Would you hire someone without a bachelor’s degree to a job where people typically have bachelor’s degrees?
Assume that (based on available information about the candidate):
Candidate has the necessary job-specific skills for the job.
Candidate has the necessary ability to learn (as needed) additional skills for the job and other jobs along typical career paths from the job.
Candidate has general (e.g. reading, writing, math, thinking) skills comparable to those of others successfully doing the job.
"Hire" is inclusive of transfer or promotion of someone already working at the employer as well as hiring external applicants.
The job, and other jobs along typical career paths from the job, do not require a license, credential, or certification that has a bachelor's degree as a prerequisite.
Yes, if the person is okay with it and is okay with a slower promotional schedule and possibly lower pay rate per company standards.
My husband works with someone like this. The guy, MQ, lacked a degree by one year, and for all intents and purposes is an “engineer”, but he’s trained his superiors and has been passed over for promotions that should have come sooner. My husband has fought to get MQ some equalization because MQ is a valued employee and has strong skills, but the company policy limits what he can do.
If the candidate meets all your items on your list, why not? I work for a governmental agency and our job postings are specific as to whether a degree is required or “preferred.” Sometimes the job posting will accept experience for education on a year-by-year basis. But in your case, it sounds like that candidate would be great.
Yes. But the hire (or promotion) would be based on my personal knowledge of the person. I would readily promote from within the company if that is the scenario… A degree is not a “magical wand”. A good work ethic with the ability and willingness to learn is extremely valuable.
I would and have in the IT world. I would in many other areas also, assuming licensing isn’t an issue (eg CPA).
I was not happy when a certain governor without a bachelor’s degree was running for president recently. While a degree isn’t a requirement, I think it should be a minimum for that job.
I guess that depends on the employer. In my current position I could not. HR would not allow it. If I am back-filling an employee in an exempt job the new employee needs to meet the same qualifications.
^^Odds say you wouldn’t be. If they were a Gates or Jobs they’d be starting their own company. In that case I would try to get in with them as an early investor
In the places I have worked, the internal move would be easier, and could be accomplished with a rewrite of the job description or creation of another similar job. For an external person, it would probably be no if the degree was a job posting requirement. The HR process would eliminate the person if they did not meet the criteria.
Yes, why not? Some of the smartest and most capable people I know didn’t finish college (and some didn’t’ even start).
The question is whether the person has the knowledge and skills needed for the job they are being hired for. So you would typically be looking for demonstrated experience on the job resume.
Keep in mind that the ability to complete college or not is often due to class distinctions or other life circumstances. Not everyone has the luxury of taking 4 years to attend school while their parents support them – many young people enter the workforce or the military straight out of high school because that is the better path for them economically.
I work in biiotech R&D - a field where it’s very common to have advanced degrees. And I’ve seen a few folks without even a bachelors degree come along over the years. With the right experience and knowledge they do okay. The limitation I’ve seen in terms of abilities tends to come in dealing on your own with new processes or new situations. While I’ve seen exceptions in both directions, as a general trend employees without a lot of college tend to stick with whatever methods and approaches they know. But the people with college educations tend to be more comfortable in improvising something new when the situation calls for it - sort of using their broader knowledge to synthesize a new approach or method or to modify an old one… Without that broader knowledge to call on the less-educated folks are at a disadvantage.
It would depend on the job requirements as filed in HR for me. It is not easy to get a job description rewritten and if the position had college degree as a requirement it could be an issue to put forth a candidate without one. I would probably float the idea of finishing the degree within x amount of time and bring up the education reimbursement program with HR if that was the singular best candidate.
@ucbalumnus – I’m one of the people you’re talking about. I dropped out of EE school after three years. Hiring someone like me would be a risk because if I blew up in your face then you wouldn’t have documentation to back you up (you couldn’t say to your boss, “well, that person had a BS from XYZ university so I thought they were qualified to do the job”).
If this is a STEM position what I would look for is experience in the field during college (I had a part-time job writing software for a power company), any verifiable special accomplishments (I had a short paper in ProcIEEE on EM theory), and then do a thorough interview to get a feel for the person. Throw them curveballs during the interview to try to shake them up. I’d also ask for certified SAT or ACT test results.
When I dropped out of UT-Austin I lost the part-time job at the power company because I didn’t meet their requirements anymore (not a student and no degree). My boss there told me about a small company in north Austin that needed a PC programmer. They put me through the gauntlet described above and I got the job.
Note: hiring that person may be a managerial issue. My boss at the power company once told me, “you need to stop burning your bridges before you get to them”.
Yes; I’ve hired some great people who did not have bachelor’s degrees (tech field, Fortune 100 company), and I did not discriminate against them when it came to promotions or pay. Why? The lack of a degree became irrelevant as soon as I hired them. Every one of them performed as well or better than their degreed peers. For me, skills trumped a degree every time.
Ditto what @Scipio said. I am also a long time biotechie. I want to add one more thing. We had a person with a BA… just in a wrong field. English Lit major working In a biotech lab. Sometimes, skills trump the degree if the latter is in a toally irrelevant field.
We have one guy working in our group (engineering) without a degree. He’s more of a test engineer/fabricator/coordinator though and therefore does not do any of the actual engineering work. Great guy… easy to work with and is very productive.
So I guess my answer would be yes, depending on the type of work the person would be doing, and what type of skills he/she brought to the table.
