--- title: "The verification gap: can we still measure what matters?" description: Firms dropped degree requirements, but fewer than one in 700 new hires were people the old rules excluded. David Harkin on the same gap in schools. image: https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/THE%20PIE-2.png --- [![8billionideas logo](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/8billionideas_April2022/images/logo.svg "8billionideas logo")](https://www.8billionideas.com/) - [About Us](https://www.8billionideas.com/about) - [What we do](https://www.8billionideas.com/product) - [Blog](https://journal.8billionideas.com/) - [Perform Better](https://page.8billionideas.com/perform-better-2023) - [About Us](https://www.8billionideas.com/about) - [What we do](https://www.8billionideas.com/product) - [Blog](https://journal.8billionideas.com/) - [Perform Better](https://page.8billionideas.com/perform-better-2023) ![](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/THE%20PIE-2.png) # The verification gap: can we still measure what matters? Published by [David J Harkin](https://journal.8billionideas.com/author/david-j-harkin) on Oct 7, 2026, 9:52:38 AM **Fewer than one in 700.** That is how many new hires, at firms that had publicly dropped degree requirements, were people the old rules would have screened out. Researchers at Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute reached that figure after tracking more than 11,000 job postings between 2014 and 2023. The job adverts changed. The hiring barely did. ## What employers want, and what they can check Ask employers what they want from a graduate and the list rarely varies: judgement, communication, collaboration and resilience. Ask how they check for those things and the confidence drops. TestGorilla's 2025 State of Skills-Based Hiring report found that 53% of employers say working out whether a candidate has the right skills is the hardest part of hiring. Roughly nine in 10 UK and US employers say a CV cannot tell them whether what is written on it is true. Remove the degree requirement and most employers still have no reliable way to check what should replace it. So they keep leaning on the signal they already know how to read. ## Schools face the same gap In his latest piece for The PIE News, our CEO and co-founder David Harkin argues that schools now face a strikingly similar problem. It is a question he keeps hearing from school and university leaders across the UK, the Middle East and Asia: if a school says a student can collaborate, communicate or think critically, how does anyone know that is true? A reference letter is one person's judgement. A personal statement is self-reported. An annual skills profile is often a form filled in once a year. Each is a claim. None of them is evidence. Generative AI has raised the stakes. A polished personal statement can now be produced in seconds, with nothing behind it. Claims are cheaper than ever, at the very moment universities and employers are relying on them to make hard decisions. David is clear that this is not a criticism of teachers. It is about the systems around them, which were rarely built to produce evidence that holds up when questioned by someone who wasn't in the room. ## What verification looks like David's answer is not more exams. More testing would only reward a different kind of performance – better rehearsed, not better proven. Instead, he argues for assessment designed so that the evidence of a skill and the evidence of who produced it arrive together. That is the model behind OxfordAQA's International GCSE Global Skills Projects, for which 8billionideas provides teaching and learning support: - Students work in groups, but they are marked only on their own contribution, never on the group's combined output. - Students and teachers complete candidate record forms that authenticate who did what at every stage, not just at the end. - Nothing rests on a single test on a single day. Evidence is collected and authenticated as the work happens. It is a more demanding model for a school to run. It is also a more honest one, because what it produces is not a claim about a student. It is a record. ## Read the full piece David's article sets out why the verification gap matters to schools, universities and employers alike, and what it would take to close it. **Read "The verification gap: can we still measure what matters?" on The PIE News:** [https://thepienews.com/the-verification-gap-can-we-still-measure-what-matters/](https://thepienews.com/the-verification-gap-can-we-still-measure-what-matters/) [Back to Blog](https://journal.8billionideas.com) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) ![8billionideas logomark](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/8billionideas_April2022/images/8bill-icon.svg "8billionideas logomark") hello@8billionideas.com 020 7754 0398 [![Green Instagram icon](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/insta.svg)](http://8billionideas.com/instagram) [![Green Twitter icon](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/twitter.svg)](http://8billionideas.com/twitter) [![youtube](https://journal.8billionideas.com/hubfs/youtube.svg)](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBsKeJdYtWy5aHDToETzBiw) #### COMPANY - [About us](https://www.8billionideas.com/about) - [What we do](https://www.8billionideas.com/product) - [Blog](https://journal.8billionideas.com) - [Safeguarding](https://8billionideas.notion.site/Safeguarding-Procedures-f4833eb5c12f4f91a2c1e35a6537a9be) - Privacy Policy #### RESOURCES - [Future Jobs Kit 2.0](https://page.8billionideas.com/future-jobs-kit-2.0) - [Podcast](https://8billionideas.simplecast.com) #### PROGRAMMES - [Perform Better](https://page.8billionideas.com/perform-better-2023) - [The Internship](https://page.8billionideas.com/the-8bill-internship) - [Work Smart](https://page.8billionideas.com/work-smart) © 2026 8billionideas. 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