September 24, 2024 How Instant Verifications Help Employers Hire Faster

As more high school graduates seek full-time employment, automated verifications can help employers grow their talent pools.

By Bart Lautenbach

For years, bachelor’s degrees have been a requirement for many jobs, leaving candidates with only a high school diploma locked out of many opportunities. However, recent data shows that this might be changing.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations that require only a high school diploma or the equivalent have more projected openings over the next decade than any other level of education. Employers have a unique opportunity to draw from this talent pool — and a lot to gain from prioritizing more of these candidates.

Considering the heavy investment made in hiring, onboarding, and training new employees, it’s more important than ever for employers to better mitigate risks and help choose the right candidates. One way to help do this is by verifying candidates’ educational credentials and work experience.

The Shifting Talent Pool

This change in the labor market may be caused in part by the rise of the “Toolbelt Generation,” or Generation Z high school graduates who are forgoing traditional two- or four-year college degrees to pursue skilled trades including welding, construction, and machine tooling.

In fact, college enrollment has declined 11.6% since 2010, which means hiring managers will have fewer candidates to choose from if they require college degrees. Employers will need to look more closely at candidates with only high school diplomas or the equivalent, and many companies are eliminating — or have already removed — bachelor’s degree requirements for some positions.

For example, a November 2023 survey of 800 U.S. employers (conducted by Intelligent) found that 45% of companies plan to eliminate bachelor’s degree requirements for some positions in 2024, and 55% eliminated bachelor’s degree requirements in 2023. The study also reported that 70% of companies eliminated these requirements to create a more diverse workforce.

Occupations that require a high school diploma and have the most projected job openings over the next decade include home health and personal care aides, stockers and order fillers, and customer service representatives, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This means that a number of industries, including healthcare, retail, technology, and manufacturing, could benefit from expanding their talent pools to better target candidates with a high school diploma or equivalent.

The manufacturing industry is uniquely positioned to hire candidates from this talent pool since many entry-level and skilled trade positions don’t require technical degrees. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that a majority of openings for manufacturing occupations over the next decade typically require only a high school diploma, including openings for assemblers and fabricators, welders and solderers, and woodworkers.

The Importance of Pre-Hire Verifications

As employers look more closely at these candidates, they will need to do their due diligence to make sure they can trust potential employees. Considering that about 70% of U.S. workers say they’ve lied on a resume to land a job, pre-hire verification of education and work experience is crucial.

Pre-hire verifications help organizations hire employees who better meet a job’s educational and professional requirements. If a new hire has overstated their qualifications and the organization hasn’t completed more comprehensive pre-hire verifications, the employee could struggle to keep up with their responsibilities. This may force other employees to cover their work, which can decrease productivity, raise expenses, and negatively impact workplace morale. However, in the manufacturing industry, completing pre-hire verifications and bringing on better qualified employees may help ensure greater workplace safety and security while improving employee retention.

Verification as a Strategic Advantage

Efficient verification can help speed up hiring processes and help better ensure that employers are choosing better candidates by streamlining a check of the three most important pieces of data for most hiring managers: previous employment, education, and criminal background. Speed to hire is critical, and completing these verifications can be time-consuming. The traditional high school diploma verification process often relies on manual verification, which can take several weeks to complete. In these cases, employers may miss out on good candidates because of unnecessarily long screening processes.

However, employers can facilitate more streamlined hiring with automated verification of high school diploma data for candidates 18 years and older. Instant verifications of education and employment can help companies fill their open positions more quickly and account for employee turnover, which is crucial in industries like manufacturing that are dependent on high-volume hiring. With faster verification of high school education, employers may be able to reduce expenses related to turnover, make more informed hiring decisions, and speed up time-to-hire.

About the Author:
Bart Lautenbach is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Talent Solutions, Equifax Workforce Solutions. He has more than 20 years of experience leading product and sales teams in the industrial manufacturing and technology industries. He currently leads a business unit focused on providing HR professionals and background screeners solutions and insights that help them verify and validate hiring candidates.

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