Credential fluency emerges as key hiring edge in skills-first era

“The biggest barrier today isn’t talent. It’s translation,” said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, in a statement.  

“Many companies have made commitments to skills-based hiring, but their systems aren’t able to recognise signals of work readiness other than degrees. However, our research has identified a set of employers making real progress. These firms are turning to a broader array of credentials and are building the infrastructure to identify and verify these signals, train talent acquisition teams, and hire with consistency.”  

According to the report, employers in the top 10% for hiring workers with non-degree credentials bring in such candidates 11 percentage points more often than firms in the bottom 10% when hiring for the same kinds of jobs.  

Those leading companies, the researchers say, are also seeing faster hiring, stronger early performance, and improved retention when they rely on validated credentials as part of their skills-first models.  

The research further finds that non-degree credentials only support skills-based decisions when employers can distinguish those that reliably measure job-relevant skills from those that do not.