Qualified Degree vs. Self Development: How to Make a Successful Career in HR?

Imagine yourself as a hiring manager. What qualities would you be looking for in your future HR executive and leaders? Would you choose someone with a qualified degree over an experienced individual grown through passion and self-development? You will need to make careful choices, after thorough consideration and evaluating experiences, studying the pros and cons before finalising on the new hire.

With higher specialised education courses on the rise and many international universities supplying thousands of qualified grads every year, a degree in itself no longer attracts employers to see you as the next suitable hire. Perhaps, today the business world works on a careful mix of - skills, qualifications, tenure, experiences, passion, your personality traits and lot more that go beyond degree to fetch your dream HR job.

Experience is valued more today, than a string of letters after your name. Besides the rising cost of education that makes people think twice before pursuing a degree, there is a widely-held stigma and assumption that higher education is actually not worth it. Some people consider that university graduates are not well prepared to enter the workforce.

On paper, they might have high GPA scores and sufficient theoretical knowledge but those concepts can seldom being practically implied to work. Owing to which, some employers today prefer to hire experienced individuals, even though they do not have a strong educational background.

Then the question remains, what makes you a successful HR practitioner? What factor guarantees a fast-track career progression in HR? Do qualified degrees still work and highlight the best talent? Or, is it just the lure of it, while experience and practical development matters more?

Below is an explanation, weighing upon the upsides and downsides of choosing either of the ways to become a successful HR:

Qualified degree is a must-have

Some people think that qualification in the discipline with specialised degree is important, but this does have justified reasons. Primarily, getting qualified into HR is not always about finding a stable career and bright future prospects. Beyond intellectual benefits, education tends to bring a significant impact on someone's life, such as personal, social, ethical, cultural, and many other aspects.

Therefore, educated people tend to broader perspective of looking at things in a new light. If you do possess a qualified degree, then these values are not only beneficial for your successful career in HR, but also for personal growth.

Secondly, in this computerised era, there are more jobs that require and involve brain works, than physical labour. Thanks to advanced automation technology reducing the physical burden, but exerting mental pressures.

And the one way to test if, someone is intellectually-qualified for the job role does fall back upon a qualified degree. More educated individuals usually have higher levels of engagement and willingness to learn from others. Therefore, they can quickly learn and understand something.

But, a degree alone is not enough if you want to stand out in your career. You need to support the qualification and knowledge, with skills honed and delivering best performance, to achieve congruence between your degree, passion and personality traits.

Self-development is imperative

As the old-adage says, 'Experience is the best teacher.' Fresh graduates might have their degrees to go flashy, but this in itself does not guarantee them a job in HR or even a stable career? Experience is one key determining factor and skills honed sets a leader apart from the norm. While higher degrees gets more accessible and easy today, employers now have become more selective in their hiring processes as well. They always seek to look beyond qualifications, as they are more interested in individuals to grow them as leaders in sync with the organisational culture.

Rather than employing fresh graduates, who are less aware about business fields operation, employers prefer to hire experienced veterans despite their lack of producing an educational degree to certify their skills.

Scanning through piles of resumes, employers today emphasise on experience plus skills, along with prerequisite qualifications to choose the next possible hire. The ideal candidate should bring in the best of both worlds to business excellence and performance efficiency - they should offer careful understanding of theories, while demonstrating safe good ethical practices at work. Way to go, before you fetch your dream HR job, counting on educational prowess in itself.

Next read: How Does a Premium LinkedIn Account Help Ease Job Search?