Do you feel that a degree is necessary for "most" Jobs?

NotInventedHere

I personally that feel that most jobs in this country (with some exceptions Doctors etc.) that specify the need for a degree could be performed by most people with adequate time and on the job training.

The reason I say this is. I started work without a degree qualification. An in the meantime I gained a 2:1 degree and it has made no material difference to where I think I would be career wise. I think I would be at the career level I am at regardless of qualification. (I’m mid 30s high middle management).


Does anybody else feel that way?

SheroN

No.

You have to have some measure of a person's ability. What are you meant to do? Bring every new employee in on a trial and hope they make the cut?

kryogen

its a lot harder to get certain jobs now without a degree, you started work possibly in the early ninetys in this job? i mean, now you probably wouldnt be hired without the degree or certain requirements, there is more people looking for jobs and employers are looking for more from their candidates these days imo

whilst i agree with your point that a degree is not an absolute necessity to be able to perform alot of jobs out there, it is a lot tougher to get a job without some sort of qualification now

funk-you

For a lot of jobs a Degree is the foot in the door. TBH when i'm hiring a new engineer i generally wouldn't go near a recent graduate with little experience. Experience is 99% of what i do though i suppose.

Saying that, i have no Degree. I've plenty of experience and industry qualifications and am the senior engineer here at 25. Most of the guys under me in my team are in their 40's and have degrees.

If you've the exact same CV as someone going into a job and they have a degree it is more likely they'll get the role.

-Funk

Ross_Mahon

Sometimes its not what you know, its who you know...

But yeah a degree will certainly get your foot in the door.

latenia

I agree. Outside of the technical/vocational areas degrees are merely another method of creating/maintaining the class system and stunting social mobility. I saw very little intellectual activity or original thinking in my time at Trinity. 90% of people could do 90% of jobs with a little training.

connundrum

funk-you wrote: »

Saying that, i have no Degree. I've plenty of experience and industry qualifications and am the senior engineer here at 25. Most of the guys under me in my team are in their 40's and have degrees.

If you've the exact same CV as someone going into a job and they have a degree it is more likely they'll get the role.

Agreed on both points. I've held relatively senior positions since I was 22, without a degree. It depends on experience and how you sell yourself at interview stage.

And if I were an employer looking at two similar CV's i.e. age, experience etc - I'd be more likely to take the candidate with the degree.

Sleepy

Hugely depends on the industry. I doubt you'd have gotten to high middle management without the degree in the meantime tbh.

It seems to take a bit of time for your qualifications to prove their worth from what I've seen. For instance, I'm only using half of what I was taught in college in the last 12 months, despite starting working 5 years ago.

You don't 'need' a degree for many jobs in business or IT but they certainly help. I can't imagine many engineering positions where you'd get by without one though.

The other point is that, while yes, a lot of what you're taught in college could be provided by an employer through on-the-job or formal training, most employers aren't prepared to provide all that much of either nowadays!

Ross_Mahon

connundrum wrote: »

Agreed on both points. I've held relatively senior positions since I was 22, without a degree. It depends on experience and how you sell yourself at interview stage.

And if I were an employer looking at two similar CV's i.e. age, experience etc - I'd be more likely to take the candidate with the degree.

Or pick the one that lives in Foxrock over the one that lives in Tallaght

Only messing, i heard that on the radio ages ago about location having a meaning in getting a job.

petermcqueen

this is not even debateable.

A monkey could do most jobs, such is the demands of the people pleasing service sector.

"are we ok today sir?"

"have a nice day".

Dinter

A lot of time it's purely to do with the employer.

Many companies would rather you spend your time and your money getting trained rather than them having to pay for it.

RATM

Interesting question OP and one Im always interested in. I often ask friends about their jobs, like if they were to take in someone with no experience whatsoever and train them to do their job exactly how long would it take.

Ive a mate who is a sparks and he reckons he could train a newbie everything he knows to do the job in 3-4 months yet his apprenticeship was 4 years. Ive a sister who is an anesthetist and spent the best part of 12 years ( 6 yr Med degree and then a 6 yr course ) to get to that position and she reckons she could train someone to do her job in under a year.

Dinter

Also when you call into a doctors office isn't it nice to know that he is fully competent even if, like me, you've no idea of how thorough the medical authority is in awarding degrees beyond what you think!

Ross_Mahon

Its like that Philippine woman that works in the barbers, everyone avoids her because shes only new and lacks experience. I would rather have my hair cut by your man that has worked there years.

(I am not a racist) :pac:

Sherifu

A degree helps for sure but whether it's necessary, probably not for a lot of jobs. On the job training/experience is just as important.

valz_walsh

There are alot of jobs specifications out there that do look for someone with a degree. Other jobs dont require someone with a degree, but are more likely to take the degree candidate on then someone who doesn't.

But experience is essential. Iv a degree in Marketing, but trying to get into that area is near impossible. Iv no experience, and even for Junior positions that Iv gone for, Im up against people that have a year or two in the area already.

It a catch 22, they want someone with experience in the area, but how can you get experience if no one takes you on.

Sleepy

valz_walsh wrote: »

There are alot of jobs specifications out there that do look for someone with a degree. Other jobs dont require someone with a degree, but are more likely to take the degree candidate on then someone who doesn't.

But experience is essential. Iv a degree in Marketing, but trying to get into that area is near impossible. Iv no experience, and even for Junior positions that Iv gone for, Im up against people that have a year or two in the area already.

It a catch 22, they want someone with experience in the area, but how can you get experience if no one takes you on.

You drop your salary expectations and slog it out for a year or two in the lowest area of the industry e.g. in marketing you get in as a merchandiser; in I.T. it's generally customer support or testing..

Yes, you've a degree that means you're "over-educated" for that role but you've no hands on experience and that's how you gain it and the degree will kick in later and get you promoted out of that area faster than the guy with no degree.

Raekwon

It really depends on the field that you work in, the company that you want to work for and of course that all important experience.

I work in I.T. and it seems it is one of the easier fields (well the support/admin side of it anyway) to get into without a degree. Of course there are companies like Google where they not only expect applicants to have a degree but they won't take anything less then a 2:1 and are quite fussy about where you earned your degree also (Trinity will always win over DIT in their eyes for example).

But from experience having a degree will always open more doors for you then not having one.

valz_walsh

I did my leaving cert about 7 years ago, and Iv always wondered if I havent bothered going to college, just started working in a company and worked my way up, where would I be now??

But then with the economy the way it is, maybe the degree is handy.

Then again, there's millionaire's out there that never went to college, but worked there socks off to get where they are.

I dont think a degree is considered half the time but if u dont have one some employers wont consider u. Its a paradox. I know my degree meant nothing in getting my job, it was all down to the interview.

kowloon

A degree is irrelevant most of the time, even people with technical qualifications only use a fraction of what they learnt in college.
All the useful training for a technical job is too specialised to learn in college.
A degree can form the foundation for actual marketable skills.

As an employer at least you know the degree candidate has an interest and some knowledge over someone who hasn't spent 4 years in college.

Some employers take it to ridiculous extremes: In a company I worked for, a large American corporation, the requirement for hire was a "technical qualification". Your starting salary was linked to the level of this, someone with a masters got paid more than someone with a degree and so on, but it never took into account the relevance of your qualification. So there were people with a masters in chemical engineering working with electronics on a higher salary scale than the electronics engineers with degrees (all other factors being equal).
It worked for the company because they didn't have to spend much time selecting candidates, assessing experience and suitablility; HR could do the bulk of the hiring with minimal tech staff involvement. The staff turn over rate was so high it didn't matter much anyway.

Kur4mA

To do a job: No.
To get said job: Yes.

P.S: I don't have a degree and have been stuck in varied CS roles for the past 6.5ish years and am only now realising IT is where I wanna be. Getting there is another thing completely however.

DublinWriter

A degree is pretty much useless most of the time and if anything, just demonstrates a particular discipline and work ethic. A lot of the stuff I covered in my primary IT degree was useless to me in my own 20-year IT career.

Years ago it used to be that having the Leaving Cert was the impressive thing. Then it pushed out to degrees. Now I can see a definite bias in the jobs marketplace for people coming out with Masters. What next, PhDs?!?

kowloon

DublinWriter wrote: »

Years ago it used to be that having the Leaving Cert was the impressive thing. Then it pushed out to degrees. Now I can see a definite bias in the jobs marketplace for people coming out with Masters. What next, PhDs?!?

It's a bit silly, people are starting to contribute to society at an increasingly older age than a few decades ago but retiring at the same age.

Hypocritical of me to complain though, I'm going back to college to do a course that is of minimal use to anyone.

nyarlothothep

academia and theory are exciting

GirlInterrupted

Sherifu wrote: »

A degree helps for sure but whether it's necessary, probably not for a lot of jobs. On the job training/experience is just as important.

Personally I only want my toilets unblocked by a fully qualified sanitation engineer, my lightbulbs replaced by an electrical engineer, and my itches scratched by only the best trained holistic therapists available.

Because I'm worth it.:D

Actually, I don't care.

jesus_thats_gre

A degree helps alot. Might not help you directly in the job but it contributes massively to your own personal development - can't really do any harm that now, can it?

Joe Cool

I'm going to say no.
No, there I said it.

Not in my line of work anyway.


:cool:

xOxSinéadxOx

no i don't think you need a degree, but a person with a degree will be hired over you so if you want to get a job you do.

heyjude

I don't feel that a degree is necessary for most jobs and for some jobs it might be a hindrance, for in many jobs there is no substitute for actually doing the job.

Which 22 year old employee doing a particular job is more valuable to a company, the 22 year old that has worked for the company for 4 years and worked his/her way through several promotions or the 22 year old, that joined the company 3 months ago ? Anyway, once you've been out of college/university for a few years, your experience is more valuable to an employer than your qualification.

Besides, having seen the amount of cheating that goes on in university exams and the amount of copying/cheating etc that goes on in other coursework, I'm less convinced about exactly having a degree says about a job applicant, except that the cheats were never caught and went on to get honours degrees.

I got talking to a university lecturer one day and he said that the greatest talent that todays students had, was their ability to pass exams ? Which seemed reasonable, but then he added that they would literally come up to him and demand to know exactly what would be on the exams, he referred them to areas of the course, but he said they got very upset afterwards if there weren't questions in the exam, on each of these areas of the course. His conclusion is that they had limited knowledge of any area of the course, except for specific topics that they had focussed on, which was presumably the same strategy they had employed in the Leaving Cert.

Dudess

Nah I know plenty of very successful people who don't have degrees.

helimachoptor

It depends on the job.

Engineering/Scence type roles I would say yes.

Marketing/HR/those type of roles I would say no.

I recently changed from a very technical job where my degree was the reason I got the job to a job where I've been for a month and the HR manager only found out today we were in the same college....

My degree helps me out but my experience in my previous jobs is what they were interested in.

Dshell

I'm with you on that one. I went back to do my degree part time. I even had to go to Scotland to do it. I've been working as a design engineer for 8 yrs now and hold a senior position in the company. I didn't really learn anything new in college when I went back. It is extremely helpful if you want to change job though and is needed in my business to get chartered. So basically the fact that I think it was a bit of a waste of time I did see it as being necessary. It would have been more helpful if it had have been more to do with industry and up to date things but unfortunately it was just a curriculum that had to be thought.

kowloon

heyjude wrote: »

I got talking to a university lecturer one day and he said that the greatest talent that todays students had, was their ability to pass exams ? Which seemed reasonable, but then he added that they would literally come up to him and demand to know exactly what would be on the exams, he referred them to areas of the course, but he said they got very upset afterwards if there weren't questions in the exam, on each of these areas of the course. His conclusion is that they had limited knowledge of any area of the course, except for specific topics that they had focussed on, which was presumably the same strategy they had employed in the Leaving Cert.

Which is all devaluing degrees, see the thread in the UCD forum where someone is suggesting that the rules of the road become an elective module. :pac:

One Cold Hand

valz_walsh wrote: »

It a catch 22, they want someone with experience in the area, but how can you get experience if no one takes you on.

Sleep with someone.

One Cold Hand

I'm an architect. I definately couldn't get in the door of any office without my degree (unless it was to clean their toilets).

In terms of how useful the degree is....i guess it's pretty useful. But nothing replaces experince. I've learnt so much in the 2 years since I left college.

beautiation

I'd certainly consider a person who make an effort to educate and better themselves far more worth employing than someone who left school and had worked in a job that did little to challenge or develop their skills, even if the degree (or trade) held by the former wasn't relevant to the job at all. Speaking of degrees in particular, it's clear to me that pretty much all university courses instill a degree of organisation, ambition, creativity and ability to handle pressure in students who complete them far above the level achieved by those who go directly into menial, bottom of the ladder work from school. Experience may be important, but in overall terms the 4 years spent at college is not a major hindrance to the graduates in this regard, whereas the skills they earn there are a major advantage throughout their career.

Besides, if the system were so poor that employers got no benefit from employing people with degrees into jobs, why would it continue to perpetuate itself? The employers are the ones who suffer if their method of seperating job applicants is wrong, so if degrees were so irrelevant I'm sure they'd have noticed by now and stopped the trend.

kowloon

In a world where you could get your foot in the door without the degree, 3 years experience would be worth a damn sight more than 3/4 years spent on an unrelated course.

Once we start giving degree credits for sporting achievement and the likes and the courses themselves are split up among a mass of unlinked subjects the courses become too generalised and basic to be of any use whatsoever.

Would you hire someone whose CV boasted that they were captain of the college <insert sport> team and claimed their 3 year degree covered world geopolitics, photography, law, french and aeronautical engineering?
I doubt it. Not that bad yet obviously, but as more and more people are going into college for the "experience" it is becoming more devalued.

It's not so much the college students having skills getting them into jobs as much as the question of "what is wrong with you that you don't have a degree like everyone else?".

hermit

perhaps the best thing to do is to work full time and get a degree at night. That way you gain experience and education.

I;ve worked in my organisation for 4.5 yrs, went in with a basic enough leaving cert and no 3rd level college. Am Middle managment now and get paid 50k p.a. I just completed a degree few weeks ago (3 year part time at night) and will be graduating in a few months but that didnt help me get to where I am now.

It all depends I suppose - industry and the level of competition I suppose. Altho, I will say a part time degree while working full time particularly in management roles is an extremely hard slog --- is it worth it in the end??? that remains to be seen but I suppose when I go for my next promotion its something to add to the CV and something else to "wow" the interview panel with.!!

faceman

As someone who has hired people at varying degrees of levels in finance fields, a degree is only a knowledge base as opposed to experience.

Unless a degree is really necessary, someone having a qualification would necessarily be chosen over someone who hasnt.

But it depends on your industry and roles etc. In saying that I dont have degree (although I have got diplomas etc) and i would consider myself to be successful career wise.

Aspiration

As part of my Certificate course, I had to move to Dublin as part of a 6-month internship. The corporate investment bank I worked for asked me to stay on and I decided I didn't want to go back to college anyway. After a year I'm working with another financial institute on a decent salary and I didn't have any problems getting the new role.

A degree helps you get a job and I don't doubt that it allows alot more opportunities (graduate programmes/better starting salaries etc) but I'm happy to say I have more experience in the industry than a degree that I probably will never use anyways. I also think it helps when the company supports "back to education" schemes. As already mentioned, if I want to I can go back to college part time and do my degree in the evenings but still be supported by the company I work for.

It depends on the company/position you're going for I guess.

Degsy

A "Degree" of cop-on would be far better for most jobs than a third-level and a load of attitude.

Dshell

Well put yourself in the shoes of a new employer. You have done the interviews and are happy with two people. Both have good skills and experience but only 1 has a degree. I think the degree holder would get the job. Its not essential but definitely recommended.

AARRRGH

SheroN wrote: »

No.

You have to have some measure of a person's ability. What are you meant to do? Bring every new employee in on a trial and hope they make the cut?

I agree. It's more about "he can commit to something" and "he can learn" rather than "he's smart" or "this job requires crap you learnt in college".

tHE vAGGABOND

I interview people for jobs in IT all the time [at my current employer here, and my previous employer in the UK] - I don't pay a single bit of attention to a persons education tbh

If two people were in front of me for one job and one went to UCD and got a great degree has a few months experience here and there and the other has those same 3 years with work experience and exposure to what we are looking for..

I would hire the second person every day of the week..

AARRRGH

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

I interview people for jobs in IT all the time [at my current employer here, and my previous employer in the UK] - I don't pay a single bit of attention to a persons education tbh

If two people were in front of me for one job and one went to UCD and got a great degree has a few months experience here and there and the other has those same 3 years with work experience and exposure to what we are looking for..

I would hire the second person every day of the week..

Do you have a degree?

tHE vAGGABOND

Do you have a degree?

I do, a pass one - but it was not a factor in any job I have received as its in a *totally* different area to any I have worked. I spent more time dossing in the SU office than in lecture halls. Looking back it was a total waste of my time.

I have done more than my fair share of interviews, and at no point has anyone mentioned my education a single time.

Anyway I did a huge change of career 6 years ago and started again in a different part of IT, took a *gigantic* pay cut and moved to London all in the name of job satisfaction and personal happiness - and got that job as a result of my 'broad' work experience up to that point and got my current job as a result of that work experience over in London...

Having played a part in hiring people for 5 odd years, someone with 'get up and go' who wants to work hard beats someone who has been sitting in lecture halls and is good at doing exams..

I'm in IT, where hands on skills and experience are key [IMHO]. If you have several years experience in an area of IT, been doing it day in and day out, you know 100 times more than someone who has been reading it from a book. [Again, IMHO]

In other area's of work things are clearly different.

ModeSkeletor

To summarize this thread:

To get the job: Yes
To do the job: No

None of the big companies will even look at you without an honours degree, google, microsoft, accenture, merrill lynch, etc.

[WoW]

I think its easier to get a job if you have a degree e.g a friends father was looking for a new employee and told her to look through all c.vs and scrap all the ones that didnt have a degree.
also, its all about who you know, especially in certain parts of the country, small towns etc, not so much in cities imo.

Aspiration

ModeSkeletor wrote: »

To summarize this thread:

To get the job: Yes
To do the job: No

None of the big companies will even look at you without an honours degree, google, microsoft, accenture, merrill lynch, etc.

I worked with Merrill Lynch. I went in on an internship and they asked me to stay on even though I only had a Certificate. I think once you have your foot in the door, and they see what kind of worker you are, it's much easier to apply for other positions within the company and work your way up.

The problem is getting your foot in the door :rolleyes:

kowloon

hermit wrote: »

perhaps the best thing to do is to work full time and get a degree at night. That way you gain experience and education.

Someone who has slogged through a working week and managed to turn up nights for college is going to look more driven regardless of the relevance of the degree, the full time students don't have such a hard time of things.
A friend of mine is doing a degree part time and it's really hard work, I certainly wouldn't be able for the hours.