New York is modernizing the qualifications for 800 job titles combining experience and degree considerations in hiring practices. This change will expand public sector opportunities to many more New Yorkers.
The Department of Civil Service modernized the minimum requirements for nearly 800 entry- and promotional-level civil service titles across 20,000 positions to allow equivalent experience as an alternative for college degrees when evaluating jobseekers. By combining experience-based hiring with degree-based hiring, New York is expanding opportunities for many jobseekers without diluting the quality of the candidate pool.
“Many jobseekers have gained valuable real-world work experience in their careers and can use their unique skills and talents to contribute to New York’s dedicated public workforce,” Governor Hochul said. “This common sense change, which is already used by many employers in the private and public sectors nationwide, will eliminate a barrier to rewarding careers faced by many prospective public servants and allow them to put their experience to work to benefit all New Yorkers.”
The changes will take effect immediately. Of those titles, more than 600 of them are promotional titles open to current state employees, while more than 150 are entry-level titles open to the general public.
College degree requirements for middle skill jobs — those that require employees with more than a high school diploma but less than a college degree — restricts the candidate pool and locks out the more than half of working-aged adults who do not hold a bachelor’s degree.
Employers nationwide are resetting degree requirements for a wide range of roles for entry-level, professional, and even some supervisory and managerial positions. This is not only a trend in the private sector. The federal government and some states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, have allowed experience as an alternative to degree requirements for thousands of jobs.