Experience -v- Qualifications

digitalscream

I've always considered it as "Qualifications will get you an interview, experience will get you the job."

Everything I've seen has proven that to be correct over and over. In my industry, at least.

ToneControl

digitalscream said:

I've always considered it as "Qualifications will get you an interview, experience will get you the job."

Everything I've seen has proven that to be correct over and over. In my industry, at least.

yep, qualifications are  a very good  mechanism for  pre-screening before interview

Teetonetal

No one should be walking into a management position based on qualifications.... to my mind you also shouldn't be a manager if you stay in one company. You need experience and challenges brought from various roles over years. 

But when you are talking about a non managerial job then skills / experience / qualifications is a blend that changes with age. Saying that, Swiss RE require a masters to even interview....

jonnyburgo

Some people just aren't academic. Myself included. I was always more of a working with my hands kind of guy. Im largely self taught apart from a Counselling Diploma from night school. Bro in a law is a big cheese at his school, 7 yrs of study and he can't put a shelf up, I'm not even joking, I have to go round and do it. I'm always telling my kids that they are going to university though. It opens doors as said above many times.

ToneControl

Teetonetal said:

No one should be walking into a management position based on qualifications.... to my mind you also shouldn't be a manager if you stay in one company. You need experience and challenges brought from various roles over years. 

But when you are talking about a non managerial job then skills / experience / qualifications is a blend that changes with age. Saying that, Swiss RE require a masters to even interview....

For what roles?

MrBump

digitalscream said:

I've always considered it as "Qualifications will get you an interview, experience will get you the job."

Everything I've seen has proven that to be correct over and over. In my industry, at least.

This.  

I'm a hiring manager for a large bank, and I see so many CVs that are broadly the same.  You have to filter, so I tend to filter on quals, and the things done outside of academia.  I like to see CVs from people who have travelled, or built weird things, or set up their own company (regardless of whether it tanked or not - in fact, maybe better if it tanked!).  Then when you get them in for an interview, to engage the bull-o-meter.  It's staggering the number of blokes (I work in IT - it's nearly all blokes) that take the p!ss at interview, and can't back up a lavish CV.

Handsome_Chris

ToneControl said:

Teetonetal said:

No one should be walking into a management position based on qualifications.... to my mind you also shouldn't be a manager if you stay in one company. You need experience and challenges brought from various roles over years. 

But when you are talking about a non managerial job then skills / experience / qualifications is a blend that changes with age. Saying that, Swiss RE require a masters to even interview....

For what roles?

Warburton's.

LoFi

ToneControl said:

So if Oxford now gives over 93% a 2:1 or 1st, then I should take one of them with a 2:1,   rather than considering someone with a 2:2 from an earlier year, or a different Uni?

I'm not surprised that Oxford awards that many firsts and upper-seconds - their intake is made up of people who are either very bright or pretty bright and very hard-working. But this highlights why there needs to be some sort of standardization between Universities - is a 2:2 from Oxford equal to a 2:1 from Bath, or even a 1st from a low-ranked Uni?

Personal anecdote (and therefore inadmissable as evidence) - I did CompSci at Bristol in the late 90's. A friend of mine did the same course at UEA. At the time, Bristol was comfortably top-10 (it seems to have slipped quite a lot since). UEA was towards the bottom of the league table.

We met up at Christmas after our first term. The difference in what we'd learned was staggering - he had just started stuff I'd covered in the second week of term. My initial thought was "OK, maybe they did other things first" but on drilling further, they really had spent an 11-week term covering what we'd done in our first two weeks.

Back to the OP, as it looks possible I'll be back in the job market shortly, I've had a look around, and some jobs are now specifying 2:1s as a requirement, which surprised me, given that the roles I'm looking at are ones that would typically expect 10-15 years experience.

Axe_meister

Well I've been working 23 years in IT without a single IT qualification to my name.
I did my degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

menamestom

Axe_meister said:

Well I've been working 23 years in IT without a single IT qualification to my name.
I did my degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

I'm more comfortable with that than IT graduates fixing Airliners.

Rocker

DefaultM said:

I don't really understand the problem. He already has a very good job, and he has 20 years experience but he feels he might lose the job if he doesn't have another qualification?

A good question.  One I put to him.  His reply: Now and then there is a re-organization of the operation and he feels that following such a re-organization,  he would not be chosen to do the job he is doing at present as the other candidates would have higher qualifications.  Not all HR people/interviewing panelists are fully aware of the nature of the job and they may not know the ins and outs of the operation due to secrecy and security.  Following the old 'nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM' thinking, it is safer [one is less likely to get sacked if it does not work out] to appoint the most highly qualified candidate. 

Clarky

Handsome_Chris said:

ToneControl said:

Teetonetal said:

No one should be walking into a management position based on qualifications.... to my mind you also shouldn't be a manager if you stay in one company. You need experience and challenges brought from various roles over years. 

But when you are talking about a non managerial job then skills / experience / qualifications is a blend that changes with age. Saying that, Swiss RE require a masters to even interview....

For what roles?

Warburton's.

Experienced bread eater required
skinnies need not apply

Barney

Experience is proof that you can do the job and qualifications show you know how to go about it...
Iv seen it so many times with newly qualified people in all trades ...that plan work out on paper and shocked because it dosnt really work like that in the real world....saying that i think you need both to get the jobs.. 

holnrew

I have neither, and no hope

57Deluxe

BUT - if a someone said a bloke down the pub could repair my hernia for me without me having to wait up to 10 months on an NHS waiting list cos he had done it loads of times before... I would be leaning towards waiting for a geez with a certificate on his office wall.