Companies struggling to hire and retain millennials may be looking for talent in all the wrong places.

That’s according to results from a new survey in which 1,200 c-suite executives, human-resources officers, and people aged 18 to 26 were asked how they viewed the entry-level job market.

Some 70% of the employers told surveyors from the Rockefeller Foundation and Edelman Intelligence, a division of the public-relations firm, that they screen entry-level applicants’ resumes for bachelor’s degrees. Meantime, 40% of companies complained that high employee turnover is the result of workers feeling overqualified for their beginning roles. Most of the recent college grads confirmed that their jobs tapped skills they picked up outside of school.

“I’ve heard of employers requiring college experience and months of recent work experience for jobs at a call center. Twenty years ago that wouldn’t have been the case,” said Abigail Carlton, a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation. Only a third of Americans aged 25 to 34 have graduated from college, but a university degree has become a “blunt proxy” for ability, she said, leaving behind many young people who are capable of learning on the job.

Employers rely on college degrees because they often signal applicants possess so-called soft skills, like dedication or resilience—attributes that can be harder for employers to measure than technical skills, said Matt Sigelman, chief executive of Burning Glass Technology, a labor-market analysis firm.