If you’re entering the world of work or thinking about a career change, you might be wondering if experience is more important than a degree, or vice versa.
Here we explore the benefits of education vs experience – including gaining those sought-after transferabok we all need a drink!le skills. We also go down the experience vs education route and see how many employers favour industry experience over a 2:1. You'll also find out what is the work experience equivalent to bachelor degree.
You might just hit on the Holy Grail for employers, too – education and experience – whether you’re fresh out of school or a job veteran looking to swap careers.
Experience or education: which is more important?
If you’re entering the world of work or thinking about a career change, you might be wondering if experience is more important than having a degree, or vice versa. And if you haven't got what you need, is it too late? Let’s take a look.
Education vs Experience
A university dean would sit you down and explain the importance of getting a degree. Many professions – such as doctors, lawyers and engineers – demand it, and it’ll certainly crop up under ‘desirable’ on many job postings.
So why do we need education? Well, the dean would say it teaches you transferable skills such as the ability to research, analyse and manage your time. A degree will also show employers you can soak up information and learn quickly.
Experience vs Education
A self-made entrepreneur, on the other hand, would tell you experience is key. If you enter the world of work straight out of school, they’d say, you’ll learn on the job and gain three or more years’ industry experience than uni leavers.
When it comes to career progression, recruiters will see you’ve got grit to succeed and that it’ll take less time to train – or ‘on-board’ – you to be job ready. Plus, if you’ve been in an industry for a few years it shows your commitment – and that you won’t flake out after a year.
Experience and Education
Truth is, it’s not as simple as education or experience. Greedy employers want both. A recent survey by recruitment specialists Universum found that 58% of leading employers value work experience among graduates more than grades or the name of their university.
So if you have your heart set on further education, it’s worth considering doing a sandwich course, which mixes hands-on training with academic study. If your course doesn’t do that, you can still find work placement that'll help you become more commercially aware.
If you’re already in the workplace, good employers will give you time – and resources – to study for industry qualifications. This has become even easier recently thanks to advances in remote learning technology.
It’s on you
Most employers want to see theoretical and practical skills from candidates. But you can gain both from experience and education. So if you’re fretting about which road to start out on – uni or job; don’t. You can gain both skill sets whichever you choose. And remember, you can always go back to uni or retrain in a different profession later in life.
Next to work experience, that Universum study found that 48% of employers choose candidates because of their personality. And you can learn favourable life skills at uni, on the job or at home. Socialising, for example, helps you work with others. It’s good practice for networking, too.
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first glance, unemployment statistics in the United States suggest that the country is beginning to experience a period of sustained economic growth. From a starting point of 7.9% in January of this year, the national rate of unemployment tumbled to 7.6% in June as a growing number of firms continued to hire steadily and without interruption. Even as unemployment benefit applications rose by 16,000 during the first week of June, this was consistent with the level of tentative growth that has continued through the second financial quarter.
Beyond the statistics, however, there are various reasons for the nation's politicians to be concerned. Not only is the current labor market recovery the weakest since World War II, but there remain several demographics that are unable to find work or achieve their desired career success. To put this into context, approximately 55% of the 175,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy during May were either low-paid or temporary assignments, while youth unemployment continues to soar and has now reached a staggering 16.2% across the U.S.
Chronic Student Underemployment
It is the current generation of graduates that is suffering the most considerable hardship, however, as minimal employment opportunities and spiraling debt continue to undermine future prospects. According to a recent online survey, more than 40% of U.S. college graduates are either underemployed or working in jobs that do not even require a college degree. Subsequently, cumulative student debt in the U.S. has soared beyond the $1 trillion mark, which in turn has created a demographic that is unable to repay the cost of their education or contribute toward the growth of a nation's economy.
So is this simply the result of a failing labor market, or are there steps that students and graduates can take to improve their suitability as candidates for work in 2013? Increasingly, recruiters are looking for candidates to display practical workplace skills and experience that can be applied directly to a specific industry or market niche. While this cannot be acquired at the expense of a required academic qualification or degree certification, the prevailing employer mindset does provide an opportunity for students to enhance their appeal in a competitive market. Consider the following steps toward gaining relevant and actionable experience:
Travel and Work Abroad During the Summer Months
As an aspiring graduate, you must never loose sight of your academic goals and what is required to achieve them. This is why sourcing work experience can be difficult when studying, especially for those pursuing qualifications in challenging subjects such as business and finance. That said, the summer months and the year immediately following graduation provide students with the ideal opportunity to seek out viable workplace experience, as they can focus on developing practical skills without having to carefully manage their time.
Depending on your long-term career goals, it may be worth spending some time abroad to acquire experience of the global job market, as this will afford you a unique edge over the majority of your contemporaries while also allowing you to develop maturity and a greater sense of cultural awareness. When you consider the increasingly flexible and global nature of the workplace, these attributes are likely to be in considerable demand during the next decade.
Volunteering and Vocational Work
While many experts have bemoaned the state of the labor market and the concept of underemployment, others would claim that this only facilitates the culture of entitlement that exists in developed economies. The truth remains that if graduates are driven to succeed in their long-term career goals, they should be willing to accept menial, vocational and volunteer opportunities that provide them with the necessary workplace skills and experience.
In fact, these types of job are extremely beneficial for students as, although they may be fi
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