You're a little bit younger, so I'll prevent you from the shock I had when I graduated from college (and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with a double major in creative writing and history).
As someone who's 37 and helps hire people -- experience is always the winner. Notice how it's in job descriptions - degrees are after thoughts. In some places, you have to even demonstrate you can do the work. For example, we give tests to people interviewing to ensure they can edit and use the graphics packages they say they can. It's why it sucks when you graduate from college -- you lack experience, but have a degree. As a degree-wielding person, you pretty much start at an entry level job and work yourself up (unless you got said experience in a job while you were getting your degree). Experience is always the winner.
Not true. In these lawsuit happy days, employers just need to ensure you've done what you said you've done -- they double check with previous employers and double check to see if you have a degree if you say you have one. If you say you have certifications, they check that, too.
Don't let them fool ya. I encourage you to get one, but when you do, it's about experience. No one has asked me what degree I got since I was 22.
This is very sweet, and I'm not being condescending. I remember thinking this way when I was younger.
As an older person, it's all about catching a break even if you have a degree. It's about who you know and what you can do. I betcha everyone on this board is where they are now because they "caught a break."
I sure did! I wanted to write the great American play as a bartender with my degree. After some tough conversations with the folks who helped pay for said degree, I figured I should probably enter the workforce. My boyfriend at the time had a father who worked for NASA; they needed a junior editor. I caught a break.
So to wrap things up:
* Have experience; having a degree helps, but may not be essential - chances are if you have experience, they'll overlook needing a degree
* Network, so you can meet people who can give you a break
* Be smart
* Be nice - personality really does help
For those young-uns in the crowd who are likely to disagree because I'm Commodore64, I encourage you to chat with others who have jobs and are old.I promise what I say is true.
Trip - bringing it all home - had experience and demonstrated it, had networked with a captain who gave him a break, was smart and was nice.
I've got to agree with everything you've written. I'm 41 myself, and I've taught and talked with thousands of businesspeople in all manner of jobs, including tons of HR people. The short answer? Degrees don't guarantee the person knows his ass from a hole in the ground.
Experience. Of course, since my degree was psychology, I can also tell you that people, being the cognitively lazy animals we are, will use the degree as the simplest measure of value and be a bit myopic in that regard. But those who do strive to hire quality employees will understand that the degree is no real measure at all.
Further, universities are very adept at promoting the supposed worth of degrees in various arcane fields, making it seem that unless you've paid the tuition, your opinion in said topic doesn't amount to squat.
What this conversation is lacking, is that the wealthiest people in the world did not get their money by getting hired by the right people. They were entrepreneurs. They made their own companies.
So in my opinion, degrees are necessary to obtain, to open one's mind and expand their thinking skills; but have very little to do with actual job skills. Universities are quite inept at imparting actual job training. We keep signing up for more degrees in the hopes of getting that crumb. Meanwhile the industrious immigrant kid with two years of vocational school is fixing car engines and starting his very own household. And most are taking jobs that aren't even related to their uni study.
Nope, give me experience. And intrinsic interest in the job.
)
Stupid.
