Emily
Do employers care more about educational background than in-field experience?
If I am going into journalism, is it more important for me to attend graduate school or simply to obtain an internship and begin my hands-on practice right after receiving my undergraduate degree? #mind-over-matter
2 answers
Jency Byju
Jency’s Answer
This is a good question. There is always a starting point to everything we do in life, be it career, learning, and so on.
Educational qualification does play a very important role in the initial stages of our career....when you are trying to explore, and build one. Its a normal practice that when we apply for a specific role, the resumes are screened as a first step, based on the educational qualifications and the scoring. Our educational background is like the foundation stone, on which we build our career and experience, as years pass by.
Of course, there are exceptions to the lucky ones always....
Once we are into a company, and as we gain many years of experience, it definitely helps to further develop and grow there...or else where...
So Good Luck! and All the best!
Austin L.
Austin’s Answer
Hi Emily,
Good question, but definitely a hard one. There is always the debate between expertise vs experience and there really is no clean answer to say that one is better than the other. Instead of the traditional expertise vs experience debate, I would say that employers care about competency. You can have lots of experience in the field but be bad at the work, as well as having a fancy degree but doing poorly in school and barely passing, both are bad. Instead, you should be focused on developing your competency in the field that you want to go in to. Competency can be developed and honed through both a degree and work experience , it really is a matter of personal choice. Sometimes you may have to have a degree to do a certain job and if that is the case, then you should get that degree. For most starting levels of any job they don't require anything more than a B.A. (this is of course not the case for doctors and lawyers), so you do have time to get a degree if you choose to do so. As you get promoted and advance though, it is likely that you will have to get a degree in your field of study.
Try not to stress out about whether or not you are doing enough, trust your gut and do your best work.
I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck.
Best,
Austin