As a manager I spent a fair amount of time hiring and training entry level candidates. In the tech world we are not as picky about college degrees as in some other industries because technical skills can be acquired through training programs and certifications. But soft skills such as an understanding of business, communication skills, etc are harder to see on a resume. So where do candidates acquire those skills and how do they demonstrate them to potential employers?
The great higher education PR machine would like you and I to believe that the best place to acquire those skills is through a liberal arts education. This method of learning, requiring a 4 year (at least – usually more like 6) commitment and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars is increasingly coming under fire from business leaders (see this 2008 study from LEAP and the AACU) frustrated with the fact that college graduates lack the skills required to be successful in the real world.
As hiring managers we tend to use the B.A. credential more as proof that candidates have completed something vs. having any specific knowledge or skill. So here are my questions for you:
1. What skills do you expect college graduates to have?
2. Do they actually have the skills they need to be successful (in your experience) or have you had to do remedial training in subjects such as business communication, finance, business operations, etc.?
I personally know plenty of really successful business people (some entrepreneurs, some individual contributors and managers) who either don’t have a degree at all or who got their degree after they spent 5-10 years working (and usually only when it became a barrier to higher promotion…) I would love to hear your thoughts on this…
I personally consider that a college degree will always help. We must hire focused on talents (recurring pattern of thought, feeling and behavior that can be productively applied) rather than experience. Of course, that in turn means, having a deep interview of candidates having in mind the skills required for the job at all times. Having the right people will always contribute to the organization’s goals.
Thanks for your thoughts Rey! One of the challenges that I see is that college DOES help in some ways but those ways are not as quantifiable as I would like to see as a hiring manager. Some graduates have more maturity, some graduates have better critical thinking skills, some graduates know some business related terminology but because there is no rhyme or reason to what they might know or not know, and because I have seen many candidates without degrees who are just as mature, have solid critical thinking skills, etc. it’s challenging to me to use that as a sole credential. I do think that the behavior matters so much more than the credential, but even deep interviews are not always enough to know whether a candidate will succeed or not.