You might have heard that education is not as important as experience or that education doesn’t matter as much as experience. But data shows a different picture. According to the US Bureau of Statistics data, education makes perfect sense in terms of dollar value. The higher your climb on the educational ladder, the more you earn.
Five Reasons Why Education is as Important as Experience
The numbers support the claim, too; for example, the BLS May 2020 data revealed that people at the age of 25 or more, possessing a doctoral or other professional degree earn $1,883 and $1,861, respectively, which is more than what people make with masters or lesser degrees.
You might have also heard examples where people succeeded in their life without any formal education. In some cases, it could true, but you still can’t rule out the importance of education. Having a degree on your resume gives the employer a cue to absorb learning and process information. This implies that neither (experience or education) has the edge over the other. Instead, both complement one another.
If you ask any entrepreneur, the answer may be that prior experience and skills are more important for job success than formal education. But at the same time, career coach Nancy Collamer comments that people come back to academia to acquire new degrees to bolster their skills and capabilities.
The additional education strengthens their experience and helps them achieve their career goals. Therefore, neither education nor experience alone is the suitable blend for success; both are equally important.
Take the English language as an example. It is a global language, but most individuals struggle with it. To climb the ladder of success, you’ll need to be fluent in written and spoken English, which is why candidates have started earning an online English degree, regardless of the final career choices.
Most degrees in Arts offer minor specialization to link it to your areas of interest in marketing, law, psychological. At the same time, it broadens your horizon and emboldens your critical analysis skills. Here are few reasons why education is as important as experience for advancing your career
Enhance your chances of landing a job There is a clear correlation between education and finding a job. The data corroborates the fact that education enhances the chance of finding employment. The May 2020 data of BLS shows that people with doctoral or professional degrees had less than a 2% unemployment rate.
While it slightly higher among people with a bachelor’s degree, it is highest among people with only a high school diploma.
1. Enhance your knowledge
Education is a source of enhancing your knowledge, while experience makes you learn by your mistakes and doings. In comparison, education can reduce the chances of making mistakes by preparing you for all kinds of circumstances. Therefore, education with experience creates a more wholesome package.
Furthermore, you can successfully apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to your workplace. You can gauge the importance of learning that many on-the-job training regimes revolve around having lectures in a classroom setting.
2. Develop analytical and problem-solving skills
Many of the courses are geared towards developing problem-solving and analytical skills. Simulations, group discussions, and teamwork exercises prepare you with logical reasoning, conflict management, and resolution. All these skills are applicable and help in the working environment.
The courses related to human resources and strategic management prepare you for assuming leadership roles. Therefore, you train about these roles in class to prepare yourself before the actual position comes your way. You’d be more confident and have better decision-making skills with education backing you up.
3. Achieving bigger paycheques
There is no doubt that education and higher education levels are essential criteria for improving your pay scale. People use their experience on the job, but when it comes to climbing a new step or getting a promotion, a higher degree plays an important role.
Higher degree holders can grab jobs with higher salaries, thus, benefiting the economy overall. You might have seen people who were born poor but achieved success after proper education. This is most accurate in the case of practical degrees such as in medicine.
4. Boosts your morale and confidence
Experience polishes your ability to make better decisions; education boosts your confidence in going into new directions and taking up risk. With education, you get familiar with recent trends, breakthroughs in research that enhance your forecasting skills and improve your chances of survival.
Current education’s emphasis on boosting communication skills works as a bout of confidence in the practical world. Studies have also shown that having greater confidence enhances success in career advancement, further making a convincing case by showing a correlation between success and confidence.
Conclusion
Many say that education is not as important as experience. At the same time, others remark that education opens new avenues of success and career options. The right approach is taking both of them together because they support each other in reality. Education plays an important that’s an important as experience in career growth.
The combination of education with experience makes an ideal case for a candidate demonstrating the suitable ability to take up the challenges of the job. The mix enhances your chances of excelling in a field exponentially.
The job market is becoming highly competitive these days. More than ever before, employers want to see a blend of prior experience and formal education for choosing the right candidate. Thus, experience and education go hand in hand for ensuring career success.