Education or experience: Should IT jobs focus more on candidate skills and less on degrees?

[Jimmy2x]

In context: Today's dynamic technology landscape is forcing employers in the IT field to rethink their stance regarding college degrees. In many cases, hiring managers are realizing that degree requirements exclude large pools of highly qualified candidates, hindering their ability to fill critical vacancies.

According to CIO magazine, today's corporate technology leaders and hiring managers across multiple industries are beginning to understand that competency in specific IT-based skills can be more important, valuable, and relevant than the more generalized knowledge provided by an undergraduate degree. The shift in thought in no way downplays the importance of a candidate's ability to communicate effectively or employ critical thinking to solve work-based challenges. Instead, it indicates that employees can develop these skills through specific work experience and targeted, specialized training.

A 2022 report from The Burning Glass Institute notes that employers across multiple sectors are resetting expectations regarding degree requirements. Between 2017 and 2019, 46 percent of mid-level and 31 percent of senior-level technical occupations experienced "material degree resets." These resets involve employers removing educational requirements from their overall position qualifications and placing more emphasis on technical skills while highlighting soft talents such as writing, communication, and attention to detail within the description itself.

While many technology leaders see the benefit of eliminating formal education requirements for practical technical skills, some still feel a degree offers a measure of value that isn't available from pure experience. Veritas Technologies Chief Information Officer Jane Zhu maintains that degrees provide candidates with intangible benefits such as social awareness, problem-solving skills, collaborative mindsets, and personal accountability that experience alone cannot provide.

As an IT contractor managing technical teams and projects for more than 20 years, I've experienced the need to shift away from legacy college degree requirements and instead focus on relevant certifications, skills, and experience. It is especially true when working with cutting-edge, niche, or specialized technologies with a comparatively small practicing community.

For example, when the need for an experienced .NET developer arises, a steady flow of highly qualified local candidates is just about guaranteed. In those cases, and if all other skills were equal, a college degree and the skills it provided could be the differentiator that elevated a specific candidate's overall value.

Conversely, when we need to hire resources for very specialized technical positions, it becomes a nightmare due to candidate education requirements. Rather than receiving dozens of local candidates in a matter of days, as with the .NET example, we find ourselves struggling to find even five qualified candidates across the entire country. Dropping the education requirement would have expanded that pool of candidates exponentially.

Unfortunately, I do not have the authority to remove those requirements. The result is a much longer, more costly sourcing and hiring process with the added risk of the position going vacant should the current resource retire, take another job, or change their technical focus.

The issue certainly has room for debate, but as a working IT management professional, I absolutely lean toward skills and experience playing a far more important role than a decades-old degree in a subject that may not even be related to an organization's needs.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98329-education-or-experience-jobs-focus-more-candidate-skills.html

 

[RudyBob]

I have initials after my name for my field. I'm glad. I have seen plenty of guys and girls with "lesser" initials do marvelous work. As good and better.

 

[Prosercunus]

Asking for a degree is fine for entry and intermediate candidates, at some point though, it becomes pretty pointless in my opinion and their work experience and achievements become far more important.

 

[CrisisDog]

Hire everyone on a 90 day trial. If they don't cut it, let them go.

I'm way more willing to put up with someone actually learning on the job AND remembering how to apply those skills than someone with a degree but no common sense in using what the think they know. Of course, HR always has to put their spin on the situation, which is totally dumb...

 

[n3o127]

I have initials after my name for my field. I'm glad. I have seen plenty of guys and girls with "lesser" initials do marvelous work. As good and better.

Same here, and agee.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Every company should test skills in practice and not just look at a paper. period.

 

[cristianm]

At least for programmers in this part of the world, the ones with a degree have a more solid foundation onto which they can build new skills. There are also self-taught individuals that are very good, so as far as I can tell, a degree is not a must, but it sure helps in real life, not only for the interview.

 

[dangh]

Degree is a quick way to identify what effort a person is able to commit in his work. And more important, while there many great self taught programmers, most of them lacking some theory education which simplifies communication between peers. If someone during a planning meeting says "we are pigs" people without formal education might miss the point. Knowledge of patterns is as well not always covered by self taught person. It is simply less risky to get someone who worked his-her *** out to get 1.1 in college than spend time trying to ensure person without systematic education can fit in your team.

 

[Burty117]

At an MSP I used to work for, They needed more helpdesk staff across the board, 1st/2nd and 3rd line. They hired quite a few people across each role, almost everyone who came from University with a degree were either let go or left on their own accord.

It turns out, people with a degree want more pay than anyone else for the same job, whilst usually being worse at it, I'm not sure what they're taught at Uni as I skipped that part and went straight into a job after a condensed college course.

Too many Uni students with degree's were asking questions like "what is a terminal server" or "where do I find DHCP management". They didn't seem to have basic Googling ability's but demanded more pay purely because they had a degree.

I was quiet happy to see some of them let go, Meant I knew there was money for a pay rise for me.

I find certifications with Cisco, WatchGuard, Microsoft, VMware, CompTIA etc... Get you way further than a degree.
I am talking purely from an IT Infrastructure standpoint mind you, not programming.

I recently passed enough Microsoft Azure exams I'm officially an "Azure Architect" which appears to have opened up a lot more opportunities in the job market than I expected.

 

[FinMary]

I support burty177, I notice that employees without college education and degrees seek information and use it much more diligently than chicks who just graduated from the university. I do not mean that all students are stupid, but "self-taught" most often enter the profession because they are really interested in it.

 

[tipstir]

Degree vs Years of Experience On Job
So many don't have certs or degree and yet make over 60K
One site they were looking for PMP I was working with this tech he only had 3 months of Tech he got the PMP without any certs or degree. He got because he was funny to higher executives. Just have to be in the right place and time to get pick.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

My last place of work was a tech support help desk. 90% of what you had to deal with was proprietary hardware and software - something you wouldn't learn about at any IT school. All you really need to know is some basics about computers and you will learn the rest. Clearly, the more you do know the easier the job was. We didn't physically handle the hardware, we don't configure or maintain routers/modems/firewalls at a store location and we don't do security stuff.

We just learned basics about the computer hardware we sold through the company and the proprietary software we supported. You didn't need any Microsft certifications, A+, N+ or S+ cert for doing this work and if you did have those certs you were over qualified for the job and soon would land one that paid more (a lot more).

When I started there no certs were required. The starting pay back then was $11.50 per hour. This was a bit better than the average pay at a fast food place, but it was certainly lower than the average pay for a tech help desk support. After 90 days (if you stuck it out), you got pay bump to $12.

I like computers, didn't have any certs at the time and after about 2 years there I was the Tier 2 lead making about $18 an hour. New management came in about this time and started to push the idea that they won't hire anyone without at least an A+ cert and those working needed to get certs, A+ was a must. If they got a N+ or S+ that would just be a bonus to them. All cert classes were paid for, but pay wouldn't be improved upon getting certs. Once folks started getting their certs they started leaving for similar jobs that were paying $5+ more an hour starting and the company was wondering why they can't find anyone to start at about $12 an hour or keep anyone that they paid to get certs.

They refused to pay more for those of us that had experience to keep us around, so we started leaving. At this job I had taken it upon myself to learn aspects of the proprietary software that isn't taught to anyone, but knowing it allowed you to solve so many problems. I learned how to use MS Access to rebuild and fix corrupted databases and I started learning SQL for their newer software. I could fix 99% of any issue under their software that uses MS Access and I could resolve 95% of all cases that came across my desk. But, once a better opportunity presented itself I left, took all my experience and knowledge with me because they didn't want to pay for experience and just wanted young kids just out of school that had an IT background for a job that didn't actually require all the prerequisites they required for new hires.

 

[McMurdeR]

We have a similar experience, it's very painful. My only concern with this approach is that it increases the likelihood of spoofer applications, and I'd imagine you get enough of those even with a third level requirement. Very hard to weed those out without looking for evidence of certifications.

 

[zecoeco]

If you neglect the crucialness of the degree and what it covers of the so many backgrounds, theoretical and technical knowledge, then you're at fault. A simple degree by itself means you gain an intermediatory skill in that specific field, and most importantly, you will get most of the how's and why's answered by top pioneers, lecturers and teachers who always be the best source of knowledge as they never stop gaining knowledge, driven by the changes of the education system. Today, most education systems focus more than ever on the practical skills, and for that reason, a degree will never lose its value as we adapt to the new demands of tech.

 

[MakeMSGreatAgain]

I've worked in the tech industry for over 20 years now and in my experience, people with an almost overpowering interest in and desire to know more are the best at their tech jobs - regardless if they have a degree or not.

I've seen plenty come through who just weren't into it or just didn't have a talent for solving problems and they often struggle and hop from job to job or just go do something else entirely different. Then there are always a few who muddle through it their entire lives, being miserable and doing a less than stellar job, barely holding onto their careers by sucking up to bosses. It's a big mix, but its the passionate about technology types that I prefer to work with because we can actually bounce ideas and thoughts off one another rather quickly and solve problems that at first we thought were impossible to find an easy solution to.

In the end I'm not saying a degree is useless, it can be very beneficial to many, but they have to want to really learn all they can in that field to begin with otherwise they are just wasting time and money.

 

[tipstir]

Hands on the job I meant to say. Have years of experience since 1998 for me in IT contracts until 2022. Yeah very long time but it was fun. I do other side work in IT for projects. I usually the Team Lead pays more than just a Tech. I run my YouTube Channel since 2021..Try to help through videos. Share what I've learned. If you have quick thinking and can access the issues the client is having your a GEM in IT Industry as a lot of new to the TECH are not that fast. Some might but the some are not. That's why they want CERTS or Degree today. Have over 25 years of IT contracting hands on job experience would consider me over qualified for any level 1, 2, 3, 4. Guys like me would the Lead of the Project.