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

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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  • 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.
  • 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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