change has reached the job language candidates see. The second is the share of postings that offer multiple ways to signal competency, such as certifications, apprenticeships, assessment results, and military or other equivalent experience. This one matters because it shows whether jobs are becoming more skills-based, not just less degree-based, which are two separate things. As a bonus, here is my one-pager with nine questions to help evaluate whether an academic degree is essential in the first place for a given role.
