...to think needing a degree to progress is an outdated way of thinking?

[Iflippinghateplaydoh]

I (clearly) don't have a degree, I left 6th form and went to a business college and then spent 6 years working as a manager in my 20s.
I moved companies and went to a non-management role but a lot more money.
Now in early 30s and my children are at school I'd love to progress back into a manager role at this company that I've been at for 5 years (of which there are many manager roles here) however as I don't have a degree it's impossible.
Open uni will take me years

Although there's nothing I can do to change it, AIBU to feel like experience should be taken into account sometimes rather than saying "without a degree you can't go anywhere".

I love the company and am so frustrated as I'm more than capable and have been told so on many occasions, but if they accept 1 in without a degree it opens up a whole new can of worms so they won't budge.

Is this standard across most industries?

Or AIBU to think it's a bit of an old fashioned way of thinking?

Depends on the job. My son drives a van and has a degree. They do not require degrees for the van drivers. My daughters and I are solicitors where it tends to help to have a degree and is hard to qualify without one plus you have to pass the post grad exams too. My sibling is a doctor. A degree is needed for that and I suspect most of us would want a doctor operating on us to have a medical degree.

JustDanceAddict today you wouldn’t have got a degree.

You wouldn’t have been able to do A levels if you hadn’t passed your Maths GCSE.

I have an issue with Ds who will not be able to progress in his chosen field despite getting near perfect or perfect scores on his tests and exams at college.

Without English (which he speaks very well and is ok writing technical terms on a computer) he will not be able to get his English GCSE.

For him he has one chance in June to take it before it really being the end of the road.

Yet the government are saying there is a lack of home grown trades people.

In my circle, even a degree isn't enough. They've all got or working towards masters+ and/or second or third degrees, umpteen professional qualifications and courses.

Employers are spoilt for choice, not only for employees from the UK but from Europe as well but also would happily work for minimum wage in jobs that don't actually need academic or scientific skills. A degree is almost taken for granted that the candidate would have one at 2:1 or first.. it's not even that special in what I see around me (London).

Then there is the classic thing of progressing in life due to having exceptionally good looks which you can use to market the hell out of yourself, bubbly personality and interest in media to be successful online (youtube, etc) or having a family with solid connections and deep pockets to push you forward.

You posted a thread about your DS didn't you @Oliversmumsarmy ? Is that situation still not resolved, then?

When I recruit for my team, a CV with no degree probably would not even reach me as candidates with no degrees would be filtered out by HR during selection process. To me a degree is just a guarantee that a person is likely to have certain skills I need. It doesn’t mean that they always do or that people with no degrees don’t have they se skills, but I cannot interview everyone. I don’t usually take people on straight from University as I recruit for more seniors jobs. To me it does not matter what they did their degree in ie a maths degree and an English degree is equal to me. I might look at A level results and also what university they went to.
University background is not just about qualifications. I would think people who have been to Uni would come with more experience of mixing with different types of people, studying in international environments which is experience which is important in the roles I recruit for.

No.

I thought that he could go abroad to qualify but apparently even though the college I spoke to said yes they didn’t need any prior qualifications virtually everyone said that was wrong so didn’t want to go down that route and pay out money on accommodation for him to get there and it to be raised as an issue so we are back to square one.

He is seriously thinking about changing career to his plan B or plan C

That was in answer to RubberTreePlant

Ridiculous state of affairs @Oliversmumsarmy

Whatever happens, consider pointing out the madness to your MP.

I doubt an MP would do anything.

This is a national problem. MPs voted for this restructure in education and they must have realised what was going to happen which makes me think there is something not quite right.

They must have realised that if you insist on academic exams for trades which were normally for those that didn’t pass the academic exams Then home grown tradesmen and women would dry up.

Friend looked into doing flower arranging at her local college and found despite being part owner of a florist, she cannot get into the flower arranging classes because she doesn’t have GCSEs.

Just do the degree - you can do part time or distance learning and maybe they'd let you work alongside studying

Just put in the work like everyone else your age did. There are part-time MBA programmes out there that would accept your experience as equivalent to BA and let you graduate in a few years with a good qualification. Maybe your employer would even pay for some or all of it?

You should be proactive about the issue rather than just moaning that it's not fair on you. Other people with degrees worked hard for them. Some paid a lot of money for them. Why are you so averse to going to college anyway? Maybe you could learn something, broaden your horizons.

I'm about to go back to college to get a Masters even though I already have one because I've been on a career break and this is the best way for me to change careers / get back into work. I could probably do the job without the additional Masters but I want to learn and give myself the best professional chances.

Experience is FAR more important than a degree. I have a degree but when I’ve hired people in the past I valued experience and aptitude much more highly than qualifications.

Also, most degrees are not vocational and therefore not relevant to the role. This is especially true of business/management type jobs. Would they really value someone with a degree in classics over someone who has several years of management experience.

Have you tried speaking to the people responsible for recruitment?

Very interesting. And no, this mentality doesn't seem to be changing.

To those who haven't had their qualifications checked please don't lie about them.

I've worked for companies who were making staff redundant and to try and limit who they paid out to they checked everyone's qualifications by contacting their academic institutions. I think one company - medium sized- was completely gutted as everyone had told the truth so to get rid of someone they had to pay them off. (I was sitting near the two people doing it and could over hear them.)

Other companies may check qualifications when they promote you.

Look for job adverts that are similar to your role and see what they say. I've noticed in my field that senior job descriptions now say "degree or relevant work experience required"

Although the adverts put it much better than that!

@Oliversmumsarmy I got a friend, ex-teacher, who over 35 years ago was helping apprentices learn English skills so they could get their English GCSE equivalent and so pass their apprentice course.

I have a friend now, also ex-teacher, who currently works with apprentices and again he said if they don't have basic English and Maths they cannot pass the apprenticeship course. As someone who does a role in the same industry basic English and Maths is needed in the roles. There are a lot of older people around in the industry who don't have degrees but have industry specific qualifications and you cannot study for them if you don't have basic English and Maths skills.

So it was and still is a well-known issue.

This is a national problem. MPs voted for this restructure in education and they must have realised what was going to happen which makes me think there is something not quite right.

You're assuming MPs and senior civil servants possess common sense!

Gordon Brown brought in a raft of tax incentives for small businesses trading through limited companies, but didn't do the same for sole traders. Then he was surprised when lots of sole traders, such as window cleaners converted themselves into limited companies. His side-kick, the Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo, actually said in Parliament that she didn't think sole traders would convert to limited companies just to save tax!

They can sometimes be absolutely clueless as to the consequences of their policies.

ScreamScreamIceCream

But now you can’t even get an apprenticeship without GCSE Maths and English.

He has his maths GCSE but English I very much doubt he will ever pass.

Dp and I never passed English O level (as it was in our day).
Dp did a law degree along side qualifying in another profession and then went onto study for another profession which usually took 5.5years to do. Dp completed it whilst working on his own in the evenings and weekends in 1 year.

My school insisted I take English over and over and over again. They even put me in for a CSE and I failed them all with a U (unclassified)
Ds in mock tests at the most has got 14%. Usually he gets around 5-8% he has dyslexia and dysgraphia.

The thing is he can talk perfectly well and write up technical terms but passing an English exam is beyond him.

We know people in the trade and even some who are early-mid 20s who haven’t got a single GCSE who are qualified and work in the trade. One looked into giving Ds his apprenticeship. (We thought he could get it done in 5 months, and then return to college to start his level 3 in September but as Ds doesn’t have his English GCSE his hands are tied).

The thing is he can talk perfectly well and write up technical terms but passing an English exam is beyond him.

Hardly surprising because the GCSE English exams are mostly about fiction and poetry and very little about "real life" workplace English skills.

Fair enough for the Literature paper, but even the English Language paper includes poetry, a comprehension about a Fiction piece, and some of the "writing" choices are fiction such as writing poetry or a story or an advertising leaflet.

The days appear long gone when you were taught and examined on life-skill English such as writing a letter, filling in a form, comprehension on non fiction (such as a recipe or instruction).

Personally, I think poetry and fiction needs to be restricted to the English Literature paper and for the English Language paper to be based entirely around "real life" English functional skills.

I sometimes think that there is some sort of conspiracy going on.

Boys and girls who would have been funnelled into these careers as they were not academic but more practical are now unable to access these careers and the ones that are academic don’t want to do these careers.

I have a business which relies on certain of these trades but when they turn up to do a quote and regardless how good they might be at their job I cannot communicate with them because I only speak English.

Being able to pass an English exam though is what is stopping my Ds and probably many like him from progressing.

Can he not train without being on an apprenticeship in that case - just be taken on perhaps for no pay for 5 months (if you and his father can afford to keep him) like the days when people in the UK paid for their son to be taken on as a trainee and then when he has learned the skills the company keeps him on (as there is I think no law that people like plumbers etc have to have exams before they can offer those skills - I could offer myself out tomrrow on an app providing DIY skills if I wanted without a single qualification in that area and then he could build up his business on personal recommendation by his previous customers).

He has done the college part. Came out with an average of 97.5% for all us exams and tests.
Passed that part with flying colour.

To qualify you have to do an apprenticeship.

No GCSE English = No Apprenticeship = No qualification

Yes he could become a DIY person but his heart is set on this trade.

If he doesn’t get his English then he has a plan B.

All trades now have to have the GCSE in English and Maths. So whilst plumbers in the past could qualify very few colleges now will even let you on Level 1 plumbing without your Maths and English and some want 3 other GCSEs as well.

Things have changed just in the last couple of years.
Dd 2 years older was able to dodge a lot of these problems otherwise she would have been in work at 16.

As I said my friend tried to join a course for floristry (she is part owner of a florists). No GCSEs so she couldn’t get on the course.

Also you do realise a lot of these apprenticeships are without pay. Or pay is very very low.

I do think it's ridiculous that these qualifications are made mandatory. I am academic myself but if I was employing a carpenter or plumber I couldn't care less whether he had his/her GCSE I just want them to be competent at their job.