Business leaders joined lawmakers and representatives from state universities at the Southern New Jersey Development Council’s Public Policy Speaker series to address gaps in workforce development.

The Mount Laurel event’s keynote speaker, New Jersey’s Secretary of Higher Education Zakiya Smith Ellis, wants to create a forum for employers to help colleges and universities understand what skills they’re looking for when hiring students, in an effort to better equip potential new employees with an understanding of a given job.

Some employers revealed that they are dropping traditional requirements for hiring new talent, including having a college degree, opting to value other qualities instead.

“Our young people even though they don’t have a degree, have the social skills, have the emotional intelligence, have the resilience to meet the challenges of business,” said Dan Rhoton, executive director of Hopeworks ‘N Camden. “All things that aren’t screened for in a bachelor’s degree but are very much prepared for when you’ve had to do a lot of things on your own in life.”

Among speakers was a shared sentiment of the necessity of changing the means and methods used to recruit young talent for jobs.

“We have to change the mentality of what we are providing to the talent that’s coming out of the schools to keep them close to home and understand they don’t need to run out to the inner cities to find companies like us,” said OceanFirst Bank’s Vincent D’Alessandro.

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