Title: The 'Paper Ceiling' For Skilled Workers

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. You know about the glass ceiling, right? Do you know about the paper ceiling? This is how we continue our series on becoming upwardly mobile without a college degree. If you're trying to get a better job without a four-year degree, you already know it can be an uphill climb. You might have the skills, you might have the experience, but your resume doesn't say BA, and that one line can keep you from getting in the door.

Today we're going to talk about that invisible barrier often called the paper ceiling. It's the set of degree requirements, hiring software, and outdated assumptions that block millions of workers from better-paying jobs even though they're qualified. These are workers known as STARs, as we've talked about earlier in this series, STARs standing for Skilled Through Alternative Routes. There's also some good news that's new. A new report from the nonprofit, Opportunity@Work, shows that employers are starting to shift. Some are rethinking degree requirements. Some states are trying new policies at the political level on this. There is real momentum.

We've talked mostly in this series so far from the perspective of workers and prospective workers and how they can get qualified through alternative routes for good jobs, but today, if you're trying to advance your career without a degree, what should you know about where the opportunities are and what are employers thinking. Joining us are Layla O'Kane, Senior Director of Data Projects at Opportunity@Work out with their State of the Paper Ceiling report and Cole Napper, Vice President of People Analytics at Lightcast, a company that tracks real time hiring data, and one of those that's made the pledge to "tear the paper ceiling." We'll talk about what that means.

Layla and Cole, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Layla O'Kane: Thanks, Brian. It's great to be on.

Cole Napper: Thanks for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Layla, what's the headline from your report?

Layla O'Kane: Great question. I think the headline really is that we've seen this trend line turn. Over the last generation, STARs systematically lost access to 7.5 million jobs, and just recently, we have noticed that the decline is slowing and STARs are actually regaining access to more than 750,000 jobs. We are reporting today to show that trend line has changed and to tell you a little bit more about what our employer partners are doing to actually make those changes.

Brian Lehrer: Give us an example.

Layla O'Kane: There's some great examples. One is the state of Colorado. They have through executive order created a full transformation from top to bottom where they are reviewing all of their job descriptions and trying to understand where they can focus on skills as opposed to an education requirement, and then also retraining all of their hiring managers to focus on skills-based hiring. They've really worked all the way from their governor down through the entire organization, the state of Colorado as an employer to rethink how they are sourcing talent and to create this upward mobility for STARs.

Brian Lehrer: One of the themes we've discussed in this series is that STARs aren't stuck because they're self-sabotaging, but instead, because they're being held back. You've described some of what that holding back involves. Listeners, does any of this mirror your own story? 212-433-WNYC. If you're someone without a college degree, how are you finding work right now if you have to battle the paper ceiling? 212-433-9692.

Are you hitting walls because of that ceiling? Maybe that's mixing a metaphor, but employers, how are you looking yourselves in the eye, looking yourselves in the mirror and confronting the paper ceiling, when it's really necessary, and when it's really not? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Employers or anyone else, tell us your stories or ask a question of our guests. 212-433-9692. Call or text.

Cole, let's ground this from your perspective for our listeners a little bit. What is Lightcast and how does your data help people understand what jobs are out there and how to get them?

Cole Napper: Lightcast is a labor market data firm, and one of the things that we do is we support the government, higher education, and private enterprise with the data depending on what their needs are. I was curious about how this was framed up, Brian. I pulled some data really quickly for some research that we partnered with the National Governors Association in late 2024, and we found that 70% of private sector job postings right now still require a college degree. If you're looking at state government jobs, it goes down to 61%, and federal government jobs again in late 2024 was only 43%.

I think one of the gaps that you see, and the other guest pointed this out a second ago, is some states have actually been pretty progressive in making this shift. 25 states have actually moved to skills-based hiring in one US territory of Puerto Rico as well. I think if you got to the point where if all 50 states were doing it, they would probably be at the same rate as the federal government of about 43% of job postings requiring a college degree.

From some of the data that we've pulled, though, if you look at the top 19 or top 20 job postings that are out there that are most frequent, 19 of them do not require a college degree. The only one that does require a college degree is a registered nurse. There are vast shortages in a lot of these type of roles that aren't requiring college degrees at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: You've talked about the way AI and algorithms influence hiring. Can those systems accidentally filter out STARs, people skilled through alternative routes rather than a BA even if they're qualified, or does AI perhaps work in their favor?

Layla O'Kane: That's a great question. I think AI can change work in a couple of different ways. One is how employers are screening candidates and looking for workers, the second is how job seekers and STARs are looking for jobs, and the third is the nature of work itself and the skills that people are using on the job. In terms of how employers are screening candidates, we do see that there could be some bias baked into AI, but the good news is employers are really aware of this, and there are technology platforms that are working to combat this.

For example, Indeed has committed to removing barriers for 30 million hires by 2030, and they are very aware of how a platform might be used to accidentally screen out top talent, including STARs. Then STARs can also use generative AI to help them navigate their own careers. We have partnered with an organization that is helping to build a chatbot career navigator for STARs. They can put in the types of work that they're interested in, the types of skills that they have, and it will suggest some upwardly mobile career trajectories that they can start to investigate for them.

Technological change isn't gravity. We can make decisions about it and how we use it, and I think it can be used to support STARs mobility just as much as any other technologies.

Brian Lehrer: Cole, anything to add on that?

Cole Napper: The thing I would say is if you're looking at this from a private enterprise standpoint, one of the things that organizations are having to do is they're needing to challenge their talent strategy and the biases that they have in their talent strategy. If you're thinking about how can you bring more STARs into your organization, you need to first question, do you need a college degree as a requirement, because you mentioned earlier, these applicant tracking systems, are they biasing this and looking for it?

If a Job posting requires a college degree, that applicant tracking system might weed them out automatically. I wouldn't claim to be an expert on applicant tracking systems and how they work, but it's important if organizations are making this shift to being skills-based organizations, that skills-based hiring is the first part and first step in that talent strategy, and that using the ability to assess for skills through an applicant tracking system or through their ability to hire folks is going to be the thing that opens up those barriers.

Brian Lehrer: Couple of stories coming in in text messages. Listener writes, "I'm an archivist and have worked with reputable places for over 10 years, but I found it very difficult to procure stable work because I went to art school and fell into my career. I'm at a stage in life where it would be difficult to go back to school, not to mention costly, so I've expanded where my skill set might be applicable, but to no avail." There's somebody possibly hitting the paper ceiling.

Here's another one. "My wife became an actress directly after high school and never went to college. Ended up working her way up the corporate ladder to director position, concentrating hard on skill-building and network. After nine years at a high-end fashion company, she just found a new job, and only one application rejected her for not having a BA outright. The rest were willing to talk to her based on her resume and work history." That's a really interesting story to me, Layla, because it indicates that different employers who are trying to hire for the same kind of position may have different relationships to this paper ceiling.

Layla O'Kane: Yes, absolutely. I think we see that some employers use this degree as a proxy for skills, right? Maybe it seems easier to them to think, "Oh well, if I just make sure you check the box of a degree, that will guarantee talent." That just isn't reality, but I can understand why folks who maybe don't realize the level of skill that they're missing out on, why that might be their instinct. We are seeing actually employers really change their behavior around this, and as they become aware, we now see actually 4 in 10 employers are aware of the paper ceiling and 15% of STARs have started describing themselves as STARs.

This increased awareness is leading to the sort of behavior change that we would like to see, which is changing the way that they're thinking about hiring and advancing their work in the pursuit of more mobility for STARs.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to take a call from Bo in Manhattan who I think wants to question in a certain respect the entire premise of the series, which is building an upwardly mobile career without a college degree. I think Bo is going to say we're leaving something really important out, right, Bo? You're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Bo: Yes, I am. I'm okay. I think that all these discussions about the value of a college degree, which I can understand, and people have to make that choice, seem to me leave out the fact that there is a value both to the individual and to society of having an educated population and going to college. There's really no substitute to going to college, period.

Brian Lehrer: Bo, thank you very much. Layla, I'm going to go right back to you on this because I think your group Opportunity@Work is so focused on helping to empower people without college degrees to make a living. You are focused specifically on the economic question. There's a lot of politics in this right now. There's a culture war in the United States, you might have noticed.

One of the critiques of what's going on in places like the universities in Florida under Ron DeSantis' rule where he really wants to emphasize people who are going for degrees that are economically focused is, "Hey, there are people in this country who don't want an educated population, who don't want people grounded in history and literature, only in skills. "Have you thought about that question?

Layla O'Kane: Yes. We think about that a lot. I think it's a great question. I think if you're focused on economic mobility and on the labor market, if you don't have skills-based hiring and if you don't have a STAR strategy, you don't have a talent strategy because you're leaving off half of the American workforce. While we totally agree there is a value to having more education in the population, I think what we would say is this is about college and everybody else.

If you have the skills to do the job, you should be able to get the job. No matter how you gained those skills, whether that was through work experience, whether that was in the military, whether that was through going to community college or some other form of training, all of those are valid and should be seen as valid ways of proving that you have the skills to do the job.

Brian Lehrer: Someone else's story. Justin in Morris County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Justin.

Justin: Hi. Good morning. I'm one of these people that has acquired a tremendous amount of skills through a very interesting life, but I struggle with trying to move ahead with this whole concept of paper ceiling. When we started having bots and applying online, we've all tried it with the four-point font, all white at the bottom in the margins on the resumes to try to fool a bot with keywords that we think they might be looking for.

In a booming economy, I've been able to work at high levels in IT and other very normally college-oriented kind of careers, but then when the economy falters, I'm back into other things, either going back into working in manual labor, theater production. I'm currently working in wine and spirits distribution, but I'm looking for a way to get around that and work with it. I know a lot of this program is focused on the employers and how they should be looking for guys like me, but how do I get in front of them?

Brian Lehrer: Cole, can you offer any advice to Justin?

Cole Napper: Yes. I think what I loved hearing about from that guest is they're focused continually on getting the skills that are necessary for employers. One of the things that I pulled up in preparation for this is looking at the top skills that were in job postings right now. If you just look at the top five, it's communication, a valid driver's license, customer service, lifting ability, and operations management. All of those things, I don't believe any of them require a college degree necessarily to be able to have that type of skill, but these are what's available in the top job postings that are out there.

What I think about is we recently published a research report called the Speed of Skill Change. Between the years of 2021 and 2024, the average job has seen one-third of its skills change. If you look at the five years prior to that, that's a rate of change that's even higher than the five years prior. Not only are skills changing, they're changing more quickly than ever. What I appreciate about the guest is that they're kind of staying up to date with the skills that are changing. Again, it comes down to the employers if they're willing to accept the type of skill change based hiring versus needing that bachelor's.

Just to comment to the prior comment from the prior--

Brian Lehrer: Caller.

Cole Napper: Our caller, they were saying we need an educated society. I think what we're saying is we need an educated society, but it doesn't necessarily need to be credentials-based. It needs to be skills-based. You can still educate a society, and there's still a burden on employers to make sure that they're giving the employees the skills that they need to be successful in the economy as we move forward.

Brian Lehrer: I want to take one more paper ceiling story from one more caller. Aaron in Somerset County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Aaron.

Aaron: Hello, Brian. Avid listener, appreciate my opportunity to be able to speak to you today. The paper ceiling is real and just kind of seeing like, "I don't have a college degree, but I have college experience. I'm extremely educated, and I have skills." I find myself in a place where, you know what, I've been in C suites, talked to CIOs, CEOs, things of that nature, so you find yourself either underqualified or overqualified.

I really think missing is the human aspect. Not to talk down on any of the job sites, but when I get a job posting, "Hey, this job looks good for you, a veterinarian," nothing in my past is veterinarian. How did this algorithm spit that out toward me? The best thing that you can do when you're looking to assess talent is meet the person because you're hiring the person. You're not hiring a resident. You want to see who you're dealing with.

I think, just for employers, when an employer is posting for a job, the same way they have access to technology to do a whole bunch of different things, they should put together their own parameters. "Take our skills test. Can you pass this test? Can you do this?" Find out where people's skills lie instead of just throwing spaghetti at the wall if seems fit.

Brian Lehrer: Aaron, I'm going to leave it there because we're out of time in the segment, but that's a compelling story, and please call us again. To wrap up by following up on Aaron's call and the one before him, Layla, for employers listening, maybe they want to hire differently but aren't sure how. What's one first step they can take to make their hiring more open to people skilled through alternative routes?

Layla O'Kane: The first step is just to take a look at their requirements and see if a bachelor's degree is maybe standing in for a set of skills. If they want to learn more, they can go to tearthepaperceiling.org or opportunityatwork.org to get some pro tips on how to start their skills-based hiring journey.

Brian Lehrer: Layla O'Kane is Senior Director of Data Projects at Opportunity@Work. Cole Napper is Vice President of People Analytics at Lightcast, a company that tracks real-time hiring data. Thank you both for joining us today in our series on being upwardly mobile without a college degree.

Layla O'Kane: Thank you, Brian, for having me.

Cole Napper: Thanks, Brian.

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