November 14, 2016

(Educators)Applicants without a four year bachelor's degree previously need not apply to jobs in tech, so low were their chances of being hired. Today, however, leading tech companies such as IBM recruit based on skills, rather than credentials, for what they have termed "new collar" jobs.

This change likely stems from the fact that tech job openings currently outpace tech job applicants. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are approximately 500,000 open jobs in tech-related fields.

IBM plans to hire 6,000 employees in 2017, and as CEO Ginni Rometty explains, "we are hiring because the nature of work is evolving -- and that is also why so many of these jobs remain hard to fill. As industries from manufacturing to agriculture are reshaped by data science and cloud computing, jobs are being created that demand new skills -- which in turn requires new approaches to education, training and recruiting."

Interestingly, as many as 1 in 3 IBM employees in locations across the country do not have a four-year degree. What matters more is that they possess the requisite vocational training to perform their tech-sector job.

As the number of jobs in the technology sector boom, leading tech companies are actively recruiting employees who have taken non-traditional educational avenues, such as coding programs and high school apprenticeship partnerships.