Experience Versus Education

Experience versus Education

In Career Advancement

Since a young age we are all told that an education will land us the career of our choice. We are told that we must graduate from High School and then chose a college wisely to pursue our dream job. Have you ever thought that experience in the work force can be as equally credible as a college degree? While considering a candidate for a position in the workplace, a college degree and experience should be weighed equally. I would like to persuade employers to consider candidates with experience, while these particular candidates are pursuing their college education; not dismiss them simply because they have not yet obtained that degree.

I am not suggesting that this will work for every position within any field. We all know that one cannot become a doctor or a lawyer without a college education. However, while working within a specific field a person does gain experience within that field that a person only going to college does not. Hands on experiences should be considered an important trait to hiring managers and should be something that they look for when scanning through resumes for possible candidates and they should not toss out a resume because a degree is not mentioned.

College degrees can tell an employer a little bit about a person before ever meeting them. An employer can determine that a person with a college degree is motivated, they have the ability to analyze problems, they are intelligent, and they will have better interpersonal skills. [ (Ha, 2008) ] These are automatic assumptions that employers see with a person holding a degree. I would like to stress that this does not mean that a person that has not yet obtained their degree does not hold any of these qualities; it just means that they have to prove that they have them. The only way a person can prove to have these qualities it through experience.

When considering a candidate for a higher position, a hiring manager...