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

Steve Bridger

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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  • 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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  • 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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