Why the Bachelors degree is the new minimum requirement for getting a job.

The bachelors degree is becoming the new college diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.
Many Kenyan employers nowadays hire only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require university-level skills.

This prerequisite applies to everyone, including the receptionist, administrative assistants and file clerks. Even the office “runner” — the in-house courier who, for some little cash per day, ferries documents back and forth between the departments in the office — went to a university.
Across industries, many other jobs that didn’t used to require a degree — positions like drivers, secretaries, admin assistants, receptionists — are increasingly requiring one.
This up-credentialing is pushing the less educated even further down the food chain, and it helps explain why the unemployment rate for workers with no more than a college certificate or diploma is higher than that for workers with a bachelor’s degree:

Some jobs, like those in supply chain management and logistics, have become more technical, and so require more advanced skills today than they did in the past. But more broadly, because so many people are
going to university now, those who do not graduate are often assumed to be unambitious or less capable.
Plus, it’s a buyer’s market for employers.

“When you get 1,000 CVs for every job ad, you need to weed them out somehow,” says a recruiter with a leading Kenyan recruitment agency.
“When I started recruiting in the 1990s, you didn’t need a university degree, but there weren’t that many candidates,” the recruiter says further.

“However, for certain specialized positions in the technical fields, like technicians, clinical officers, nurses and the other medical professionals, a college diploma will still continue to remain relevant for a long time to come”, she concludes.

Posted in: Career Advice