Is a degree essential on a CV?

"I have a degree from the University of Life" - a common phrase in interviews or the front bar. But how important is it to have a degree these days?

The UK Government has spent around £800m to target 50% of all 6th formers to go on to University - despite the noble target, the drop out rate when they get to university has increased. There are various theories (as voiced on BBC Radio Five Live's phone in this morning) that modern undergraduates are less prepared academically due to easier exams, to the youth of today being more sensitive to leaving home, to fear of long term debt and costs, to poor career advice leading to the wrong course selection and therefore disillusionment. However, I wanted to look at the issue from the point of view of whether a degree actually gets you a better job, enhances your credentials over those that haven't got one, makes you more money, or does it not matter - it's your experience that counts? From an employer's point of view - what level of importance do you put on a degree being on a CV? Do you actively use it to screen out candidates or differentiate those at interview?

Degree on the CV

As a manager who recruits and finds talent for growing companies, I actually think a CV is not that important. More often than not they are 'floral' to say the least, used as marketing objects and have so many varieties of structures and inclusions as to be hard to compare. They have become documents to enter the CV repositories to be key word searched by recruiters along with Linked In Profiles. If you are one of those managers who thinks having enough CVs thrown at you until one sticks is a good way of recruiting then this article won't appeal to you.

I must admit I am interested to see if a degree is on a CV and it does have some influence although in the final analysis it has little bearing on differentiating between shortlisted candidates for a job and none whatsoever in the interviews. I am much more interested in what makes them the person they are and whether they could add value to my company or my client's.

So does having a degree matter?

My strongest advice for anyone at school is to continue learning. I did a degree in Physics & Chemistry and became a computer salesperson - I would put hand on heart and say that I have used only small parts of the academic stuff I learnt about the subjects at any point in my career. However, what I did learn was how to express what I knew in words and speech, and that has served me in great stead in my career. I also learnt how interaction with people can have positive effects on your life and most importantly I gained ambition (not that I couldn't have learnt that elsewhere but it was at a time of great industrial unrest and poor job prospects - I became a very determined person). Most all it got me on a rung in the ladder of my career; it got me a job with Hewlett Packard via their annual graduate intake.

But, has it had any further bearing on my career? I can honestly say it hasn't. Now I'm talking from the position of going through sales, marketing, general management to senior executive positions - we like to call ourselves 'professionals' but I do not mean it in the same way an engineer or lawyer or accountant or microbiologist or architect or doctor may need the necessary learning to do their jobs. Let's draw that distinction - I mean general purpose business jobs.

One last point on this - so if there is a degree on the CV and it is important to have one, then surely there must relevance in the subject taken? That's where most of this falls flat and so does my own ideas on relevance. If a degree is in Air Guitaring or Klingon (trust me you can get them).......well, I think you get my point.

But what if there were no degree on a CV?

That's an interesting point - if I look for one then there must be a reason. Some think it is a certain marque of approval, like seeing if the person has driving licence only it has more Kudos, I think I would agree with that. Some say that it means the person has the capability to learn - but I would say that I think that wanes with time, though I greatly admire people who study in parallel with their career. Very often you will see job adverts mandating a degree (or sometimes 'equivalent experience' - I am not sure how that works) and I wonder what value these organisations are placing on the degree itself. Are they seriously saying that they want to filter our budding Alan Sugars? Or are they just filling in the boxes because the process is becoming more regimented?

And what of experience in place of a degree? Is spending the missing three years canoing down the Amazon or sweeping floors in a bakery or starting as office boy at a computer store more valuable than university? The jobs are merely examples, there is a terrific You Tube video of Steve Jobs' address to Stanford University students in which he outlines why dropping out of his course at Stanford prepared him for his amazing career - it's worth listening to.

I think my point would be that experience of any sort is worth nothing unless you learn from it. In the same way, valuable experience from which you learn in place of a degree course could well be a good alternative. I think you have to read beyond the CV.

Here's a controversial point

I think recruiting and finding talent is devalued in the modern business world. I recently talked to a very experienced businessman who went for a job interview to find the interviewer was a young HR person barely out of university who was doing a first interview for a Vice President position. After 15 minutes worth of 'what are your strengths?' followed by 'what are your weaknesses?' the businessman got up to leave. When asked why he was ending the interview he replied, 'I'm being interviewed for the second most senior job in the company by a person who has no idea of what is required and who doesn't even work at the company. How do you think that makes me feel about the Company?' While he may have felt good at the time, I can't help feeling he was lopping off his nose to spite his face but I really understand the point - the point being the young HR person worked for the outsourcer for the particular company and would you ask a monkey to find a new organ-grinder?

From the mass of commoditised Contingent Recruiters to HR people to Recruitment Outsourcers there is a common theme, for the kinds of sales and executive jobs they are recruiting for they have zero or little experience of actually doing them. So they tree-hug the 'official requirements' - the boxes to tick. A degree is required and if it ain't on the CV you don't get interviewed. How many talented people get automatically screened at that point and would the recruiting managers be concerned if they knew? The fact is most recruitment or Talent Acquisition is executed as 'slot-filling' and it's expensive at that.

A final thought

I recently worked with Theorem Inc to help establish their business in the UK and I researched and found a superb new UK Business Development Manager as their first employee. When the CEO, Jay Kulkarni, and I were brainstorming the Ideal Candidate Profile I asked him would a degree be required. He replied no. When I asked why, he replied 'It doesn't prove a person is intelligent, it just proves they can learn to pass exams.'

With that, I would like to hear your views. Is a degree really that important today or is experience the more important?