Acumen News & Events

11 May 2010

What’s in a qualification?

Are qualifications an actual requirement or are applicants simply jumping through hoops?

Most job applications have certain standard academic ‘must haves’ be it a required number of GCSE’s, A-Levels and/or degrees.

Employers are now being urged to reconsider how important ‘grades’ are in selecting the right candidate for your Company. Are academic qualifications the most significant factor when it comes to establishing that a candidate has the personality and skills to fit in with your Company or should prospective employers be looking for something more?

Employers are being warned that they could miss out on good talent by rigorously enforcing the often crude ‘2:1’ cut off point on degree classifications in their application process and are instead being urged to consider the implementation of experience based assessments, IQ and emotional intelligence tests.

Removing grade distinctions from the selection criteria could potentially leave a Company open to an inundation of job applications, thus creating a potentially unmanageable task for HR Managers when it comes to whittling down the number of applications per available post.

Whilst we would not suggest removing the grade distinction altogether, it would not seem to be an unrealistic approach to give it a little bit of flexibility. A slighter lower grade cut off could open your recruitment process up to a whole raft of keen and eager applicants looking for work. The question is; how far are you prepared to go to find the ‘right’ talent.