EMPLOYERS looking for tech workers are being advised to shift towards skills-based hiring over degrees, as they could be screening out potentially talented tech workers.

“In the tech space, that [ a degree] is not an indicator that you’re capable; that is a fundamental change. We need to embrace the fact that skill set and capability are not equivalent to degrees,” said Trevor Forrest, CEO of 876 Technology Solutions.

As a tech recruiter himself, he has also noticed the pattern of other recruiters looking for tech workers. “We’re stuck in a postcolonial mentality of hiring people for jobs, and we don’t understand or get used to the fact that in technology, while there will always be a need for people with lofty degrees, the goal is to produce. To produce and to have people with the knowledge and experience, the fact that I have a degree doesn’t mean that I am a better hacker than the guy who has been doing it for 15 years with no degree because he chose not to get one,” he explained to the Jamaica Observer.

According to a recent study from global organisational consulting firm Korn Ferry, more than 85 million tech jobs could go unfilled by 2030 because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them. The challenge locally is that people have the skills but not the degrees, and the tech industry’s reliance on traditional educational qualifications will narrow the pool of eligible candidates even further, especially considering that more of the tech workforce is pursuing non-traditional avenues of education.

Forrest is encouraging both tech recruiters and aspiring tech professionals to prioritise skills and practical experience over formal degrees. “In today’s tech job market, it’s not about where you studied, but what you can do,” he noted.

He explained that with a rise in alternative learning such as online courses, coding boot camps, and specialised training programmes that offer a quicker and more affordable route to gaining in-demand skills, many of which also provide industry-recognised certifications that hold significant weight in the job market. “Certifications are less expensive and they take less time, and what they produce is an individual who can get a particular job done, which is what I need; I need more of those people than the people with a bachelor’s or master’s; understand that being qualified does not mean that you must have a bachelor’s or master’s in the tech space,” he told the Business Observer.

Leading tech companies like Google, IBM, Facebook, and Apple have already signalled their openness to hiring candidates based on skills rather than degrees. Some have even removed degree requirements for certain positions, recognising that diverse talent pools with varied educational backgrounds can bring fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to the table. However, locally, a bachelor’s degree is still generally listed as one of the qualifications posted under tech jobs.

“Half the guys who have the capabilities don’t want degrees, and they don’t need them because what you want them to do, they can learn through self-paced training. There are areas in Google where they don’t look for degrees; they say you need to be able to write this kind of code. Once you have certifications in certain skills, they are hired; they don’t even look at degrees anymore,” Forrest added, indicating a need for a re-evaluation of the hiring criteria locally.

Founder of Jamaica Artificial Intelligence Association (JAIA), artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, and CEO of Stone Technologies Limited [Robotics & AI Company] Matthew Stone shared the sentiments where criteria are concerned; however, he had another perspective from a tech professional seeking employment within the industry. Stone, who has a bachelor’s in computer science and is currently pursuing a PhD in AI at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), has observed some of his peers finding it difficult to get tech jobs. “I think the hiring practices in Jamaica for developers are pretty backwards. I’ve seen a lot of talented developers, smart developers — they might not have, say, five or four years of experience in this technology or that technology, but they are smart people. You give them a task, they will figure it out, and they’ll get it done,” said Stone.

While Forrest asserts that having experience is more important than a formal degree, Stone explained that some of the tech roles are just developing, and for employers to be requiring experience in a particular technology that is new will intimidate young tech professionals. “This whole thing where a job posting goes up and you need five years of experience for a junior developer role, it’s ridiculous. How are you going to get that experience if you’ve never had a role like that?” he asked with frustration. “Focus more on aptitude, work ethic, and the ability to solve a problem when faced with one; in terms of skills, I’m all for training programmes to upskill people.”

However, Stone asserts that hiring a young professional without a degree is also not an excuse for companies to not pay their employees or reward them by way of a salary increase based on years of service to the company. “They’ll hire the people that don’t have the degrees, so we’re forward-thinking, but they will keep their salaries capped and be like, ‘until you get a degree,’ even if you’ve been working there for years, they [employers] will tell them [tech workers] they cannot go above this level just because they don’t have degrees,” Stone said.