College Degree Required? Is That Smart?
For many companies and positions, they say “College degree required.” Is that good? That depends. On average, you get something in a college graduate that you do not get without. However, you lose some excellent candidates with a blanket ban. Now, ignoring a college degree would be jumping in another ditch.
We find that by interviewing deeply, we can find out if graduates are no way and if non graduates are amazing. Both defy the averages but we overcome simplistic refusals to find and place candidates that others may miss.
We placed one associates degree person (now age 34) that the hiring manager initially refused. We worked hard to push for his hiring as knew bias was really hurting him here. He on his own made an offer to a person we gave him who had graduated form a proper 4 year college 12 years ago. We thought he made the wrong choice even though we would earn more. That guy did not even show up for work, so then he hired the associates degree guy we had pushed for. That guy quickly become their most important manager and helped them earn a fortune as a product development manager.
College Degree Required? Let’s Think More
Generally speaking college people are more capable to get things done and understand higher concepts. However, sometimes the non graduates have gone through hard times and failure and become more mature than the one who skated all the way through college, but never real learned who they were at core.
I have a recruiter working for me now who I hired right out of college. He had not graduated after 5 years when he came to interview. In fact, his whole sophomore year had to be repeated as he never went to class. After 5 years he still did not have his diploma. After a long talk with him I realized that he was more mature than the normal graduates through the difficulty he had passed through. I hired him, and he proved to be the best. They gave him his diploma the next month. He still works for us.
How about checking out One Small Secret To Better Hiring.