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LinkedIn looks to a future where skills are valued more than college degrees

Traditional college education might just be overvauled. LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner said he wants skills to be valued more than college degrees.

The topic about skills and degrees often makes its way within the business world. Back in 2013 Google changed its policy and started hiring more people who have graduated high school, but haven’t gone to college.

Why? Because the company thinks that college degrees, marks and transcripts are not really important. In fact, Google thinks that colleges actually hinder people’s development. For one, professors often expect a specific answer. Google thinks its much more interesting to solve problems which don’t have a specific or an obvious answer. Also, Google notes that college performance is completely unrelated to the performance at the company. That’s because people use and learn completely different skills.

College still has what to offer

Of course, this doesn’t mean that college education is completely useless. Google still hires people with high degrees as it shows they have intelligence and knowledge. Usually these people land jobs that pay higher, too. But it doesn’t mean that people who haven’t been to college have or shouldn’t have no chance at these jobs.

“Historically here, there’s been a tremendous amount of weight that’s been given to four-year university degrees and not nearly enough weight in my opinion is given to vocational training facilities and vocational training certifications,” Weiner said Tuesday at Recode’s Code Enterprise conference in San Francisco.

“We would do much better if we stopped ensuring that everyone had to have a four-year degree to get certain types of jobs and started being open to the fact that there’s a much broader array of talents and skills and perspectives and experiences that people can be successful,” Weiner continued.

LinkedIn also wants to join the online education market. The company can see what job openings are most popular and see how to offer trainings for the needed skills for them. It shows the huge potential in the EdTech market.