You’re looking for a new job; you’ve conducted hours of painstaking research and evaluation only to see an innocuous bullet point on the advert. Degree Required. Can experience make up for the lack of a college degree or does a degree provide something that experience cannot? Is one more valuable than the other?

Why A College Degree?

You’re hiring for a particularly pressing vacancy. The shortlist is of two. A seasoned worker with many years of experience and someone of similar age, less experienced but with a Degree specialized in a relevant subject. Who do you choose?

Manger hiring managers seek candidates with a college degree because it is proof of Academic Intelligence. Additionally, a degree demonstrates mastery of a base level of knowledge and gives a potential employer a ‘degree’ of certainty regarding future performance and progression.

Why Experience?

Proof of experience demonstrates that the candidate has done the job and demonstrates a core understanding of the intricacies of the position.

But what if you couldn’t afford University? Does studying for a degree really make you a stronger candidate than someone without? Don’t the most stereotypical university stories start with, “one night, we were really drunk…”?

This Education vs Experience debate is not limited to a specific industry. In medicine, chances are you’d want a Surgeon with a PhD to operate on you than someone with 10 years of experience utilizing ‘trial and error’ tactics. Similarly, this is the same as travelling via plane. You’d rather have an accredited pilot rather than someone with numerous hours of training but no title.

However, don’t be discouraged! Think of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time – Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, there’s not a degree among them.

I’ve drafted more job descriptions, adverts, and vacancy notes and edited more CV’s than I’d care to admit. From observation, a vast majority of candidates possess a college degree. But, does it actually make a difference?

It’s Up To The Hiring Manager

For a Hiring Manager, any hire is a calculated risk. It is no bout surely the ultimate goal is to pick the right person from an experience, education and personality standpoint. Does that mean then that the conclusion is simply ‘it depends’?

In essence, this blog has been ‘chasing its proverbial tail’ trying to argue right and reason, but at the end of the day, what if there is no right or reason. There is no right for a Degree to take precedence over experience or vice versa. However, it is up to the hiring manager to decide whether a degree is their #1 priority.

There are countless victims on both sides. There are many who have invested years of their lives to become educated only to find that they can’t get a job because they’re too inexperienced and those that have worked for countless years only to discover that can’t get a job because they don’t have a degree.

So where do you stand? Does education prevail over experience? Have you experienced this type of prejudice in your job search?

Ultimately, in my opinion, I don’t think there is any right or wrong answer…unless you read between the lines and find a candidate with a combination of experience and a degree, but that defeats the point of the article. Who says that someone with nine years of experience shouldn’t find themselves up against a graduate? Or vice versa.

Surely these people can find a more common sensical scale than that. At the end of the day, even those fresh out of college have to start somewhere. Although their skills and education might well help them rise and progress further, further down the track.



At the end of the day only the hiring manager can decide who’s right for the job and the only way you can be considered is if you have a relevant, tailored CV and interview well in person.