Skills, not education, are what employers look for, research finds
Nearly 90% of analyzed job ads do not state any degree requirements, while only 9.5% make any mention applicants needing to have a degree.
The key to landing a high-paying job may be possessing desirable skills, not necessarily the right academic degree.
“Businesses are shifting their priorities when it comes to hiring talent and placing greater value on the years of experience, technical knowledge and soft skills workers have, whether or not they went to college,” said James Neave, head of data science for the job search engine Adzuna.
“The data indicate that skills, rather than degrees, are the top requirement candidates must have to secure a high-paying job today, or a salary over $200,000.”
New research by Adzuna found that the logistics and warehouse sector has the highest number of job vacancies that pay more than $200,000 annually. Among the other findings:
• A higher proportion of jobs advertising salaries greater than $200,000 are in public relations, advertising and marketing (1.4%) and HR (1.2%) than in health care (1%) and engineering (0.5%), two sectors that typically require years of schooling and credentials and that are commonly thought to offer high salaries.
• Nearly 90% of analyzed job ads do not state any degree requirements, while only 9.5% make any mention applicants needing to have a degree.
• Soft and hard skills are becoming increasingly prominent in ads for jobs with salaries above $200,000. “Energetic” is the most cited soft skill, found in 23.5% of job ads for roles with high salaries, followed by “communication” (12.2%), “planning” (6.4%) and “leadership” (6.3%).
• As for hard skills, “invoicing” is cited in 26.9% of ads with high paying salaries, followed by “operations” (4.1%), “dispatching” (4.1%) and “research” (3.8%).
Related: Innovative employee benefit addresses critical skills gap
“As skills continue to stand out as competitive differentiators, job seekers need to take advantage of upskilling and reskilling opportunities so they can set themselves apart and be considered for these types of roles,” Neave said. “I also recommend candidates highlight these in-demand skills at the very top of their resume and share examples during interviews of how they used these skills in their everyday work to achieve results, both from project and team- building perspectives.”