Evidence

Leadership is interested

Interviews with senior leadership and the value of skills-focused education.

Art Morrish

Former director of DARPA, VP of Raytheon, and CEO of Aspire

Skills > scores

From a business perspective, I love the idea of hiring someone who has focused on maximizing their skills and experiences, not their GPA.”

Supporting Keystone

“I think building a way to maximize skills is a fantastic idea.”

Value inertia

“In my experience, hiring new graduates meant training for upwards of a year before they really started providing value.”

Ability to think

“The most important thing I’m looking for in a new hire is the ability to think, not the ability to manipulate rote equations.”

In conversation with Eric Wolfson, 2026. Quoted with permission.

What leaders are saying

From people who run hiring operations and lead universities, to job market experts.

Application flood

You got 1,000 applications, and you think all 1,000 people are not qualified? Something’s wrong.”

Hisayuki Idekoba

CEO, Indeed

Two more from this source

Real or AI?

“How can we make sure job seekers are a real person, and it’s not an AI application, and they’re serious, and they’re qualified.”

Bots applying

“…employers complain about unresponsive candidates and surging application volumes, thanks in part to AI bots that flood open roles with résumés.”

Business Insider, on what Idekoba hears from employers

Business Insider, interview by Tim Paradis, September 12, 2026. Photo: Recruit Holdings press image. Read it here

Eroding trust

Trust is at an all-time low for both job seekers and recruiters.”

Daniel Chait

CEO, Greenhouse

Fortune, November 18, 2025. Photo: Greenhouse press image. Read it here

Shrinking market

Kids coming out of college … are having a hard time finding jobs.”

Jerome Powell

Chair, Federal Reserve

Two more from this source

Low hiring

“In a healthier economy, healthier labor market, there would be jobs for those people. But now the hiring rate is very, very low.”

AI at the entry level

“It may be that companies or other institutions that have been hiring younger people right out of college are able to use AI more than they had in the past.”

Chair Powell, asked whether AI explains it

Federal Reserve, transcript of Chair Powell’s press conference, September 17, 2025, pages 10 and 17. Photo: Federal Reserve official portrait, public domain. Read it here

Fake candidates

…by 2028, one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake.”

Gartner, July 2025

Gartner press release, July 31, 2025. Read it here

Shrinking market

Employers [are] saying, ‘I don’t hire entry-level anymore.’”

Svenja Gudell

Chief Economist, Indeed

Fortune, June 1, 2026. Photo: Indeed Hiring Lab press image. Read it here

Eroding trust

We believe the issue of declining trust is real, urgent, and must be addressed.”

Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education

Co-chaired by Beverly Gage, John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History (pictured), and Julia Adams, Margaret H. Marshall Professor of Sociology

Two more from this source

Grades no longer signal

“As grades cluster, they cease to convey useful information about relative student achievement.”

Grade like we mean it

“Grades exist to communicate what students have learned. At Yale, as at many peer institutions, they no longer do.”

Recommendation 13 of the report

Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, April 10, 2026, pages 2, 20 and 29. Photo: National Endowment for the Humanities portrait of Beverly Gage, public domain. Read it here

Articles and reports

The published work behind the statements above and behind the way this site describes the problem.

A recruiter reviewing a printed CV at a desk

01GreenhouseNovember 19, 2025Employers

74% of US hiring managers worry more about fake credentials than the year prior, and 91% of US recruiters claim finding deceptive applications.

US sample of 665 recruiters and hiring managers; Greenhouse sells hiring software.

Greenhouse, 2025 AI in Hiring Report, November 19, 2025. Read it here

Greenhouse, 2025 AI in Hiring Report, November 19, 2025. Read it here
Gartner press release, July 31, 2025. Read it here
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, data for the second quarter of 2026. Read it here
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, February 2026. Median annual wages, full-time workers aged 22 to 27, 2024. Read it here
Inside Higher Ed, September 26, 2025. Read it here
National Association of Colleges and Employers, Job Outlook 2026, as reported by Inside Higher Ed, November 17, 2025. Read it here
ZipRecruiter, Graduate Survey 2026, April 16, 2026. Survey of 1,500 Class of 2025 graduates; ZipRecruiter runs a job marketplace. Read it here
The Harvard Crimson, May 20, 2026. Read it here
Gallup, July 13, 2026. Read it here
Lumina Foundation and Gallup, "Aligning Education and Work," employer survey of 2,000, March 2026. Read it here
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2024. Read it here
National Center for Education Statistics. Read it here
U.S. News & World Report, August 25, 2026. Read it here
Pearson plc, January 31, 2022. Read it here

Company