[zifpanachr23]

Absolutely, a lot of companies include that, but that isn't binding on how individuals evaluate resumes.

However, when I say it's often a hard requirement, I do mean that literally. The "or equivalent experience" bit isn't there a significant percentage of the time for the sorts of jobs I typically apply for (nothing that has actual regulatory reasons to require a license or degree). Then you wind up with the person that was trying to hire you having to petition up to the division executive for an exemption to company policy or something ridiculous like that. If you aren't really really good, that's often a dealbreaker. I suspect I lost out on many opportunities that way because I can only really evaluate the instances where they tell you about the petition and then tell you it went well (if it went poorly, might as well tell you "we decided to go with another candidate" or just not tell you about the policy).

Additionally, sometimes the lack of strict degree requirement doesn't mean a lack of paperwork that could be prohibitive. Or they'll say something like "every three years of professional experience will make up for one year less of education", which besides being a silly ratio, is essentially a prohibition on hiring people without a degree because I'm not about to accept a very underleveled offer due to how they arbitrarily weight years of education vs years of professional experience. I've been desperate before but never that desperate thank goodness.

As far as being a legal standard, I'm not aware of and have probably never lived in an area where an "or equivalent experience" statement was actually required, on account of it being missing for maybe ~50% or so of the jobs I've applied to or been hired for. If companies are being sued and losing over the lack of that statement, absent other evidence of discrimination based on applicant membership in a protected class, that would be news to me.