What purpose do degrees serve?
I have a degree in Communication Studies, and a Master’s in Human Resource Management, and I’ve loved the learning experience that both have given me (not to mention the life-experience of living away from home and the fantastic friendships I’ve made during these times). However, I’m always curious about the way organisations recruit roles when there’s an insistence upon the successful applicant having a degree.
Scanning through a job description this morning, for an experienced Business Development Manager, I reflected on this once more. For any application to be considered, the applicant was required to be educationally qualified to a BA level.
This requirement wasn’t listed as ‘desirable’. It wasn’t even listed beneath core experiences, competencies and behaviours which would ensure success in the role (industry experience, an ability to build and manage stakeholder relationships, excellent communication skills). This requirement was the number one pre-requisite, listed above all others.
Ask yourself this question: For an experienced business development manager, in what ways does possessing a degree mean that one applicant with one will be more able to build stakeholder relationships or communicate more effectively?
We all come into the world of work – regardless of academic attainment - with a need to develop such skills further (and thinking of continuous development, reviewing, nurturing and developing them ongoing is standard practice). The journey of learning these skills would be similar for an employee who had entered the world of work directly after school, as it would for another who had studied a degree. In fact, if you were two take two similar aged employees, both having worked in the same area since leaving education, it would usually be the former who would have had the greatest level of working exposure to the situations that help cultivate develop these skills.
It’s true that the academic journey can help develop critical thinking, however this isn’t the only available method for achieving such a goal. And while it’s also true that certain professions require highly developed knowledge at even the earliest career stages (medicine, for instance), there are options available in many positions to achieve this aim of improving knowledge through development programmes, apprenticeships and on the job training etc.
In what ways is asking for a degree unhelpful?
Degrees discriminate. They discriminate against people because, if you can’t afford one, you can’t have one. An already true situation which will only become accentuated as the cost of living crisis deepens. Tuition fees alone cost in excess of £25,000 per year in England, an eye waveringly huge amount, which for many is a price they cannot afford to pay, or a debt they cannot be burdened with.
Asking for a degree actively limits opportunities for social mobility, which in turn puts minority groups, including disabled people, at a distinct disadvantage.
Degrees impact accessibility. How can any equity, diversity and inclusion policies flourish, if there’s a hurdle in place that keeps under-represented groups from applying?
What can organisations do?
Businesses need to start asking themselves questions. They need to think about the eligibility criteria that they set for potential applicants when creating and advertising a vacancy. In what ways does higher education make one candidate more employable than another (if at all)? Does possessing a degree really impact on employee performance and delivery of goals? At an organisational level, how can recruitment and selection methods be updated to ensure there are more nuanced assessment tools to establish capability and suitability? How does asking for a degree actively undermine organisational objectives around equity, diversity and inclusion?
Organisations need to consider what type of culture they are trying to create, and if asking for degrees is supportive of developing a workplace where everyone feels they belong. Ultimately, is the way that organisations define, identify and hire ‘talent’ fit for purpose in the world in which we live?