How a Governor’s Law Could Improve Recruiting and Retention

On his first day in office, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania signed into law that 92% of state jobs will no longer require a college degree. While that sentence sounds sweeping, most jobs did not historically require a degree so the number of impacted jobs is few. But more impactful is this outcome:

The immediate change in Mr. Shapiro’s order, then, is a requirement that state agencies lead new job postings with questions about prior work experiences and qualifications, instead of questions about educational attainment that can discourage applicants. The administration will also review all jobs that, by law, require four-year degrees, to see whether it’s practical to relax some of those entry thresholds.[i]

Job Requirements vs Job Capable

This is a smart political move as about 70% of Pennsylvania residents do not have college degrees. But more importantly, it surfaces a major question for all employers within Pennsylvania and beyond. How many aggregated jobs do U.S. employers say require a college degree when the actual job requirements do not? How many of these degree-required jobs include a high percentage of redundant activities that can be taught to someone who didn’t attend four additional years of classes?

The answer is a whole bunch, maybe millions. The implementation problem, though, is more about how does a recruiter advertise for these jobs and then screen applicants if they cannot screen out applicants who don’t have the required degree? Imagine sifting through hundreds of Indeed-sourced applicants trying to determine who has the requisite “critical thinking skills” or some other very generic job requirement.

But then during these “The Great Resignation” times, how many postings actually result in hundreds of candidates applying for any one job?

You Can Cut Turnover by 20% or More, Even During The Great Resignation

Schedule a conversation with me at DFinnegan@C-SuiteAnalytics.com to discuss your employee retention roadblocks and I’ll share ideas for how you can move forward and what is working for other companies to cut turnover by 20% and more, even during The Great Resignation that may benefit you.

The Pennsylvania Recruiting and Retention Plan

Implementing the “Pennsylvania plan” requires recruiters to develop careful language and screening processes to match candidates with real job qualifications, but the result will improve both recruiting and retention.

Imagine a non-degreed job-seeker who sees herself as stuck in a series of dead-end, low-paying jobs because she couldn’t pay for college. Or had to take care of a family member rather than spend four years on a picturesque campus teaching yoga on the side. How likely is it that a new employee who fits that description would return to Indeed soon after hire? That they would leave a job they never imagined they could get?

Every once in a while, politicians generate laws that positively impact private sector employment that initially create but a ripple of news. One other example was Obama’s 2014 tinkering with the overtime law whereby millions more of Americans became eligible for overtime pay.[ii]

There is a pearl in this oyster that will significantly cut your turnover. One of our pharmaceutical clients advertised their entry-level jobs as “chemists”, and chemists were required to mix and process the same chemicals over and over, every day, working in tight quarters with the same colleague. Every day. And worse this company had no next-step career plan for chemists. The result was chemists were easy to screen in with their bachelors’ degrees in chemistry…but also easy to lose because chemists got bored.

Reducing Degree Requirements Helps Recruiting and Retention Efforts

There are major indications that workforce shortages will continue indefinitely, recession or no recession. The pandemic cost us millions of traditional, corporate-bound workers due to early retirements and the massive increase in entrepreneurs, all while our native American birthrate has been falling for over 60 years. We just simply do not have enough workers to fill our current level of 10.5 million jobs, and there will be winner and loser companies as a result. Each of us sees this every day in the declining levels of customer service, everywhere.

Or said another way, U.S. companies need all they help they can get, all of the creative ideas they can scurry up in order to find and keep good workers. Reducing degree requirements might be one of those ideas for you.

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[i] https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2023/01/18/josh-shapiro-college-degree-requirement-jobs-workforce/stories/202301180096