HRM Essay Sample: What's More Important: Qualification or Experience?

In his article Whats more important: Qualification or experience? Jo Cole discusses the importance of qualification and experience in recruitment and which between the two is more preferable. Today, most people enroll to colleges to get degrees with the hope that these degrees would help them get good jobs that are relevant to their studied career. In addition to qualification, recruiters state experience as one of the requirements whenever they are advertising a vacancy. Most job seekers however do not possess both of the qualities, as most applicants would either be fresh from campus or a college dropout with experience in manual skills. It is here that the recruiters would have to choose between qualification and experience. Whether to recruit a qualified individual or individual with high level experience. The author Jo Cole discusses which between experience and qualification is more important and is preferred by recruiters. Generally knowledge learnt from classroom renders individuals qualified to jobs related to their courses. Experience relevant to a certain job is also as important as it would be highly applied in the job. A qualified recruit would be able to learn and get the necessary experience from the job if recruited. An experience recruit with no qualification would however not be able to get the necessary qualification learned in classroom from the job place. The author gets an answer from two experts on the importance of qualification and experience in recruitment.

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Andrew Main, an Associate Dean at Bournemouth University believes that knowledge qualification is more important in recruitment than just experience. He is of the view that qualification reveals much more about a person than just their academic prowess. According to him, degree is not just about getting a job or career, but affects all parts of life; social, personal, intellectual, artistic, ethical, sporting and many more. In their job advertisements, most recruiters often specify degree as a need for job qualification, with Andrew concluding that the market decides on degree on this point. He reveals that most jobs today involve individuals working with their brains as compared to 50 years ago where most jobs involved just manual skills. He states that a degree is a start in working life, after all. Then experience, to give it its due place, will increasingly provide opportunities for further development of the person. He believes that a qualified recruit would be able to acquire the necessary experience from the work place once employed. This however cannot be applied to experience as an experienced recruit cannot acquire the knowledge qualification from the work place, but just more manual skills. Comparing a 21-year old graduate to a 21-year old with industry experience both of equal intelligence, Andrew gives credit to experience, but states that this does not switch intelligence off. He believes that education can bring a greater depth of understanding than experience can provide, given the same elapsed time. With this he believes that education can change someone, but not experience. He states that education gives an individual a theoretical knowledge and analytical skill to show why something does not work, whereas experience only states doing it that way does not work. He reveals that education develops and individuals learning speed and also gives learning at depth ability. Thus the educated learn new ideas faster and more deeply whereas the experienced learn the ideas they possess. He believes that graduates have a good combination of theory and consistency with a great understanding of knowledge application. Most courses teach students theoretically before sending them to the industry for some period of time for an practical attachment purposes before coming back to finalize their course. They thus gain jobs more easily and are able to prove themselves quickly. He states that The majority have very enviable careers. With Andrews explanation it is significantly true to state that a qualified university graduate is more viable for recruitment than a college dropout with just industry experience.

Matt Hackett, Manager of Digital & Marketing Recruiting Team at Orchard believes that experience is more important in recruitment than qualification. He sees the value of experience in the work place more than just qualification. His opinion is based on the fact that nowadays everyone seems to have or needs to have a degree. Comparing a 21-year old with 3-years-experience with some relevant industry qualification to a newly qualified university graduate, Matt believes that the experienced individual have an upper hand over the fresh graduate. According to him degree qualification is no longer a major deciding factor in who to get a job since more people own degrees today. Employers are thus less impressed on the degree qualification. Being one of them, Matt states that most employers would first look for the experience in applicants CVs before checking for the academic qualifications. He however believes that some vocations like law, accountancy and engineering require a certain level of education and not just industrial experience.

An ideal combination of theoretical knowledge and practical understanding and relevant experience is most important in recruitment. Academic qualification is however more vital in most recruitments since the experience can be attained once a qualified individual is recruited but an experienced individual can attain the necessary qualification from the job place once recruited. Qualification is therefore more important in recruitment.