As AI progresses, academic degrees take a backseat to skills in hiring

Increasingly, companies are looking for candidates that have hands-on experience and specialized certifications rather than just a engineering degree

A recent survey by Indeed, a global jobs site, threw up an interesting trend. It said that a growing number of Indian employers are shifting their hiring approach, placing greater emphasis on skills and experience over formal degrees. 

The survey highlighted that 80 per cent of employers have adopted a skills-first strategy, reflecting a broader industry movement toward practical expertise. Even among companies that are yet to adopt skills-based hiring, 82 per cent plan to do so, the Indeed survey found. As India's workforce adapts to digital transformation and changing industry requirements, skills-first hiring is becoming an increasingly strategic approach to recruitment. 

This shift is particularly evident in technology, AI, and cybersecurity segments, where companies are looking for candidates with hands-on capabilities rather than just academic credentials. As businesses adapt to evolving demands, the focus is on hiring individuals who can demonstrate job-ready skills. 

For a country like India, which churns out 1.5 million engineering graduates annually but has a low degree of employability of these graduates, the hiring trend has wide ramifications. In fact, industry experts say only 10 per cent of each graduating class secures jobs. 

This shift is being replicated much faster with the advent of AI. The rapid change in technology powered by AI is making skills important that certification degrees don't really teach, given that the curriculum does not change for years and often out of sync with market requirements. 

Ravi Kumar, chief executive officer, Cognizant says the time has come when one needs a bunch of certifications more than a 'degree'. 

“You can jump in, take apprenticeship, and use the work platform to learn, earn, and work. I am going to implement this in Cognizant. It is the right model. I think AI can be a great equaliser, because it does away with entry barriers,” he had told Business Standard in an earlier interview. 

He agrees that for the Indian IT services industry that hires in lakh every year, certification is the path of least resistance. "You are quality-assuring from a third party before you take the risk,' he said. 

"This whole template of studying in school for 25 years of your life and then drawing from it for the next 50 years of life or till retirement ... that template is again from the industrial revolution," he points out. "The best template is not to have a degree certification, but opt for apprenticeship and then do learning in capsules all your career. I believe the new template will be using your business institutions your lifelong learning platforms." 

According to Rohan Sylvester, talent strategy advisor, Indeed India, a global job site, hiring is evolving rapidly. "Degrees still matter, but they’re no longer the only ticket to a great job. Employers now care more about what candidates can do than just where they studied. With technology advancing so quickly, companies need people who can adapt, problem-solve, and apply their skills in real-world scenarios," he said in a statement. 

Thirumala Arohi, executive vice president (VP) and head (education, training and assessment) at Infosys, told Business Standard in an earlier conversation that while the debate of skill vs degree continues, for Infosys it is about degrees and skill.

“Degree is also important as there is a lot of value in studying in an educational institution. But the question is how do we amplify those degrees to have skills as a part of the curriculum,” he explains. 

For job seekers, degrees definitely still hold value, but skills are becoming the real differentiator. Investing in relevant training and building a portfolio of practical experience can open more doors than ever before. 

Most edtech platforms also echo this pattern of employment. 

Udemy’s Caoimhe Carlos, VP, global customer success, says this is "100 per cent" a huge movement in industry. Different organisations are at different levels of transition but there is still no blueprint of how to do it. "We are seeing this trend in India as well,” she said. 

“We have many global customers who are in this transition to a skill-based journey. They are thinking about how to leverage skills as the currency of their talent processes inside their businesses. This means removing degree qualifications from their processes and moving from traditional educational setups and focusing on skills. 

This demand for skill is also one of the reason for the mass adoption of micro-credential courses among academia and industry," she said. 

Karine Allouche, general manager (enterprise) at Coursera, says that students who are also in Tier-I institutes are opting for micro-credentials to get access to the latest skills. 

“Almost 30 per cent of the learners of IIT-Guwahati have dual degrees in data science and AI. So they are doing their certification course but also using Coursera for other courses,” she added.