What do you value more in a candidate: education, experience and/or attitude? - General - Careers Clinic

14 What do you value more in a candidate: education, experience and/or attitude?

Community Manager

26 Apr, 2019 11:10

This piece on the BBC caught our attention this morning. More students than ever are earning undergraduate degrees and more people are taking on second degrees but perhaps still lack hands on experience (including in HR).

Two degrees now needed to get higher pay - BBC

Some time ago Rachel asked: “if you could take just one more qualification what would it be...?” and a few people suggested a Masters in HR. Keith added that “HR people [could] always benefit from a good understanding of finance.”

Or should we disregard educational qualifications in the recruitment process entirely?

As Keith said on that particular thread:

"There is no magic answer that will open the doors to a HR career for you. As with all careers it’s a combination of hard work, luck, qualifications, experience and being in the right place at the right time."

What do you value more in a candidate: education, experience and/or attitude?

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Robert James Munro | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 11:35

Not a straighforward question, Steve - in many ways it's all three and will to a great extent depend on the nature of the role you are looking to fill. If it's a software developer vacancy for example then education and experience are above behaviours and attitude. In other roles qualifications may be a compliance need and therefore essential.

But if pushed and we were talking about a generalist/management role, I would rank in order of importance:

- Attitude and Behaviours (how they approach the role and how they undertake it)
- Experience (evidence of performing in a similar role, or a role that would be a good foundation)
- Paper qualifications
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Gemma | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 12:17

Hi Steve

I would agree with the ranking Robert has given these 3 things.

I am a "millennial" or "Gen Y" (as they like to label us) who when looking at options for leaving school was more or less constantly told by my teachers "if you want to get a good job you must go to university" or "oh you'll need a degree if you want to do that" - this of course resulted in myself and many of my friends opting to go to university after college to study our various choices, and by the time we graduated the country was in the middle of a recession and we found that our degrees were more or less completely pointless in trying to get a job. An extreme example yes, but what got myself and my friends into work was the fact that we were willing to work and learn.

I think that education is of course important and in some roles a necessity (I wouldn't want to see a doctor who had never studied medicine and the human body for example) but for most roles a good attitude will definitely take first priority for me closely followed by experience.
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Stacey | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 12:25

Thanks for sharing Steve - an interesting read and a shame that they have had to report on the gender and race pay gap.

I would rank them in the same order as Robert (attitude, experience then qualifications).
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Nina Waters | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 13:41

I agree with the other answers. While they're all important, attitude is the one element that is hardest to add if it isn't there to start with - your new starter can get more experience or qualifications (and with certain types of attitude may want to do both), but shifting their commitment or approach to their work would be much harder.

What is harder about this though is the potential for bias and subjectivity to influence recruitment decisions unfairly. Measuring "attitude" is much less objective, and we're all much more likely to make assumptions about attitudes based on our own.

As ever, it needs to be a mixture of things.
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Liz | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 14:40

I completely agree. "Recruit for attitude and train for skill" has always been a pretty good mantra. In my own experience attitude is the hardest thing to try to change.
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Victoria | 0 Posts

26 Apr, 2019 16:35

Working in a software company I mainly recruit software developers. For me personally, I value experience and attitude equally. From experience I have found that someone can finish uni with a 1st class honours which don't get me wrong is very impressive, however, that does not mean they are going to be the best software developer. Following the initial CV review, we ask all candidates to take part in a coding challenge and this is where I have seen people, who, on paper should be brilliant but haven't been able to complete the challenge or even come close to the answer. Attitude is also so important as we are a small globally distributed team. If someone doesn't have the right attitude it can have a huge impact on morale. I agree with Nina when she wrote that attitude is hardest to add if it is not there to start with.
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Keith | 0 Posts

27 Apr, 2019 13:17

In reply to Robert James Munro:
If you have 100, or 150 candidates (not uncommon) then you will never see the attitude of 95% of them as they will be shortlisted out based on qualifications and/or experience....
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Robey | 0 Posts

29 Apr, 2019 10:55

My order of precedence is:

1. Mandatory qualifications. There are roles in businesses that simply cannot be undertaken without the bare minimum. Gas engineers have to be qualified gas engineers. Drivers have to have a driving licence. Directors have to have not been disqualified from being directors!

2. Experience. We are a small, FMCG business and can't always afford to waste time on someone getting up to speed.

3. Attitude. Can easily swap places with the previous. We would love to recruit more on attitude than experience, but it's hard to test at interview.

4. Everything else.
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Ray | 0 Posts

29 Apr, 2019 13:12

In reply to Robey:
Agree strongly with Robey, and would include in «experience »

- proven application of necessary skills and knowledge »;
- a relevant context in which the experience has been obtained.
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Cass Clothier | 0 Posts

29 Apr, 2019 15:32

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Sharon | 0 Posts

4 May, 2019 17:39

In reply to Gemma:
Hi Gemma, I'm not a millenial and I was given the exact same advice as you were at school. I graduated into a recession where inflation was 15%. I was the first person in my family to get a degree so it meant a lot to get to university in the first place however, I feel my attitude, application and continuous approach to my own development is probably the thing that gets me and keeps getting me work. Hopefully it will continue to be so and evolving a skillset to adapt to the changing market, tech and what the future holds is probably an approach that is even more applicable to today's job seekers.
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Elizabeth Divver | 0 Posts

4 May, 2019 19:31

In reply to Sharon:

Hi Gemma and Sharon

Me too! I graduated into a recession and the newspapers were full of “graduates on the dole” stories. Then we went into the yuppie years and a boom. Then another recession. Then times were quite good again and the cycle of boom and bust was supposed to be a thing of the past. And then we had the banking crash. Then austerity and cuts.

For some years we have also been talking about the war for talent and how recruitment has changed, but I see recent graduates still struggling to get their first proper job so, to come back to the question, that suggests to me that experience is being prioritised and my own lived experience is that it was ever thus.

While there are some jobs you can’t do without a specific qualification, the organisation I currently work for has hardly any. For me, experience comes first but if the attitude isn’t right, the person never lasts.
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David Perry | 0 Posts

4 May, 2019 20:00

In reply to Keith:
And of course Keith if they are expected to complete bland application forms and not CV's you won't even get a glimpse of their personality/attitude maybe.
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Sharon | 0 Posts

6 May, 2019 15:44

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:
To get a job someone has to take a chance on us. A chance that our attitude was right, a chance that my understanding of what was required was good enough and that I had some relevant and transferable skills for the job - acquired from anywhere not just another similar role. Without someone taking a chance none of us would have the careers we have now. I try and remember that when I am recruiting.
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