Qualifications: are they relevent?

[jamesp]

It,s been a bad day, one of my customers(the head of the maintenance department) phoned today asking for some advice; He wanted to know how to work out the speed of his mixer blades(yep, 2Pi R). This got me thinking.
I know one guy who was laid off as he was not qualified to run his maintenance department: Degree in chemistry.
One engineering firm run by a tree surgeon.
One Engineering firm run by a semi skilled welder and a cabinet maker.
Two engineering fabrication shops where the bosses both dropped out of the same tech course together.
A senior buyer in an international company, who was so thick as a labourer, they had him on the yard burning pallets so he could do no harm.
As qualifications are something that keeps cropping up on these boards, and their importance to diving as a means of demonstrating..something..and I seem to have collected a small pile through school,college,work and diving. In view of my opening statement, why the hell bother?

[Mick F]

Reminds me of one of my competitors.

Their primary requirement for employment is a third level degree. They then presented a software developer who had a degree in music, with a two week VBasic development course, at €900.00 per day.

I have a masters degree with 16 years experience and this kind of bo**ocks drives me nuts. I'm glad I call myself an engineer and not a consultant!

Anyone seen the Dilbert strip of Consult & Blabbery?

[Mr T.]

Like most things in life, it's propbably best to have a happy medium/balance of experience (life/job-relevant) and qualifications.

[AdmiralHanson]

I'm forever doing new qualifications, but I've long since stopped 'busting a gut' to get a credit / merit etc. type pass.

These days, I just got for a 'pass' in a subject area as 99% of employers are only interested in the qualification you have and not how clever you were at it in the exam.

[Scuby]

Depends what you're doing and what the qualification is. Classic example: i'd be rather upset it my doctor had never been to University!

For most things though, a degree (or any qualifications) aren't necessarily essential. If someone has a lot of experience in a certain area, with a good reputation, then asking them for qualifications is pointless. However, they are far more useful to employers who take on people for their first job, the typical graduate career.
If you are trying to recruit and have no prerequisites then you have no idea what you're getting and recruiting becomes very very very expensive! Its impractical to interview everyone who might apply to your jobs (for all but the smallest firms), and so qualifications are a good start to whittle the numbers down a bit. I don't know of any companies who would base very much on a qualification though - assuming two people get through the initial selection, one person with 3C's at a-level would be treated exactly the same as another with a first class degree!

The more useful things that qualifications show for people with little work experience are an ability to learn, aptitude for certain areas, and obviously if someone does have say a computer science degree then they will have certain skills that you can usually rely on and that cuts down training you need to give. Actually that may be a good example: someone with formal training in programming will usually work very differently to someone who has been self-taught. I taught myself all sorts, and know that my style varies significantly from any kind of standard.

So, qualifications: useful for those with little work experience, or for certain specialities.

David

[Scuby]

Originally Posted by Mr T.

Like most things in life, it's propbably best to have a happy medium/balance of experience (life/job-relevant) and qualifications.

Absolutely - having been through a lot (well, only 2 myself actually... but know a lot of friend's experiences) of graduate career applications I know that degrees mean very little to them, as long as you meet the minimum requirements. They're far more interested in what else you've done, what experience you've got, how you think, that sort of thing. Funnily enough, diving's been something they've asked about in all the interviews i've had and filled a few minutes... :O)

David

[nigelH]

*shrug*
Combro is an Engineering firm. There are various people with various qualifications and the research physicist looks good on the books, another with university maths/physics/electronic engineering helps but we don't mention the ex-police inspector, the musical instrument maker, the bicycle repair man (not kidding MP fans) and the bus driver but they are good technical people.

I don't have any formal qualifications in computer programming but I've worked at it for decades and I like to think I'm quite good.

[Gavin Smith]

Originally Posted by Mick F

They then presented a software developer who had a degree in music, with a two week VBasic development course, at €900.00 per day.

There's some strong evidence that with the correct training foreign language and music graduates make better programmers than computer science graduates.

It's something to do with being able to think in other languages.

Gavin

[Rookie]

One thing that gets me is the amount of so caller 'Engineers' you see, who, well, arn't! I spent 5 years at Uni getting a Masters in mechanical Engineering, and it annoys the hell out of me that anyone with a 2 week course in washing machine repair can then be called an Engineer! No disrespect to then, they usually do a fine job, and I have called out many myself, but Engineer?, in my opion, no. Technician perhaps, or even 'Technical issue rectification consultant', but not Engineer. I also get anoyed with Tree surgeons and Dr Fox!

[Ian@1904]

Some badges are worth more than others.
I am an accountant, it is very hard to win higher level roles without being ACCA/ICAEW/CIMA qualified. No matter how good they are technically the badge counts. In most cases I agree with this. I have received technical training, management training and many other skills as a result. I still use some of the technical information I learnt 20 years that really only comes from text books(which I still refer to!) and it is the theoretical side that hands on experienced people sometimes lack.
I have a lot of respect for qualified accountants/doctors/engineers ( I also have an engineering degree)as I know how hard they have to work to obtain that qualification.
Some of the modern degrees seem a waste of everyones time and effort.