Indeed launched Skill Connect May 22, a product that aims to help job seekers better promote their skills and training certifications to potential employers.
Skill Connect can also help job seekers without college degrees gain skills through job training programs offered by Indeed partners, including Per Scholas, Year Up, and Austin Community College. Once the training is complete, Skill Connect guides them through a custom resume process, which pre-populates suggested skills and certifications.
“Promoting skills-based hiring is deeply connected to Indeed’s mission of helping people get jobs,” Abbey Carlton, vice president of social impact at Indeed, said in a statement. “Hiring based on skills rather than academic credentials will have a significant impact on helping job seekers facing bias and barriers find work.”
About 62% of adults in the U.S. don’t have a bachelor’s degree, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. These job candidates may be overlooked because they lack academic credentials, even if they have relevant skills for the available job position.
In addition, a recent Indeed survey found that 64% of job seekers believe they’ve been overlooked for a job that they were otherwise qualified for because they didn’t have the degree listed in the job description. According to the survey, job seekers believe employers should consider other factors such as experience (83%), career/skills certifications (72%) and skills assessments (65%) rather than degrees.
Nontraditional programs like these may be opening up opportunities. Alternative training programs — including bootcamps and certification programs — have helped 76% of job seekers who have participated in these programs to advance their career, according to the survey.
Skills-based hiring has become more popular this year, although it appears employers may not be adopting it fast enough to meet demand, according to a recent report. In-house training, apprenticeships and other nontraditional approaches are helping organizations to overcome the gap.
Even still, some job candidates are struggling to add skills and training credentials to hiring platforms to apply for jobs, according to new research. Many hiring platforms don’t provide the adequate fields to capture the information, or the information about alternative credentials can be “lost in translation” when extracting data. As the labor market continues to change, some have suggested HR leaders and IT staff may need to work together to highlight the skills and hiring priorities that matter most.
Correction: In a previous version of this article, one of Indeed's partners was misidentified. The partner is Per Scholas.
