How Employers Really Hire in 2026: Why Degrees Alone No Longer Cut It
The Last Résumé Leonardo da Vinci Ever Wrote
In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci wrote what might be the world's most famous job application. Seeking patronage from Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, he didn't open with his university credentials or letters of recommendation. He didn't mention where he studied or under which master he apprenticed. Instead, he wrote a letter that was essentially a numbered list of things he could do: design portable bridges for armies, create mortars and cannons, build armored vehicles, sculpt monuments, and paint frescoes.
Ten capabilities. Zero credentials. Pure proof-of-work.
For most of human history, this was how skilled work was evaluated. A blacksmith was hired because villagers had seen his horseshoes. A seamstress got commissions because her wedding gowns were worn at actual weddings. A shipwright was trusted because his vessels floated. Then came the 20th century, and we erected an elaborate scaffolding of proxies around skill itself. Degrees became the stand-in for competence. Transcripts replaced portfolios. The pedigree of your institution mattered more than the quality of what you could build.
For decades, this system worked, or at least, it appeared to work. Universities credentialed, corporations hired those credentials, and a mutual fiction sustained itself: that four years of lectures and exams reliably produced job-ready professionals. But by 2026, that fiction has collapsed under its own weight. The proxies have failed. Employers are tired of hiring candidates with impressive degrees who can't execute basic tasks. Students are exhausted by accumulating credentials that don't translate into meaningful work. And the market has quietly begun reverting to something Leonardo would recognize instantly: show me what you can build.
This isn't a future trend. It's not a prediction about what might happen in five or ten years. It's the operating reality of hiring in 2026, and if you're navigating the education-to-employment pipeline right now, understanding this shift isn't optional; it's the difference between designing your career and being designed out of it.
The Three-Act Transformation: How the Labor Market Rewrote Its Own Rules
Act One: Corporate Mutiny Against the Diploma
The first cracks appeared not in academia but in the executive suites of the world's largest employers. Around 2020, a quiet revolution began: major corporations started systematically removing bachelor's degree requirements from job descriptions. This wasn't idealism or progressive optics. It was pragmatism born of frustration.
Amazon Web Services made headlines when it launched its Skills-Based Hiring Program, explicitly eliminating degree requirements from early-career roles and investing over $1.2 billion to train 300,000 employees and 29 million people in cloud computing skills by 2025. When a Fortune 500 company reallocates that kind of capital from credential screening to direct skills development, it's not making a statement—it's making a business decision. The implicit message: we trust our own training infrastructure more than we trust your diploma.
IBM followed a similar path, building internal skills intelligence platforms that redeploy thousands of existing employees into new roles rather than hiring externally. The company discovered it could map adjacent skills, recommend targeted learning paths, and rapidly reskill workers for emerging needs like cloud architecture, saving millions in recruitment costs while improving employee satisfaction. The degree became irrelevant not because IBM stopped valuing capability, but because they found better ways to identify and develop it.
Google took the model even further. In 2025, the company announced that completing certain Google Cloud Certificates in cybersecurity or data analytics would grant learners a direct pathway to interviews with financial services firms like Jack Henry, with hands-on labs functioning as the first stage of the hiring process itself. The certificate wasn't a credential you showed at the door; it was the door! And research showed that 82% of businesses now prefer recruiting professionals with these skills-oriented credentials over traditional degrees.
This wasn't a niche movement confined to tech. By 2024, between 60% and 81% of employers across industries reported adopting skills-based hiring practices, up from roughly 40 to 57% just four years earlier. That's not incremental change, it's a sector-wide regime shift. LinkedIn's 2025 data revealed that the share of paid job postings not requiring a degree rose from 22% in 2020 to 26% in 2023, a 16% relative increase that might sound modest until you consider the millions of jobs that it represents. More tellingly, companies using skills-based searches were 12% more likely to make what recruiters call a "quality hire," and 33% more likely to recruit workers in the top quartile of demand.
Act Two: When McKinsey Declares Victory, the War Is Over
If corporate adoption was Act One, Act Two was the intellectual infrastructure catching up to validate what practitioners already knew: skills-based hiring simply works better. McKinsey's 2023 analysis revealed that hiring for skills is approximately five times more predictive of job performance than hiring for education credentials, and more than twice as predictive as hiring based on work experience alone. The same research found that workers without degrees stay in their roles 34% longer than degree-holders in comparable positions, a finding that demolishes the assumption that credential-holders are more committed or stable employees.
By 2025, surveys of employers confirmed this wasn't just theory. Ninety-four percent of employers reported that skills-based hires outperform those selected primarily for degrees or certifications, and 90% said skills-focused approaches resulted in fewer hiring mistakes. These aren't marginal improvements; they're the kind of performance gaps that, once discovered, make the old method commercially indefensible.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the transaction, workers themselves were voting with their feet. PwC's 2024 Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey of 56,000 employees across 50 countries found that those planning to switch employers were nearly twice as likely to cite upskilling as central to their decision (67% versus 36%). Yet fewer than half (just 46%) agreed their current employer provided adequate opportunities to learn new skills. The market had created a massive supply-demand mismatch: employers desperate for demonstrable skills, workers desperate to acquire them, and traditional education caught in the middle, offering neither fast enough nor relevant enough.
Act Three: The Tipping Point Where Normal Becomes Obsolete
The third act is the one we're living through right now: the moment when the shift stops being a trend and becomes the new baseline. LinkedIn's 2025 Work Change report projected that by 2030, roughly 70% of the skills used in most jobs will have changed, with professionals already adding new skills to their profiles 140% faster than they did in 2022. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs analysis painted an even starker picture: 92 million jobs displaced, 170 million created by 2030, a net gain of 78 million positions, but only for those who can reskill at velocity.
This isn't a disruption in some distant industry. It's a disruption in the fundamental grammar of work. When the shelf life of a skill set shrinks to three or four years, a four-year degree that teaches you what was relevant when you enrolled becomes a lagging indicator by the time you graduate. The credential is backward-looking; the labor market is forward-moving.
The cost of ignoring this misalignment is now quantifiable. A 2024 analysis found that approximately 52% of recent bachelor's degree holders are underemployed one year after graduation, working in jobs that do not typically require a degree, and most remain underemployed even a decade later. Underemployed graduates earn around $40,000 compared to roughly $60,000 for peers in degree-level roles. That's a 33% wage penalty for failing to convert credentials into skills-aligned work. For many students, the expected return on investment in higher education has effectively collapsed, not because education itself is worthless, but because the proxy, the degree, has lost its signaling power in a market that now demands direct evidence of capability.
Seventy-eight percent of business leaders now say that work-based learning and industry certifications are essential in developing talent, yet roughly 40% believe schools are failing to adequately prepare students for careers in their fields. That gap, between what employers need and what traditional programs deliver, is where the entire edifice of 20th-century credentialism is quietly crumbling.
The Portfolio-First Degree: When Credentials and Capabilities Converge
So what replaces the degree? Not nothing. Not chaos. But something structurally different: an operating system built around demonstration rather than declaration, around portfolios rather than pedigrees, around the ability to ship rather than the ability to sit through lectures.
This is where institutions like the Paris School of Entrepreneurship represent not an alternative path but the only path aligned with how hiring actually works in 2026. PSE has architected its model around the Leonardo da Vinci principle: your value is determined by what you can demonstrably build, not which building you sat in while learning.
The core architecture is venture-driven learning. Students don't just study entrepreneurship; they launch ventures, build products, work with real clients, and generate portfolios of shipped work before they graduate. Every project is proof of skill. Every collaboration is a reference. Every launched product is a signal to employers that you don't need to be trained from zero; you've already operated in the ambiguity and pressure of real-world execution.
This isn't about replacing theory with practice or rigor with pragmatism. It's about recognizing that in 2026, the most rigorous thing you can do is subject your skills to market feedback early and often. PSE integrates nano-credentials, sprint labs, and venture studios directly into the curriculum, not as extracurriculars, but as the curriculum. When Google is turning certificates into interview pipelines, and AWS is investing billions in skills-first training, a program that produces demonstrable competencies isn't experimental; it's aligned with the infrastructure of the modern labor market.
The meta-skill being trained here is the capacity for recurring reinvention. If 70% of job skills will turn over by 2030, the most valuable thing you can learn isn't a specific tool or framework; it's the muscle memory of learning, building, shipping, iterating, and learning again. That loop is what separates professionals who thrive in a high-churn skills economy from those who find themselves obsolete every time the market shifts.
Employers are no longer asking, "Where did you go to school?" They're asking, "What have you built? What problems have you solved? Can you show me?" Traditional programs train students to answer the first question. Paris School of Entrepreneurship trains students to answer the second, and to keep answering it, with fresh evidence, throughout their entire careers.
The Cost of Waiting: What Inaction Actually Looks Like
Here's the uncomfortable truth for anyone still betting on the old model: the market has already moved. Degree inflation has collided with underemployment, and the result is a generation of graduates who followed all the rules and still can't convert their credentials into meaningful work. That 52% underemployment rate one year post-graduation (according to a report from Forbes) isn't an anomaly; it's a symptom of systemic misalignment between what schools certify and what employers value.
Meanwhile, companies like IBM are proving that skills intelligence platforms can redeploy internal talent faster and cheaper than external hiring. LinkedIn data shows that skills-first hiring produces measurably better matches. McKinsey has declared skills-based selection five times more predictive than degrees. At a certain point, the evidence stops being evidence and becomes consensus.
For students navigating this landscape, the choice is increasingly binary: invest in programs that produce demonstrable skills and portfolios, or invest in programs that produce credentials the market no longer trusts as proxies for competence. The second path isn't wrong because it's traditional; it's wrong because it's misaligned with how hiring decisions are actually being made in 2026.
The Solution: Degree + Portfolio, Not Degree vs Portfolio
This is where institutions like Paris School of Entrepreneurship represent not an alternative to traditional education, but its necessary evolution. PSE awards recognized degrees because credentials still matter for legitimacy, mobility, and access. But every degree is earned through venture-driven learning: students don't just study entrepreneurship, they launch real ventures, build products for real clients, and graduate with portfolios that speak louder than transcripts.
The question isn't degree versus portfolio. It's whether your degree program builds your portfolio into its DNA from day one.
Why Degree + Portfolio Beats Portfolio Alone
Bootcamps can teach you to code in 12 weeks. Certificates can prove that you completed modules. But they can't give you:
The theoretical foundations that let you adapt when every tool changes every 18 months
The global network and institutional credibility that open doors to leadership roles
The structured pathway to strategic thinking that employers value for senior positions
PSE integrates both the rigor and legitimacy of a degree, with the execution mindset and portfolio of a founder. You graduate with the credentials AND the capability, which is exactly what the 2026 labor market demands.
Your Move: From Credential Anxiety to Portfolio Confidence
If you've read this far, you already know the punchline. You've already felt the nagging suspicion that accumulating credits alone and waiting for a diploma without building might not be enough. You've seen the job descriptions that ask for portfolios, GitHub repositories, case studies, and proof of work. You've wondered whether your education is preparing you for that reality or preparing you for a version of the labor market that no longer exists.
PSE exists for that moment of recognition. It's built for students who understand that the future of work rewards builders with credentials, not just credential-holders without proof, and that the institutions willing to integrate portfolio-building into every degree program are the ones producing graduates employers actually want to hire.
The application is open. The infrastructure is live. The question isn't whether the market has shifted; it's whether you're willing to design your education around the market as it actually is, not as it used to be.
Because in 2026, employers don't hire résumés. They hire proof. And proof is something you build, not something you're granted.
Ready to build yours? Explore PSE's venture-driven programs and apply today at www.parisschoolofenentrepreneurship.com
List of sources:
Global reports & workforce analysesPwC – Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey 2024
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/news-room/press-releases/2024/global-hopes-and-fears-survey.htmlPwC – Skills and the Future of Work (2024)
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/alliances/oracle/skills-and-the-future-of-work.html**McKinsey – Taking a Skills-Based Approach to Build the Future Workforce (Historical Context, 2022)
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/taking-a-skills-based-approach-to-build-the-future-workforceHRStacks – 51 HR Statistics & Trends: 2025 Ultimate List
https://www.hrstacks.com/top-hr-statistics/TestGorilla – The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2025 Report
https://www.testgorilla.com/skills-based-hiring/state-of-skills-based-hiring-2025/
LinkedIn – skills-first hiring & future of recruitingLinkedIn – The Business Case for Skills-First Hiring (2025)
https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/business-case-for-skills-first-hiringLinkedIn – The Future of Recruiting 2025
https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/resources/future-of-recruitingLinkedIn – Skills-First Hiring: Why It Matters More Than Ever (2025)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/skills-first-hiring-why-matters-more-than-ever-stanton-house-hipneLinkedIn – Skills-Based Hiring (overview page, 2025)
https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/skills-based-hiringLinkedIn – Skills on the Rise in 2025
https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/learning-and-development/skills-on-the-riseLinkedIn – Hiring Trends in 2025: The Shift Toward Skills-Based Hiring
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hiring-trends-2025-shift-toward-skills-based-spectraforce-w9dxfLinkedIn Economic Graph – Skills-Based Hiring Report (PDF, 2025)
https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/economicgraph/en-us/PDF/skills-based-hiring-march-2025.pdfLinkedIn – WEF skills change by 2030 (post, 2025)
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josephkhart_future-wef-skillsgap-activity-7338961113503494145-qDlLLinkedIn – Trends Reshaping Workforce in 2025: Skill-Based Hiring & Freelancing
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trends-reshaping-workforce-2025-skill-based-hiring-freelancing-ucxuf
Corporate case studies & big‑tech moves (Google, AWS, IBM, Microsoft)Google Cloud Blog – Google Skills, Your New Home for AI Learning (2025)
https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/training-certifications/google-skills-new-home-AI-learningGoogle Careers – Our Hiring Process (2025)
https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/how-we-hire/Google Career Certificates – Employer-linked pathways
https://www.skills.google/collections/career-certificatesAWS – Skills-Based Hiring Program & Early Career Talent (2025)
https://aws.amazon.com/careers/life-at-aws-aws-launches-skills-based-hiring-program-to-grow-opportunities-for-talent/Case Studies – Companies Leveraging Skills Intelligence for Growth (incl. IBM) (2025)
https://inop.ai/case-studies-companies-leveraging-skills-intelligence-for-growth/Fortune – Can’t Get a Job? Blame AI? Train in ‘Power Skills,’ IBM Exec Says (2025)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/16/ai-proof-career-power-skills-critical-thinking-justina-nixon-saintil-ibm/Microsoft – New Future of Work Report 2025 (PDF)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-Future-Of-Work-Report-2025.pdfMicrosoft – Work Trend Index 2025 (Ireland, AI & skills)
https://news.microsoft.com/europe/2025/09/30/microsoft-ireland-work-trend-index-2025-half-of-irish-workers-see-ai-skills-as-a-ca/
Skills-based hiring stats, guides & market trend piecesGetClera – Skills-Based Hiring: Moving Beyond Degree Requirements
https://www.getclera.com/blog/skills-based-hiring-moving-beyond-degree-requirementsSoftwareOasis – Skills-Based Hiring Trends: Big 2025 Statistics & Best Data
https://softwareoasis.com/skills-based-hiring-trends/HiredAI – Skills-Based Hiring 2025: Statistics, Trends & AI Recruiting Software
https://hiredaiapp.com/skills-based-hiring-2025-statistics-trends-ai-recruiting-software/HiredAI – Skills-Based Hiring Revolution 2025: What Recruiters Need to Know
https://hiredaiapp.com/news/skills-based-hiring-revolution-2025-what-recruiters-need-to-know/AssessCandidates – Skills-Based Hiring: The Ultimate 2025/26 Recruiter’s Guide
https://www.assesscandidates.com/skills-based-hiring/UNLEASH – Skills-Based Hiring in 2024: Will It Replace the Classic CV?
https://www.unleash.ai/skills-based-hiring-in-2024-will-it-replace-the-classic-cv/Compunnel – The Rise of Skills-Driven Hiring: Navigate the 2025 Job Market
https://www.compunnel.com/blogs/the-rise-of-skills-driven-hiring-how-to-navigate-the-2025-job-market/EmployerBranding.news – Skills-Based Hiring: The Key to Attracting Top Talent in 2024 (published 2025)
https://employerbranding.news/skills-based-hiring-the-talent-strategy-shift-thats-finally-catching-up-with-common-sense/The Interview Guys – The State of Skills-Based Hiring in 2025
https://blog.theinterviewguys.com/the-state-of-skills-based-hiring/Rezi – AI Is Reshaping Work: Why Skills-Based Hiring Matters and How to Adapt (2025)
https://www.rezi.ai/posts/ai-is-reshaping-work-why-skills-based-hiring-mattersHeroHunt – AI Agents in Recruitment: The Practical Guide (2025)
https://www.herohunt.ai/blog/ai-agents-in-recruitment-the-practical-guideHRPanda – Skills-Based Hiring Gains Traction in 2025 (post)
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hrpanda_skills-based-hiring-the-complete-2026-guide-activity-7401966461839216640-ZsO3Resumly – The Ultimate Guide to the Hidden Job Market (2025)
https://www.resumly.ai/blog/hidden-job-marketHiredAI – How to Beat AI Resume Screening in 2025
https://hiredaiapp.com/how-to-beat-ai-resume-screening-in-2025-job-seekers-complete-guide/STEMgenic – AI Job Search Optimization 2025: The Hybrid Candidate
https://stemgenicglobal.com/ai-job-search-optimization-2025/
Degree inflation, underemployment & cost of inaction for traditional HEForbes – Two Recent Reports Reveal the High Cost of Degree Inflation (2024)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2024/02/28/two-recent-reports-reveal-the-high-cost-of-degree-inflation/AEI / COSM – Some College Graduates Are Taking Lower-Paying Jobs (2024)
https://cosm.aei.org/some-college-graduates-are-taking-lower-paying-jobs/Cleveland Fed – Are Young College Graduates Losing Their Edge in the Job Market? (2025)
https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2025/ec-202514-are-young-college-graduates-losing-their-edge-in-thEconomic Policy Institute – Class of 2024: Young College Graduates Have Experienced a Rapid Economic Recovery (2024)
https://www.epi.org/blog/class-of-2024-young-college-graduates-have-experienced-a-rapid-economic-recovery/U.S. BLS – Employment Status of Recent Associate Degree Recipients and College Graduates (2025)
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/employment-status-of-recent-associate-degree-recipients-and-college-graduates.htmUK Government – Graduate Labour Market Statistics, Calendar Year 2024
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-labour-markets/2024St. Louis Fed – The Jobs and Degrees Underemployed College Graduates Have (2025)
https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/aug/jobs-degrees-underemployed-college-graduates-haveCNBC – College Grads Face One of the Toughest Job Markets in a Decade (2025)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/college-graduates-are-struggling-to-find-jobs-ai-is-partly-to-blame.htmlHigher Ed Dive – Class of 2025 Says They See the Effects of a Tough Job Market (2025)
https://www.highereddive.com/news/class-of-2025-see-the-effects-of-a-tough-job-market/804957/Fortune – Gen Z Might Avoid the Résumé as Most Firms Do Skills-Based Recruitment (2025)
https://fortune.com/article/gen-z-no-resumes-companies-turning-to-skills-based-recruitment/Reddit (relay of FT) – America’s Class of 2024 Graduates into an Uncertain Job Market
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cvn1wo/americas_class_of_2024_graduates_into_an/
Higher education & skills-based hiringUniversity World News – The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring: What It Means for HE (2025)
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250709084819922eCampus News – Beyond the Degree: The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring and What It Means for Higher Education (2025)
https://www.ecampusnews.com/newsline/2025/07/22/beyond-the-degree-the-rise-of-skills-based-hiring-and-what-it-means-for-higher-education/WriteSea – The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring: What It Means for Higher Education
https://writesea.com/blog/skills-based-hiring-higher-education/University World News – Future-Proof Provision Means Offering Degrees Plus Skills (2025)
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251213211619391EMLV – Major Expected Changes in the Labour Market by 2030 (2025)
https://www.emlv.fr/en/major-expected-changes-in-the-labour-market-by-2030/
Future of jobs & skills projectionsCoursera – WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 Reveals a Net Increase in Jobs (summary)
https://blog.coursera.org/wef-future-of-jobs-report-2025/VHTC – Future of Jobs 2030: Skills, Trends, and Insights from the World Economic Forum (2025)
https://www.vhtc.org/2025/10/future-of-jobs-2030-future-skills-report.htmlSSBM – The Fastest-Growing Jobs by 2030: WEF’s Future of Jobs (2025)
https://www.ssbm.ch/fastest-growing-jobs-by-2030-wefs-future-of-jobs-report/
Additional context on AI, job search & resumesUNLEASH – PwC: HR, Become an AI Disruptor by Being Skills-First (2024)
https://www.unleash.ai/future-of-work/pwc-hr-become-an-ai-disruptor-by-being-skills-first/Newswire – Workers Embrace AI and Prioritise Skills Growth (PwC survey, 2024)
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/workers-embrace-ai-and-prioritise-skills-growth-amid-rising-workloads-and-an-accelerating-Dev. to – Buy More Ramen, Devs! Because for Years Ahead, AI Slop ATS Will Kick Our Godly Resumes Hard (2025)
https://dev.to/ryo_suwito/buy-more-ramen-devs-because-for-years-ahead-ai-slop-ats-will-kick-our-godly-resumes-hard-in-the-575iInvestopedia – What 2025 Salary Expectations Mean for Career Changers
https://www.investopedia.com/what-2025-salary-expectations-mean-for-career-changers-11874917