DEI: Reducing Barriers to Hire

By Patrick Price, Government Practice Section Executive Committee

Another way to help decrease barriers to upward mobility is reducing the use of college degree requirements in employment posting. Requiring college degrees for employment opportunities disproportionately excludes individuals who do not have access to the same resources and educational opportunities or the ability to take four additional years studying rather than earning money.  
 
For a variety of reasons, including government prohibitions on the use of job skill examinations, the use of college or advanced degrees has increasingly become the preferred means to screen job applicants. This is an inefficient and costly means of demonstrating competency for a particular role and excludes disadvantaged individuals from opportunities and advancement. This is particularly true for general degree requirements that do not specify a particular area of study. It is worth asking why is someone with a generic college degree more qualified to be a manger than someone who spent those same four years working in the department to be managed?  
 
Reducing artificial barriers to employment, such as college degree requirements, would increase opportunities for disadvantaged groups, increase their representation at higher ranks employment and help bring up people who are otherwise increasingly being unfairly excluded from the labor market.  

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