SIC Staff Recruitment in Shetland

[BigMouth]

I was told recently that the SIC will not give you a managerial position if you do not have a degree. I am going to assume that this is true from my experience of applying for a non-management IT technical support position some time ago.

 

I applied for a post for which I had 7 years of experience directly related to the post as well as 2 years indirect experience.

 

One of the requirements for the post was a degree in a technical subject. I don't have a degree. I was due to start a psychology degree some years ago, but I gave up the opportunity because I felt that I could not guarantee earning enough to feed my family in the time that I wasnt at university/studying.

 

The irony is that a technical degree could be a degree in physics, which had absolutely nothing to do with the role. You can get an interview with this degree, but I can't with years of experience.

 

So is it best to pass over staff who may have years of experience because they don't have a degree? I am sure that the SIC will say that they want the best staff, but how do they know that the best staff will be the ones with the degrees?

 

Is it a way of discriminating against older members of society, who are less likely to have degrees, the discrimination being intentional or otherwise?

[Twerto]

This is something i have debate with my fellow colleges manyh a time about.. Experience does seem to count for less and less as each year goes by. At the end of the day IMO a degree is one of many forms that shows you are able to take in imformation and divulge it a correct manor. Some of the peoploe i know ( especially in the IT indursty ) are completely self taught. because when they started such courses were very far and few between.

 

In my area of work I have seen loads of hands on information go to waste as people leave or retire, something the "grads" dont think is valuable because it wasnt taught to them at uni.

 

the fact you dont have a degree in what ever does not mean you are incapable of doing a job. all it means is you may do work without havign to do much research in advance.. but again in my area of work I dont know anyone that doesnt constantly use reference material to help them in day to day work, something someone without a degree would be able to do aslong as theyt ahve had sometime in the job to familiarise themself with where/what reference material is relevent to the job at hand.

 

I even know someone that has masters in mathematics.. but has since choosen to live in shetland and take over the family croft.. In my eyes a waste of 4/5 years at uni.. but that his choice.

 

erm waffleing on.,... feel free to move this to the drunk zone thead and exuse my typing as i am usiogn this poxy Ibook g4 thing that has all the wrong buttons on the keyboard-.... so bloody ilogical if you ask me

[JustMe]

So buy a degree mail order from one of those American universities that sell such things.

 

More seriously, if the SIC are insisting on degrees instead of experience is that not something the councillors could investigate. And if they conclude that a degree is needed for managerial jobs then perhaps councillors should be expected to make complete disclosure of all their "paper" qualifications.

[Carlos]

I think a lot of the time a requirement for a "degree in a technical subject" is used as a shortcut to find people who have proven they can be dumped in a situation and pick up a lot of information as they go.

 

Of course it doesn't mean that someone without the degree could not do that as well, but to find that out you'd have to have interviewers who knew something of the technical side of their own work.....

 

I think the worst side is the new SIC policy that, for example, if a degree is listed as a "requirement" for a job (not just desired) then nobody without a degree will get an interview..... removing any chance that an interviewer might actually be able to have a chance to make the choice.

[BigMouth]

I think the worst side is the new SIC policy that, for example, if a degree is listed as a "requirement" for a job (not just desired) then nobody without a degree will get an interview..... removing any chance that an interviewer might actually be able to have a chance to make the choice.

 

I think that it will usually be the interviewing panel that decide the Requirements and the Desirables so I think that a lot of talent might be going to waste in Shetland.

 

I was having a chunter to a colleague at work about what I am earning and they asked how much I was getting before - £30,000 pa + car + bens. They asked if I could eran that in Shetland now. I had to say no because the longer that I don't do the job the more the experience drains away into irrelevance.

[BigMouth]

More seriously, if the SIC are insisting on degrees instead of experience is that not something the councillors could investigate. And if they conclude that a degree is needed for managerial jobs then perhaps councillors should be expected to make complete disclosure of all their "paper" qualifications.

 

And there's the rub. We voted them into office (hopefully no-one will point out that I didn't vote) because we believe that their experience, not paper qualifications are more important. If they do a poor job (do they?) is it because they may not have a degree?

[humptygrumpty]

What I would like to know is how many of these people who are insisting on degrees actually have them themselves ?

I know several people who have got jobs in the sic where part of the job description required a degree and they didnt have one , and were told it was just "Part of the advertising" but didnt really mean very much , and that was for a quite Technical job.

[NewMagnie]

Depends who's insisting.

 

The qualification level for jobs in the public sector is quite often decided by people other than the council though. Some of these are obvious, teachers for example, or marine officers.

 

Some aren't. Community workers - another example - qualifications are determined by Communities Scotland. Not the most technical job in the world and one where loads of people are involved at a voluntary, part time and 'assistant' level. But to break AP3, you need a degree in the subject which is from CS' approved list. To give the council its due, it has been known to offer traineeships.

 

I can't speak for planners, engineers, admin and the like. Some of these will have conditions, including a minimum level of qualification set at a national level, negotiated by a professional association or a trade union. I suspect, if you were to go through the council's inventory, the number of tades and professions that they have complete control over setting the qualification bar for is pretty small.

[BigMouth]

What I would like to know is how many of these people who are insisting on degrees actually have them themselves ?

I know several people who have got jobs in the sic where part of the job description required a degree and they didnt have one , and were told it was just "Part of the advertising" but didnt really mean very much , and that was for a quite Technical job.

 

I met someone recently who was bemoaning the fact that she only had n-1 of the n requirements for the post for a non-SIC job and had not gone for it because of that. I think that Iopened her eyes when I explained that it was possible that no-one had n requirements and the nearest may have been n-2.

 

Just because an employer says that a certain thing is a requirement doesn't mean that those that have that thing would be interested in applying for the job. I have seen a fair few jobs in my time where no-one has applied or just one person applied.

 

I applied for a job not that long ago where I was rejected, and the applicant who was succesful decided at the last minute that they didn't want it after all. So much for the foolproof system

[Commodore]

having a degree is not essential to getting a job, i have been turned down as i didnt have the experience. so its a balance of experience and degree/HNC i have found.

[Shoogler]

It's changed days.

I had a problem getting a job when I left Uni and that included a number of interviews where the lack of any experience was obviously the reason. That also included a few refusals by SIC.

Mind you there were 3.2 million unemployed then in Thatchers Britain and graduate prospects were crap.

[BigMouth]

Mind you there were 3.2 million unemployed then in Thatchers Britain and graduate prospects were crap.

 

Wasn't that a time a of constant Tory economic miracles

[Shoogler]

Da very same.

[marlin13]

AFAIK a certain Mr Gates never finished his degree, although I belive he has been given at least one honarary one. He joked about this in a recent interview. Many other self made people do not have degrees. They could no doubt probably have got ones if they had wished, but choose instead to make pots of money.

IMHO far to much emphasis is placed on degrees nowadays, far more emphasis should be placed on experience and someones other abilities not just a degree they sat perhaps many years ago and have forgotten the content of !!!

[Malcolm]

I got turned down for a job by a charitable group recently, two of the reasons given were "I didnt know enough about the charity" and "They felt I hadn't been quite expressive enough about why I wanted the position"! eh? Yeah right,

By those reasons it would seem to me that I would have to live here for a few years and read up on them before I stood a hope in hell of getting the job.

 

My problem is that I am disabled and live with my partner who now has to pay my way for me.

 

I'm 49 and feel useless and worthless!