Alasdair Anderson:
The level of my degree, and in fact whether I even have one, has for a number of years probably been a minor issue when advancing my career relative to my experience and the CPD achieved since I left university.
Unfortunately I think it depends on the role, for my current role (very similar to yours) it's not a question. But when I was working in design roles, up to rather senior design management, with a significant track record in two rather different industries, I was still being rejected at CV selection stage because I didn't have a 1st or 2.1. If I did get through this to interview I tended to be offered a more senior job then the one I'd applied for! * That's actually why I originally applied for CEng, to distract from my dreadful degree at CV selection, it didn't work at all. But it would for the role I'm in now.
Because of this experience I do question companies who claim not to be able to recruit "good" mid career engineers - often they filter CVs based on slightly nebulous reasons. (Many even dafter than this, such as experience of a specific version of a specific CAD system.) Unfortunately the recruitment system is a bit of a game. And, to be fair, it is very difficult. But trying to reduce it to an exact mathematical formula, even though it's understandable why HR departments want to do this, really doesn't work - as you say, in engineering track record should be hugely important.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...I think it just puts it in context how irrelevant a 37 year old degree grade should be.
Alasdair Anderson:
The level of my degree, and in fact whether I even have one, has for a number of years probably been a minor issue when advancing my career relative to my experience and the CPD achieved since I left university.
Unfortunately I think it depends on the role, for my current role (very similar to yours) it's not a question. But when I was working in design roles, up to rather senior design management, with a significant track record in two rather different industries, I was still being rejected at CV selection stage because I didn't have a 1st or 2.1. If I did get through this to interview I tended to be offered a more senior job then the one I'd applied for! * That's actually why I originally applied for CEng, to distract from my dreadful degree at CV selection, it didn't work at all. But it would for the role I'm in now.
Because of this experience I do question companies who claim not to be able to recruit "good" mid career engineers - often they filter CVs based on slightly nebulous reasons. (Many even dafter than this, such as experience of a specific version of a specific CAD system.) Unfortunately the recruitment system is a bit of a game. And, to be fair, it is very difficult. But trying to reduce it to an exact mathematical formula, even though it's understandable why HR departments want to do this, really doesn't work - as you say, in engineering track record should be hugely important.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...I think it just puts it in context how irrelevant a 37 year old degree grade should be.
