Indeed, a leading hiring platform, launched Skill Connect, a new product to help job seekers without college degrees better promote their skills and completed training programs to potential employers.
- According to the U.S. Census, 62% of adults in the U.S. currently do not have a bachelor’s degree.
- Skill Connect is designed to help job seekers gaining skills through job training programs offered by Indeed’s initial partners Per Scholas, Year Up, and Austin Community College find employment.
- Once their training program is complete, Skill Connect guides them through a custom resume process, pre-populating suggested skills and certifications.
- These job seekers can then be found on Indeed by employers searching for people with their skills and training.
In short, Skill Connect is a new product that helps job seekers without college degrees find employment. It does this by providing them with a custom resume process that pre-populates suggested skills and certifications, and by making them more visible to employers on Indeed. Once they complete their resume, job seekers are matched with employers searching for people with their skills and training on Indeed.
“Promoting skills-based hiring is deeply connected to Indeed’s mission of helping people get jobs. Hiring based on skills rather than academic credentials will have a significant impact on helping job seekers facing bias and barriers find work,” said Abbey Carlton, VP of Social Impact at Indeed. “By launching Skill Connect, Indeed and our partners will help match employers to job seekers who have learned new skills through their training programs. With over three million employers hiring on Indeed globally, we are well positioned to help even more people get jobs through Skill Connect.”
A recent Indeed survey1 reports that 64% of job seekers believe they have been overlooked for a job they were otherwise qualified for because they did not have the degree listed in the job description. It’s no surprise then that a majority of job seekers believe employers should consider other factors like experience (83%), career/skills certifications (72%), and skills assessments (65%) rather than degrees when considering a candidate’s qualifications. Indeed’s survey also shows that alternative training programs (such as bootcamps, certification programs, etc) are opening doors for job seekers without a college degree: 76% of those who have participated in a training program say it helped them advance their career.
