Is your degree useless? No! A reddit conversation of what hiring managers look for.
A Reddit user said: My degree is useless. I can’t gain any work experience
I responded to him:
Your degree counts. Things you did while studying count. Past jobs count. Volunteer stuff counts (and anyone who disagrees with that last one, send them to me and I’ll rip them a new butthole).
You HAVE to put everything up to show, even if small!
Another user, CB, disagreed very slightly with me, saying:
I mean I get what you’re saying and it’s all true but employers don’t consider that “experience”. What they’re looking for is someone they don’t have to train
I’m connected to over 500 hiring managers…so far. It keeps growing daily. They tell me what they want to see when they look at resumes and in interviews. Here’s my response.
Yes and no. They want someone they don’t have to train…much. So if you show off what you are already trained on and that is clearly listed on your resume, in examples like a portfolio, previous work a person can go see such as a website, a video or series, recommendations from others, even social media can bridge the gap BIG TIME!
New grads are hired all the time because they put themselves out there and have confidence, can show their skills well. If what you are saying is true, NO grad would be hired out of the gate, ever, even with all those factors!
Hiring managers usually like to see that someone has 60-75% of the component skills they are looking for.
(This is an industry standard, ask any hiring manager you wish about their preferred number.)
They are not stupid and DO realize that people will not have 100% of their “needed skills” because that’s dependent on each company! They DO look for unicorns first of course, but if they can’t find one, they keep looking to fill the role. Hiring/recruiting metrics and pay usually are determined by how fast they fill roles and how well they fit the role (as long as the person stays x months, they will get paid).
I put needed skills in quotes above because that is where hiring managers fail a lot, and that’s a problem I help companies with (sometimes. My core business is in helping people get their skills sorted, and get them on track for a dream job that fits them, but I do some with businesses to get their broken/slow hiring processes fixed).
There are of course issues with our entire hiring system and the problem is definitely on both sides. Nihilistic “unicorns only get ahead/rich connections only” thinking is around 30% of the problem on the People side. “Unicorns/Needed Skills” is about 30% of the problem on the Companies side.
By putting what few skills you have that do lightly relate, it’s telling a hiring manager that you are working towards a dream and they just might have that dream available.
Would you hire a young person out of college with no proof that they could do something? Or, a young person out of college using every method available to them to show some skill that the job might have?
I could have gone on further…but that was enough for one reply – for now.
Hiring managers/recruiters count experience, not where the experience is gotten from – unless the job requires certifications. Doctors, scientists, electricians, certain engineers and such. Not all experience needs to be gotten on jobs, and hiring managers do not require the same exact experience, they look for the skills behind it.
Your schooling counts as experience, not just as a key to unlock certain doors. It does not matter your degree directly, it matters what you learned from it that can be used for the job you’re going for, and SKILLS TRANSFER!
If you see this and want to know how to find your skills, how to transfer them into a job you want, start with the Jobseeker page and do the mini-course like your life depends on it. Because that knowledge of how your degree, your past jobs, your overall skills transfer – your life and future does depend on it!