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Is work experience more valuable than higher education?

Hello

I'm doing some primary research for an assignment around what is more valuable to employers, employees, students, etc... work experience or education?

What is more valuable in your opinion? Why is it more valuable?

To me work experience is becoming more valuable as a degree is increasingly common, it makes competing for graduate vacancies difficult. I feel that education also gives you the understanding of an environment but sometimes it fails to give you the hands on experience that employers might expect you to demonstrate.

It would be appreciated if you answered in detail, our research group would like to use evidence from here.

Thank you.
(edited 9 years ago)

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Original post by Koldkiser
Hello

I'm doing some primary research for an assignment around what is more valuable to employers, employees, students, etc... work experience or education?

What is more valuable in your opinion? Why is it more valuable?

To me work experience is becoming more valuable as a degree is increasingly common, it makes competing for graduate vacancies difficult. I feel that education also gives you the understanding of an environment but sometimes it fails to give you the hands on experience that employers might expect you to demonstrate.

It would be appreciated if you answered in detail, our research group would like to use evidence from here.

Thank you.


Well it really depends on what you want to do. It does seem to be the case that a lot of people don't have enough work experience but it's also definitely not the case that you can just discard higher education and just have lots of work experience for anything. A really obvious counter-argument is academia, you can have all the work experience in the world but you're not getting a job unless you have a PhD. So whilst it might be generally the case that people don't have enough experience, the general sweeping statement that work experience is more important isn't very helpful?
Fairly obvious, but:

If your chosen career path requires a Degree, then of course Education is paramount.

If your chosen career path doesn't require a degree, I'd advise that work experience is more sought after by employers.
Indeed if you know 100% you can't get into your chosen field without a degree - university is paramount.

However, there are some people i know doing masters at the moment and only really doing it because their standard bachelors degree hasn't found them a job so they are looking to kill a few more years.

These individuals are going to be 24/25/26 when they apply for their first salary job. They are in my view going to have a problem as to why its taken them 9/10 years to do this.
Reply 4
Thank you for your inputs.

Bump!
Original post by Daftpunker
Indeed if you know 100% you can't get into your chosen field without a degree - university is paramount.

However, there are some people i know doing masters at the moment and only really doing it because their standard bachelors degree hasn't found them a job so they are looking to kill a few more years.

These individuals are going to be 24/25/26 when they apply for their first salary job. They are in my view going to have a problem as to why its taken them 9/10 years to do this.


Do you mean that these people don't even look for work during the summer holidays when they do their degree?

I thought it was the norm now to get work experience along with your degree??
Work experience has always been more important than education.

The question is: how do you get the work experience? In some cases it's only education that opens up opportunities for work experience.
Reply 7
It's a sad state of affairs that education seems valued only for job prospects, although i'd argue this is because of the division of labour in the modern economy which is making people more specialised, and that society benefits from such an arrangement. It seems to me most work does not require such a general or even a specialist education, so work experience is the better option for a lot of people.
Higher education is more valuable to me.
(edited 9 years ago)
It depends heavily on what you wan to do. Regardless what people say, trying to get into law without a degree is impossible, as is getting work experience in it. On the other hand, if you want to be a journalist, for example, then maybe do go for an internship. I believe it depends on a persons thirst for knowledge. I personally couldn't leave school at 18 to work - there is so much yet to learn! Basically if you want t do a 'vocational' job which require training and specialisation, a higher degree I an absolute must, if not then maybe do look at internships.


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Original post by tinyflame
Do you mean that these people don't even look for work during the summer holidays when they do their degree?

I thought it was the norm now to get work experience along with your degree??


Work experience can be unpaid. I have lots of experience mostly volunteering for charities in various roles but its all unpaid. (I do have a bit of paid work in the distant past though)
Original post by Koldkiser
Hello

I'm doing some primary research for an assignment around what is more valuable to employers, employees, students, etc... work experience or education?

What is more valuable in your opinion? Why is it more valuable?

To me work experience is becoming more valuable as a degree is increasingly common, it makes competing for graduate vacancies difficult. I feel that education also gives you the understanding of an environment but sometimes it fails to give you the hands on experience that employers might expect you to demonstrate.

It would be appreciated if you answered in detail, our research group would like to use evidence from here.

Thank you.


For graduate jobs they are equally useful I would say. They usually specify a degree as essential and they have more than enough grads applying that they can take the ones who already have work experience.
In the majority of cases work experience is more valuable, I think my degree (2.1 in History from a decent uni) has been utterly useless tbh. I'm applying for the same type of jobs as one of my friends who's worked in retail since she was 17 and didn't go to uni.

To put this case in point, here's an example of two of my friends.

Person A: Academically gifted, got a first class degree with ease. Did nothing else with their time at uni, no work experience or EC's.
Person B: Didn't put the effort in and got a 2.2. Worked throughout their degree and got involved, has loads of work experience and EC's.

Guess which one got a £23k job within 6 weeks of graduation, and which one has been on the dole since July?
Higher education and experience is complementary with each other.
Opportunity cost of uni is too high.
Reply 16
Experince is much more important. For example, if 2 people went for a computer progamming job, one has a comp sci degree but little experience and the other had 2 years experience but no degree or no relevant degree doing the job, nearly everyone will go for the latter because they can start doing the job straightaway and they have a proven track record.

Bear in mind people change jobs after a few years so most employers want people who can start contributing to the job ASAP rather than having spend time giving them a lot of training. Grad schemes are different since their purpose is to develop new grads.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by sebotobes

If your chosen career path doesn't require a degree, I'd advise that work experience is more sought after by employers.


Totally agree. I was in a career I love and I feel into it without qualifications and earnt good money. I'm currently doing a degree to be better at my job (and gives me an exit later on) but it is not essential.

I also find it interesting that I'm my second year of work I was earning more than the average graduate position and now I'm temping during breaks it's not that I'm studying that employers are interested in but my actual work experience.
Original post by Maker
Experince is much more important. For example, if 2 people went for a computer progamming job, one has a comp sci degree but little experience and the other had 2 years experience but no degree or no relevant degree doing the job, nearly everyone will go for the latter because they can start doing the job straightaway and they have a proven track record.

Bear in mind people change jobs after a few years so most employers want people who can start contributing to the job ASAP rather than having spend time giving them a lot of training. Grad schemes are different since their purpose is to develop new grads.


Soo true!

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I put it in this way: A degree is a qualification which makes a person to an expert in a certain special field - in theory at least. But a theory is not enough in my opinion to manage or to perform well in a job. Experience is very valuable in my point of view, as experience gives you an impression of the every day life and an insight into the circumstances. Moreover experience enables to make and to learn from mistakes in a job, plus experience gives a feeling how to work together.

From this point of view a degree which contains too much theory lessons is too little, that's why experience should be more appreciated than a degree alone. Degrees which consist of too much theory lessons should be more connected with experiences to get professional practice.

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