A new campaign from Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council encourages companies to hire people who are skilled through alternative routes or STARs. The message is that people who don’t have college degrees are fully capable of filling certain jobs so employers should tear the paper ceiling.

Naomi Boyer, executive director of digital transformation with Education Design Lab, says being able to digitally capture someone’s skills can open up opportunities. “In a digital format, a web machine readable open format, I can share everything that I know and can do, what are my experiences, and I’m able to communicate those. It’s about enabling technology to elevate the work that we do. It’s about using the tech product to make the world possible, to make opportunity possible, to improve economic vitality and opportunity.”

Regarding hiring algorithms, Boyer says, “How do we think about improving those technologies that have been barriers? Those technologies are often set up by our own human biases. The algorithms and the questions are being generated in areas because it’s the way we’ve always done things. As we start moving into artificial intelligence, those AI tools have to be mitigated for the bias that we introduce as humans.”

Learn more about The Paper Ceiling.
Learn more about Opportunity@Work.
Learn more about the Ad Council.
Learn more about Education Design Lab.