Qualification Vs Experience
Justine Greening was in the press for ‘forcing’ an exam culture on 7yr old kids through “SATS” tests earlier this month, sparking trade-union-esque walk-outs of parents and 
their children…(walking-out all the way to the local park in the sunshine of last week). The cry was that tests and scoring at this age isn’t important and adds undue stress to the children. My 8yr old daughter took two of her four ISI Standardised ‘tests’ at school last month; “They were fun, quite easy, and we got five minutes extra playtime which was amazing” was her summation. Scared for life? Undue stress?
The oxymoron of these play-park residing militant parents was that despite being anti-testing, the were highlighting the fact that Justine Greening (Secretary of State for Education), with her Comprehensive Secondary Education, Second-Tier university and LBS MBA, wasn’t a qualified Teacher and so wasn’t qualified for that job/those decisions. She did however work in the real world at PricewaterhouseCoopers, GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica before entering politics.
Wind back 3 years. Lord Nash was slammed for recruiting a Head teacher for the Pimlico Primary Free School that did not have a PGCE teaching qualification. Lord Nash, a hugely intelligent, venture capitalist, founder of the Charity ‘Future’ (who set up the Pimlico Free School)…and the Schools Minister.
Lord Nash was criticised for opting for someone without that one-year PGCE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Education), opting instead for someone with experience, and arguably far greater experience than someone that spent a year at teacher-training college. Lord Nash went for Experience over Qualification. The Department for Education is relying on collective experience, rather than just qualification.
Are they right?
We have become obsessed with qualifications. Generations of Governments pushed to increase the numbers entering University, Tony Blair famously decreeing that 50% of people should do so. That now means that near 50% of people go to University (with almost 2m people currently studying higher education courses), including over 30% of 18 year olds. That figure was just 2% 60 years ago.
Has society benefited from such an increase in University attendance? Especially with courses on offer such as: ‘Zombie Studies’; ‘Philosophy and Star Trek’; ‘Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way’; ‘Psychology of Exceptional Human Experiences’ (based on the study of the film GhostBusters); an MA in ‘The Robin Hood Studies Pathway’, ‘Maple Syrup Technologies’, or how about a doctorate in ‘History of Lace Knitting in Shetland’….or arguably any of the 141 Computer-Gaming degree courses.
Even my own profession has seen several degrees launched, including a number of Masters in Recruitment degrees. I asked several people what they might teach…..the responses are largely unprintable.
So what of the choice between the two, generally. Qualifications are seen by some as a way of guaranteeing knowledge and in some cases experiences. Most finance mandates we handle insist on a qualified accountant, usually with a preference for a Chartered Accountant, an ACA. It gives the hiring business the comfort that they have the basic skills, underpins their knowledge, and gives comfort through the backing of a professional body.
…but here’s the interesting thing. Most will then ask for Big-4 background (i.e., one of the top 4 accounting practices – PwC/KPMG/Deloitte/EY). Why…because of the experience it gives the individual.
Is an ACA such a vital component for a FTSE-350 CFO? Is their audit training, 20 years earlier, such a key factor in the assessment of a £m C-Level exec?
This is where qualification junkies throw in the medical example/argument. “Qualifications are vital in some fields, I’d want my surgeon to have full medical qualifications before he operated on me….or my daughter”. True of course. Demonstrable proof of the ability to conduct intricate surgery through years of championship winning Airfix model building is unlikely to win favour, But….. Who would you want to operate on your child:
1) Newly qualified surgeon that graduated the day before
2) Middle-aged surgeon that hasn’t performed that specific operation for 15 years
3) Middle-aged surgeon that has performed that exact operation every day for the last 15 years and was credited as the best for that procedure by every medical body
I’m guessing you chose 3). Why? Because of the surgeon’s experience. Granted, you would be unlikely to go for an unqualified individual in such circumstances, but experience is what wins the day.
Take it away from science and into business/real world, experience has an even bigger pull.
As a HeadHunter, take a look at the below links to some of the mandates I am currently working on:
Chief Experience Officer (Property)
£100-125k + LTIP & package
Chief Operating Officer (Retail)
£125-150k + Equity
Managing Director (Bakery)
£100k + Package
Marketing Director (Retail)
£100k + Package
Sales Director (Chemicals)
£80-100k + Package
eCommerce Director (Omni Channel)
£90k + Package
The key driver for every one of those roles is experience, and the person/chemistry fit. Only one even mentions qualified… the COO role, and even then it is mentioned once, as desirable, followed by the word experience and is talking about, experience. [NB: The word experience is mentioned 3 times in that copy alone].
Qualifications to most end with a degree. Some tag on a year to do a post-grad, others 3-4 years to complete professional qualifications. Almost all will end their qualifications below the age of 25, most below the age of 21. How mature were you at 21? How intelligent would you consider yourself to be at 21? How much more developed do you feel now?
We still get people obsessed with 1st class degrees, preferably Oxbridge or red-brick at least. Straight-A students with optimum studious demeanours . I love asking them why. No-one has ever given me a real answer. The majority of 1st class graduates I have met (at or near the point of graduation) are hugely intelligent, but have minimal life experience. Many have never worked, never developed chameleonic social skills….never woken up in a strange flowerbed after a night out. For some professions, and businesses, such traits are an advantage – but a lot less than people will realise.
We’ve all read, ad nauseum, the tales of Billionaire Entrepreneur’s & CEOs that left schools without qualifications/degrees – from Richard Branson to Michael Dell. But the argument goes a lot deeper. Qualifications are no longer an assurance of high intelligence or real-world commerciality, and are often another vain attempt at do little more than qualifying experience.
Even MBAs have lost their shine. An MBA is still a great qualification, and many people attribute their careers success to their MBA…but, the MBA is not the automatic passageway to the top table many people think, and several suppliers/business schools sell. The wider job market, MBA Alumni excepted, does not hold the MBA with huge regard anymore unless from an absolute top flight school. Much in that same way that a bachelor degree was something to be revered, now they have been commoditised, and only seen as massively beneficial if from an absolutely top flight university.
MBAs have accelerated several people’s careers, but typically only once a career is underway and most commonly within the individual person’s current role/business – when they are able to match learning with experience. They do not dramatically improve your chances of securing a new role in the wider job market, and certainly not as much as strong business experience. Many employers will go one further and take MBA to stand for Maybe Best Avoided as many MBA graduates are given unrealistic expectations of their marketability.
I have interviewed many MBA grads who are very good, very bright and academically well above average, but their experience is often not complementary, significantly diminishing their value in the business world. Add to this the advice that business school’s will often give their students, instructing them that an MBA translates to a salary that should begin with a ‘6’ as a bare minimum, and that they should refuse to accept less – this often to an individual with less than 5 years practical experience, and at times no (relevant) practical exposure.
That said, I would still love to undertake an MBA as I love learning and improving my knowledge base. Alas, I simply don’t have time and the investment (time and money) would be better employed elsewhere, in my case in actually owning, running, developing and growing a business and rely upon the practical/collaborative guidance of others to help me do so.
….and that becomes the way to view qualifications. Undertake them because you want to, because you crave the knowledge that they will afford and because they will improve and/or facilitate personal development in your chosen area….not as a free-pass to career greatness.
The dot-com generation has highlighted that the direct correlation between traditional education and success in a corporate environment was a bygone assumption.
So back to the question. Qualification or Experience. The easy answer is both. You cannot decry academic credentials, they provide an understanding and exploration of theory that is vitally important….but it is experience that translates theoretical knowledge into practice…and profit.
Does it matter whether knowledge is gained from structured teaching, or whether knowledge is best gained from the acquisition itself? Common sense dictates, knowledge gained through personal experience will always prevail – just ask any parent who has repeatedly told their child NOT to touch something hot, only for the message to only sink in once the child experiences what happens when they do. Basic NLP.
Most of the skills so important in modern business cannot be taught, they have to be experienced. How many people decried modern business leaders during the economic conditions of the last 5 years because they had not experienced running businesses during the previous recession. The massive spike in mature NEDs and executive leaders was testament to the importance of experience.
The move most businesses have made to a less autocratic leadership style have also bolstered the argument for experience over qualification. The need to engage with colleagues, collaborate internally and externally and approach most business decisions in a more humanistic manner, all require greater experience. To the best of my knowledge, there is no module on a business degree titled “Be a human, not an arsehole”, yet at least. These skills have to learnt.
Qualifications are used as a primary measure of intelligence – usually a simple filtering tool for lazy recruiters. For many 18 years olds, that is reason enough to study towards a degree. But without the experience to back up the academic instruction, you will likely fall at the second screen.
Management positions especially, require far more qualification than academic. Skills such as leadership, entrepreneurship, vision, team-work, collaboration and the ability to work towards a common goal can all only really be gained from experience.
For that reason, job seekers young and old, need to focus on getting the qualifications you want, but focus harder on gaining the experience you need, whether learnt from business, the sports field, a social enterprise, charity work, a part-time job….or the pub. (and remember to note them on your CV – this is why we say to put your hobbies/interests on a CV as per our CV writing guide, HERE).
And remember, Experience is usually the best Qualification.
garychaplin.com 
Very thought provoking read Gary, interesting comments on this weeks sats. One can’t help but think that parents are merely finding a reason to complain about a government initiative for the sake of it. We need to be testing our children to understand areas of development. When I was at school, the first real assessment was at 15 with mock GCSEs. By that time it is too late. I have no issue with school assessing pupils at 7, at that age they are old enough and mature enough to face very soft assessments and understand where their development lay so that both schools and parents can adapt and refine their learning development focus accordingly.
All the way through life, experience is vital, but assessing that experience is equally vital if you plan to hold any reliance on such experience. This is were assessments comes in, and with assessments comes qualifications.
Simple really.
Thanks for firing my mind up this morning. Good luck with your daughter’s sats, with the attitude you have, which is clearly rubbing off on her, she will benefit from the experience!
Simon
Great blog Gary. Interesting dichotomy between the two. I agree with you but we need qualifications to ensure the base line competence.
Good post, that resonates with my own experience.
I did my MBA with only 4 years work experience under my belt – on graduation it was more or less worthless.
It’s only now, 5 years later, with some solid commercial leadership experience, that the qualification becomes a valuable asset.
As always – thought provoking stuff. The most successful people I graduated with (who include C levels in global behemoths and a whole collection of Hedgies) were the ones mostly likely to be found, at dawn, in the flowerbeds.Those who worked hardest and got the “best” degrees, vanished without trace. Even in academia now, the most successful are those who can successfully attract funding and build partnerships and collaborations.
So true Nick. Real world qualifications….!
You can be as flippant as you like about these draconian SATS tests, but the fact remains that this bloody women, with or without a teaching qualification, has forced a high pressure exam culture on our 6 and 7 years olds. The stress that the pupils are under, to say nothing of the stress the teachers are subsequently placed under is flat wrong. This government is clueless about children unless they are upper class and on the waiting list at Eton pre-birth. Their introduction of testing at 7yr olds is ridiculous. At 7yrs old, children should be children. They should be playing and learning to write their own name. Nicky Morgan and the rest of her evil cohorts in the Tory government should be ashamed of themselves for forcing weeks of stress and worry on our children.
You are so off the mark you are comical. Tests for 7yr old were phased in between 1991 and 1998. They were replaced my teacher assessments in 2004, then OFTED’s Michael Willshaw recommended more formal testing to curb plummeting standards, hence tis years re-introduction, but only a formalised version of the tests that have been there for the last 12 yrs.
These tests are so insignificant to the children that they don’t know they are being tested. The notion of stress is ridiculous to 7 yr olds, look at Gary’s comment about his daughter, she brushed the tests aside and was more interested in 5 mins extra play time. Does that sound like a stressed 7yr old?
This is nothing more than politically motivated bullshit and using children to do the quilt work because the adult argument is so weak.
What is stress inducing is the standards of our children who are not being educated. Stories of 7yr olds that cannot write their own name is a worrying position to find ourselves in. The education system for the last 20 hrs should be ashamed of itself. It has allowed parental apathy and a quest for false equality to create an increasingly ignorant generation.
Back on topic. Great blog as always Gary. Spot on subject/
Exam Culture? Three little tests that kids don’t even know they are doing? It’s bleeding heart liberal viewpoints like that that are killing our society.
I wholly disagree Emma. My daughter has done these tests this week. She has described them as little Quizzes and has not got in the slightest bit stressed. Ditto every child and parent in the playground this week.
We need to assess how our children are doing. Teachers are no longer allowed to tell us. Even at our most recent parents evening our daughter as described at ‘really quite able’ but the teacher was not allowed to say more than that? We want out children to do well. We need to know how they are doing to do so.
Great blog and subject Gary. Your industry is however guilty of forcing qualifications and ignoring those qualified by experience. Within some sectors that can be valid but for may, it is a poor selection tool.
The subject is very though provoking though as we look to how we assess that experience.
David
You are right David. I’ve only ever asked for Quals in finance, and even then only when the protection of am Accounting Qualification is required for such a senior appointment.
That said, current roles are holding Prince 2 qualifications in high esteem.