Education vs Experience

HS

I would like to pose a question to all of my fellow forumites here:

Which do you prefer when looking for an employee to fill an open position. Education or Experience? For example, if you have someone that has 8 years of experience, but not the educational background, and you have another person who has the educational background but say 2 years of experience who do you choose and why?

Would it make a difference if the applicant with the 8 years is a part of your company already? Or would you still hire the one with the educational background?

ray a

How about education and experience. Actually, it depends on the type of position I'm trying to fill. If I am looking for a more senior person, for example and engineer who is a "plug and play", then experience trumps education. If I am looking for a lower entry-level ee who can grow and be molded into what we want, then education becomes more important when considering how quickly they may be able to come up to speed.

rad

It depends upon how closely related to the job the education is and whether it is required by a higher governance for licensing, for example. Lets take HR... if someone came to me with ten years HR experience, I'd probably be more likely to hire that person for a generalist position than someone who comes to me fresh out of college with a degree in HR. But if someone worked as a pharmacy assistant for 25 years knowing everything there is to know and applied for a pharmacist job, I'd go with the degreed person for the fact that I'd have to.

If the experienced person was already with my company I would definitely be more likely to hire that person, he or she is already vested in my company, is familiar with the culture and obviously wants to stick around.

Gillian3

The central issue is whether or not the person has the skills or abilities for the job. That may come from experience, it may come from education. Personally, I don't have any preference, other than for education if I were hiring an engineer, nurse, etc. etc. and may have some legal significance. There are a whole bunch of HR people who don't have degrees and who are very good.

deniseE

IF the ee has a great work history with us...I would be inclined to take the experience over the education....

sometimes real world experience teaches qualities that just cannot be covered in a classroom.

Cinderella

Recruiting is the main thing I have focused on in my short (3 yr) HR career. In most instances I would want the internal candidate with 8 years experience. However, it depends on the position.

HS

Thank you to those who have responded. It makes me feel good to know that there are HR Professionals out there who would take life experiences as equivalent to a degree. There is hope yet!

ray a

HS, maybe another angle to this question is, is the type of degree important? If you were looking to hire an entry level person in HR with the intent would grow into a generalist position, and you wanted a degreed person, would that degree have to be in HR? My degree is in music, would you prefer someone with an HR degree?

Dutch2

In most situations, we/I consider years of experience and years of education to be on a level field. But it also depends on how fast we need this poistion to be up and running. As it seems to most always be the case of needing someone that can "hit the deck a runnin'and spin those barrels around" in a very short period of time, experience seems to be the most perferred choice. Of course we do have to weigh the issues already mentioned such as a degree required or license required position, etc...
Dutch2

ritaanz

When I interview, I take into consideration of borth education and experience. Our job description have a dual requirement. Example:
BS degree in Mechanical Engineering with five years experience or Associates degree in Mechanical Engineering and eight years expeience.

Depending on the position, we have the flexibility to try and place the best applicant.