Congratulations! The business that you have built from the ground up is starting to grow.
The only problem is it’s getting to the point where you can’t manage it by yourself. Sounds like it’s time to hire an employee. But who do you hire? Someone fresh out of school? Someone with decades of experience? How do you know which is better - school smarts or work smarts?
This is a question that has been plaguing small business owners since the dawn of time (not really, but you know what I mean). Let’s take a deeper look at the difference between school smarts: the knowledge gained from attending multiple years of schooling and obtaining a diploma, degree or higher; and work smarts: the tactical knowledge gained from multiple years of experience in a specific job field.
Both of these different types of education have their pros and cons. People who have school smarts have gotten an education on a specific topic are well educated on some of the core concepts but are considered green to the working world. They often don’t have the full depth of knowledge that someone with multiple years of experience would have. These people are typically hard workers and have a good foundation of knowledge. On the other hand, someone who has little education but vast experience may not have the foundation of knowledge, but they understand the minutiae of the job they are doing. Very often these people excel in jobs that they have been doing for some time.
Let me quickly tell you about my personal experience. While I was at school, I saw students in my class get by doing the bare minimum. They rarely showed up to class and started studying for exams and working on projects hours before they were due. Sure, they did get their degrees, (by barely passing every course): but through their 4 years, students who applied themselves learned skills and lessons that could be an asset to an employer. That being said, these students were a very small minority in comparison to the majority of students who were learning as much as they possibly could.
I had the chance to do co-op placements in my program. These were semesters where students got a job and worked in the field they were studying. This placement was extremely effective at teaching students things that you would never learn in school. Things
like office etiquette, managing attitude, and constant learning. These placements drilled in lessons that no quiz, exam or lecture could teach and provided me with some fantastic opportunities. Plus it was harder for students to just get by when they were being scrutinized and watched by an employer, rather than a teacher looking over 60+ students.
In my personal experience, my degree in PR and the time at school greatly helped to prepare me for the field. Through multiple writing courses, strict deadlines, working with real-world clients and a number of co-op placements, we pretty much did it all. My program prepared me to step into the working world, but especially the things that I have learned from working in the field are things I could have never picked up in a classroom alone.
Post-secondary schooling is a great foundation for any person who wants to begin a career, but without any experience they lack the experience that some employers desire. Work smarts are gained when you're in a position to do a certain kind of work before for a long period of time.
Now that I have finished my degree and entered the working world, my experience in co-ops and similar job positions has helped me equally as much as my degree. Getting a degree is a great foundation to build a career but it’s honed and refined with years of experience following it.
With all that said and done, who is better to hire? Ultimately, when it comes down to choosing school smarts or work smarts, the best choice is to choose someone with both. Someone with an education and some years of experience would usually be an excellent choice. If they are educated with school smarts and have some experience to back it up, they’re likely a great choice. That being said this rule isn’t set in stone. Mark Zuckerburg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates all dropped out of school. But that doesn’t mean that if you hire a dropout you’re going to be a billionaire.
Obviously, education and experience isn’t the only thing that you should think about when hiring a new employee. How they fit in with your company culture, their attitude and a number of things can affect your perfect candidate. But education plays a massive role and should be on the top of your list for your next or first perfect employee.
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