Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How One Company Removed Degree Requirements for Management Roles
Transcript
- Lucas: So a big retailer — and I'm thinking of one in particular — made a decision a couple years ago that essentially said: you no longer need a four-year degree to become a store manager, district manager, or even a regional operations lead. They dropped the requirement for roughly fifty thousand management roles. Luna: Fifty thousand roles — that's not a pilot program. That's a wholesale shift in how they define qualified talent. Which retailer are we talking about? Lucas: Target. And they announced this back in early 2024 — but what's interesting is, we now have about two years of data to look at. So we can actually see how it played out. Luna: Before we go deep on the numbers — and I want those numbers — if you're listening and you've ever felt locked out of a role because you didn't have the 'right' degree, this episode is for you. And if this show has helped you think through a career move or decision, we'd be grateful if you'd consider supporting it at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's how we stay ad-free and focused on the real stories. Back to you, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. So Target's announcement was part of a broader push they called 'skills-first hiring.' But the management piece was the biggest change. Before 2024, about 90 percent of their store managers held a bachelor's degree. After removing the requirement, they started using something called the 'Target Manager Readiness Assessment' — which is essentially a job simulation and problem-solving test. Luna: And what does that test measure? I'm picturing something like: you walk into a store, there's an inventory issue, a staffing shortage, and an upset customer — and you have to triage in real time. Lucas: That's actually pretty close. The assessment puts candidates through scenarios that mirror the actual job — inventory management, team scheduling, conflict resolution, financial decision-making under time pressure. It's not an IQ test. It's a realistic job preview, and it takes about ninety minutes to complete. Luna: So they replaced a credential — which is a proxy — with a direct measure of job performance. That's the theory anyway. But what did the early data show? Lucas: The first thing they noticed was a significant shift in the demographics of who was getting hired. Within the first year, 45 percent of new managers hired under the new system were people of color. Before the change, that number was 28 percent. And internal promotions from hourly store associate to salaried management increased by 22 percent. Luna: That internal promotion number is huge. Because that's not just about opening the door — it's about creating a visible career ladder for people already in the building. The person stocking shelves at night now sees a path to running a store. Lucas: Exactly. And Target also built an apprenticeship program alongside it. They call it 'Target Accelerator' — a twelve-month program where hourly team members get mentorship, formal training in operations and finance, and a guaranteed management interview at the end. No degree required. You just have to have worked at Target for at least a year. Luna: So that addresses both the 'how do I get in' and the 'how do I advance' question. But I'm curious about the pushback. Did they face skepticism from existing managers or from the broader talent pool? Lucas: There was definitely skepticism. Some people worried that removing the degree requirement would lower the quality of management. But Target's own data after the first year showed that performance ratings for new managers hired without degrees were statistically identical to those with degrees. And turnover among first-year managers actually dropped by about 8 percent. Luna: Huh. So the credential was filtering out capable people without improving outcomes. That's the classic case for dismantling degree requirements. But I think a lot of companies worry about the logistics — how do you redesign hiring processes at scale? Lucas: Right, and that's the part that rarely gets talked about. Target didn't just flip a switch. They spent months redesigning job descriptions, training recruiters and hiring managers to evaluate the assessment results, and recalibrating their interview rubrics. They also removed education history from the initial screening system altogether — so a recruiter wouldn't even see whether a candidate had a degree until the offer stage. Luna: That's a practical detail that matters. If you still let bias creep in at the screening stage, the policy change is hollow. So they made it structurally impossible to filter by degree early on. Lucas: And they also expanded their recruiting pipeline. Instead of just posting on LinkedIn and college job boards, they started partnerships with community-based organizations, workforce development nonprofits, and even some trade schools. One of their biggest sources of candidates for management roles now is actually their own hourly workforce. Luna: Which makes sense — you already know that person can show up on time, handle stress, and work with customers. The assessment just gives you a standardized way to see if they can handle the management part. Lucas: There's one more number I want to share. In 2025, Target reported that over 60 percent of the participants in the Accelerator program were people of color, and about 70 percent were women. That's a pipeline that looks very different from the typical retail management demographic. Luna: So this isn't just about dropping a barrier — it's about actively building a new on-ramp. I want to ask about the broader industry impact. Have other retailers followed suit? Lucas: Some have. Walmart, for example, had already removed degree requirements for certain corporate roles, but they haven't gone as far as Target on the store management side. Best Buy has a similar apprenticeship model but on a smaller scale. The interesting thing is that Target's approach has been studied by other industries — a few hospital systems and even a regional bank have reached out to their HR team to learn about the assessment design. Luna: That's the thing about a good case study — it travels. And it sounds like the key ingredient is the assessment itself. If you don't have a valid, job-specific test, removing the degree requirement just creates a different kind of randomness in hiring. Lucas: Right. The assessment has to actually predict performance. Target validated theirs by giving it to current managers and correlating scores with existing performance reviews. They found a strong correlation, which gave them confidence to use it as the primary filter. Luna: I think there's a lesson here for any organization that says 'we want more diversity' but hasn't touched its hiring criteria. You can't just post a job with a degree requirement and hope for a different outcome. You have to change the gate itself. Lucas: And that's ultimately what Target did. The gate is now a set of demonstrated skills and problem-solving behaviors, not a line on a résumé. Two years in, the early returns suggest it's working — for the company and for the thousands of employees who now have a path they didn't have before. Luna: I'd love to check back in another year or two to see if those retention and promotion numbers hold. But for now, it's a concrete example of how one company changed the rules of the game.