Employers and hiring managers increasingly struggle to fill roles when prioritizing applicants’ degrees and education history. What’s keeping hiring managers from sourcing candidates based on their skills and strengths instead?

One solution may lie in the transformational potential of microcredentials: short-term courses and credentials that employees can take to develop specific skills tailored to their desired or current job role. By prioritizing microcredentials and other nontraditional educational and professional routes, employers can explore and leverage talent from diversified sources — and create stronger workforces in the process. 

Released in late July, Northeastern University’s report, “The Evolution of Hiring,” conducted by the Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy, surveyed 1,250 hiring managers — defined as managers working outside the HR function who hire and manage employees — to get to the root of what’s keeping employers from broadening their hiring practices and how to help them understand where they are facing talent gaps. 

While other research has examined the benefits of microcredentials, Northeastern’s report is distinct in that, rather than talking to education or microcredential providers, it surveyed hiring managers — giving those closest to the problem a hand in designing the solution. 

Amanda Welsh, professor of practice for Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies and director of Northeastern’s Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy, laid out the report’s key findings. She also provided actionable insights for employers looking to make their hiring practices more effective at finding the specific talents they want. 

By applying these insights, hiring managers can shift their talent strategies to benefit their business and open up more opportunities for skilled workers of all backgrounds. 

What we get wrong, and right, about microcredentials 

According to Welsh, employers can benefit from microcredentials in three ways: 

1. There isn’t a lack of applicants — just a lack of the right kinds of applicants. 

Most managers struggled to find applicants with skills and experiences that matched the roles they were hiring for. Hiring managers were most likely to cite this as a major obstacle they faced (60%).

“If we understand [that] hiring managers are really struggling to get candidates who they think are good fits for the roles, that poses the question of: ‘What can you change to help them with that process?’” Welsh said. “This is where moving beyond the degree as a proxy [for skill] and more consciously entertaining microcredentials as a source of information might be helpful.”

“Microcredentials are shorter and more focused, so this is something that a candidate could accomplish more quickly and easily than a full degree. So, the candidate can be more responsive to marketplace needs and requests.” 

2. Waiving degree requirements is not enough. Microcredentials need to be given the spotlight, too.

According to Welsh, many hiring managers are aware that microcredentials exist, which is encouraging. However, they often limit their use of microcredential information to offer a signal about a candidate’s general characteristics or sense of discipline rather than tangible skills that can be used in the workplace.A majority of managers who included education requirements in their job descriptions (59%) said that they were hesitant or had never considered reducing these requirements.

“They’re not really using them to the full extent that they potentially could — to winnow down candidates to the pool of folks they might want to offer employment to,” Welsh said. “We found that for companies, developing a perspective on which microcredentials were relevant for roles they had open was a useful and important thing to do.”

According to Welsh, identifying specific microcredentials accomplishes two important tasks: First, it allows companies to waive degree requirements for a role in favor of skills that are more important and relevant. Second, highlighting them in job descriptions encourages hiring managers and job seekers alike to consider microcredentials as a legitimate pathway to replace those degree requirements.

“Waving the requirement for a degree [isn’t] really materially impacting the nature of the hiring that is going on inside companies because waiving the requirement is only half the puzzle,” Welsh said. “Companies really need to take this second step in addition.” 

3. Microcredentials aren’t just for job applicants and early career employees. 

Welsh noted that the power of personal experience in the hiring process should not be underestimated. Overwhelmingly, managers who themselves have earned a microcredential are more likely to recognize their promise and consequently hire candidates with microcredentials. This illuminates the importance for companies to support current staff in continuing to build out their own learning by introducing programs that help managers themselves earn microcredentials. 

“Companies can support … their hiring managers in more actively considering microcredentials when making hiring decisions by supporting their managers in getting microcredentials themselves,” Welsh said. “[This] creates an environment where they identify appropriate microcredentials that further the manager’s career. That then gives them a different perspective on how to leverage information when they’re making hiring decisions.”

How to broaden your talent pool and strengthen your workforce

While this research is illuminating, it is only helpful if managers actually implement it in their workplaces. Welsh outlined concrete steps employers and hiring managers can take to better understand and use microcredentials to their fullest extent.

To begin with, not all companies are the same, and leaders should think intentionally about how this advice applies to their unique circumstances.

Welsh also pointed out that many organization leaders may have microcredentials of their own — but they may not fully appreciate how common these are among staff members and job applicants. Any certification or training, whether in a particular program used at their company or a specific skill set, is a microcredential. Recognizing those experiences and how they diversify otherwise homogeneous workforces is crucial. 

Welsh explained that the Center leads workshops with HR leaders at companies interested in expanding their hiring practices. The moderator often begins by having each participant highlight a credential they have earned — alerting them to the wide range of credentials already in play. 

“It’s an interesting experience because everybody’s got them,” Welsh said. “[Microcredentials] are out there; we’re just not using them or harnessing them.” 

“I’m talking to a relatively homogeneous population,” Welsh said. “Yet by the time we’re finished going around the room, the whiteboard is covered with a range of microcredentials that are represented even by relatively small groups of folks doing essentially similar work. ... They all say, ‘Okay, there are a couple there that I recognize, but wow, there’s so much variety. What do I do with all of it?’ What’s really fun is this moment of tremendous empathy for their hiring managers because that’s what the hiring managers experience.”

By recognizing these unique professional experiences, managers at these workshops experience a microcosm of what can take place within their own companies: a renewed diversity of skills, talents, and perspectives to share.

Once they have a sense of what their hiring managers may be feeling, HR leaders might then consider taking the following steps to begin incorporating microcredentials into their own hiring processes:

1. HR leaders should work with hiring managers to identify the skills and aptitudes that are most interesting and valuable to them

Managers and HR teams can work together to articulate and prioritize goals for their organization and the skills that will best help the company reach them. From there, they can identify which microcredentials are most valuable. 

This goes beyond simply identifying a candidate’s hard skills or certifications. It involves taking a holistic approach, considering the aptitudes and personal qualities that have contributed to the success of others in similar roles, which may be better indicators of a candidate’s potential. 

By collaborating, managers and HR leaders can craft interview questions and design steps in the hiring process to help identify candidates who fit these criteria — while still leaving space for candidates to express the unique experiences and qualities they bring, perhaps unexpectedly.

2. Establish relationships with professional microcredential providers

Welsh noted that many professional associations provide resources for researching microcredential offerings, including the Manufacturing Institute’s Skills Certification System.

Once an organization has identified which microcredentials would best help an applicant qualify for a role in their company, they should reach out to established, credible microcredential bodies and begin conversations. Building relationships can make it easier to establish a talent pipeline that will benefit the company, its applicants, and its employees. 

For instance, when Amazon realized it needed more mechatronics workers — a very narrow technical specialty — it partnered with Unmudl, a skills-to-jobs marketplace that matches workers with flexible courses tailored to in-demand roles. Amazon partnered with Unmudl to pay for employees to take Unmudl’s mechatronics course or reimburse applicants who had taken the course and were hired into positions. 

Organizations like Opportunity@Work, Skills for Chicagoland’s Future, and Per Scholas also work with employers to make it easier to identify skills gaps and link applicants and employees with microcredential opportunities. 

3. Use communications strategies to link job seekers and microcredential opportunities

Finally, organizations should develop a proactive communications strategy that clearly conveys to job applicants how the listed microcredentials can make them a better fit for the role and the larger company culture. This includes listing the specific microcredentials in job descriptions and working with recruiters and HR professionals to advertise the availability of these microcredentials to candidates, highlighting the demand for them among hiring managers. 

Doing so “empowers the candidate to do one of two things,” Welsh said. “Present that credential, either because they have it or they went out and earned it with your counsel, [or] describe why something that they’ve done is comparable to that credential. … You’re starting with a better articulation of your needs, a perspective on how [someone] can best meet that need, and then you’re communicating that to your candidates in a way that lets them engage with you to allow them to fit themselves into the need more clearly.”

Employers who take these steps can begin to shift into hiring, nurturing, and retaining talent based on each individual’s unique skills and gifts. This will encourage workers to pursue their larger potential and unlock greater purpose and fulfillment at work, ultimately benefiting both their workplaces and larger communities.

“What I find really exciting here is that by giving really clear information, you engage with someone in a way that is very direct and very respectful,” Welsh said. “That then becomes very empowering. When you begin to empower someone and invite them into that power structure, that is where they then begin to buy into purpose and fulfillment in the work that they do for you.”

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Stories like this showcase why unlocking human potential empowers people to discover purposeful careers. That’s why Stand Together proudly sponsored the Human Potential Summit, a gathering of innovators shaping the future of work to boost employees and businesses. Sign up to receive insights from the summit, including case studies and key takeaways. 

Northeastern University’s Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy is supported by the Charles Koch Foundation, which, as part of the Stand Together community, funds cutting-edge research and helps expand postsecondary educational options.

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