Experience or Qualifications, which do you favour? - Article by Lisa Chatterley

Over my recruitment career I have been involved in many conversations with regards to whether experience, or qualifications are more important than the other and never has this come up as frequently as in finance. Whilst I understand that the preference would the majority of time be both, many candidates, to a large degree find themselves in the position of one or the other.

Leaving aside those roles where certain qualifications are essential, I have been looking into the various opinions and speaking with numerous clients on their preferences and their reasons behind them.

At Ashley Kate HR & Finance, I can, as you would assume speak with candidates from a vast array of backgrounds, so I decided to do some research on this contentious area.

A recent candidate of mine was rejected at CV stage due to a lack of qualifications, yet has had 12 years’ experience in a virtually identical role. As you can imagine, they were very upset at this and quite reasonably argued that they had a proven track record and results in this type of position. Whilst we do work on a consultative way with our clients, there was no persuading this particular client.

The opposite position we see are recent graduates who have the qualification, but no work experience. Again, attractive to some employers, but not to others; everyone has to start somewhere.

I discovered a very eloquent argument on Totaljobs by Andrew Main, Associate Dean at Bournemouth University, who is unsurprisingly pro qualification. He thinks qualifications reveal much more about a person than just their academic prowess. “Firstly, I would like to say that a degree is not just about getting a job/career.

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.

Let us compare like with like, say a 21-year-old graduate compared with a 21-year-old with industry experience, both of equal intelligence. Let me give due credit to experience: it does not

switch intelligence off (the way a few academics talk, one might think that they suppose the opposite).

However, education changes you. Given the same elapsed time, a course of education will bring a greater depth of understanding than experience can provide.”

The alternative view of this, again from Totaljobs is from Matt Hackett, manager of digital & marketing recruitment team at Orchard, sees the value of experience in the workplace.

“Is a 21-year-old with 3 years solid experience that has completed some relevant industry qualifications during this time a more, or less, valuable resource that a newly qualified university graduate who has barely stepped foot in an office environment before? A degree qualification used to be a major deciding factor in who got the job, but I think as more and more people have gained degrees, especially over recent years, employers have become less impressed on the whole and focused more on experience.”

Moving forward I like to think that Apprenticeships would, in many circumstances, give many individuals the opportunity to gain both at the same time, thus not creating the need to people to have to choose one route or the other. Whilst there is still much debate over the Levy and Apprenticeships as a whole, I feel this must be the way forward to give our next generation of employees the benefits of both work and qualifications, and for everyone to embrace both.

So where do I currently sit on this, personally think there are pro’s and con’s for both. So not to sit on the fence with this one I would say that there should be opportunities for all candidates to join an organisation where they can be nurtured by the client and offered a chance to study at work or in their own time. This would allow people to gain both experience and qualifications hand in hand whilst earning an income.

I am really interested in understanding your thoughts on this so please feel free to email me on lisa.chatterley@ashleykatehr.com and join the debate!