A new campaign from Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council encourages companies to tear the paper ceiling. The message encourages companies to employ people who don’t have college degrees but have been skilled through alternative routes. STARs are a valuable talent pool that should be strong candidates for hire.

Annie Garneva, interim CEO of NYC Employment and Training Coalition, says about 80% of the people served by NYCETC are STARS. “The coalition is the biggest local-based association of direct service providers doing workforce development in the country. We have over 200 members helping New Yorkers get jobs and get trained in a wide variety of sectors across the five boroughs in New York City. Collectively, we serve about 500,000 New Yorkers.”

Garneva loves the message of Tear the Paper Ceiling, but says employers need help understanding the dropping of the college degree requirement. “At the top level, there might be some leaders saying, ‘Yes, this is what we need to do to change our talent acquisition strategy.’ The implementation plans and figuring out how to do it. And then also helping the hiring directors make those decisions – don’t exist. It needs to be a system-wide approach that employers don’t yet really know how to do so they fall back on their habits.”

Learn more about The Paper Ceiling.
Learn more about Opportunity@Work.
Learn more about the Ad Council.
Learn more about NYC Employment and Training Coalition.