Change the Way You Hire, Part 1: Am I Qualified?

Attracting the right people to your organization is a difficult process and the traditional hiring model needs to be updated. In this four part series I will share some ideas to start a conversation around how we hire and ultimately keep talent in our organizations. I will discuss some of the things that I think are broken with the current hiring systems and give you the perspective of a Millennial who has worked at three different government organizations, assisted organizations in recruiting and served on numerous interview panels. Government is a services organization and it takes great people to be great, so hiring is where it all starts.

Am I Qualified?

I did not have the luxury of being able to attend a college directly out of high school. I entered local government with my passion for public service and great work ethic. We have access to so many resources it often baffles me the degree requirements on most job postings. In 2014, the average student debt for a 4 year degree is $33,000 dollars and $57,600 for those with graduate degrees. The university system is a big business with the government currently backing 1.1 trillion in student loan debt.

We are in the age of continuous learning. The systems that we use and work with every day are constantly evolving and our job roles are always changing. So why is it that we have become so focused on degrees as a filtering tool in the hiring process? Shouldn’t we be focusing on overall adaptability, problem solving, people skills and overall drive and passion? I hope we can change the degree centric world in the near future but it only seems to be gaining momentum.

Just remember the next time you are tasked with hiring that it has been proven time and time again that you do not need a degree to be successful and having one does not make you successful.

“Unless you are a weatherman, education is rarely measured in degrees”

Tim Howell is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.