Staff Dilemmas - Graduates or Non Graduates

Over the last month I have had to put a new team together for Alive Online.

One of my dilemmas was the choice between a university graduate with two degrees, IT and Arts, over a non graduate with 4 years industry experience. The graduate was very articulate and clever but he had no referees nor any IT work experience. The industry trained applicant had reasonable referees but no where near as much confidence as the graduate.

I have to say it was a tough choice. Both were the same age, willing to work under the same pay and working conditions as well as both being really nice young men.

So who did I pick.

Thanks to my friend who happened to be over for dinner! Her sister is a draftsperson and employs people on a regualr basis. Hands down every time she advocates for industry trained over graduates. I took this story as a sign and decided to follow her lead.

So far all is well. But of course it always takes a while to get to know new staff and how well they are going to work out.

The other thing I noticed through the process of putting on 3 new staff members was that there are definately not as many resumes coming through at the moment compared to say 2 years ago.

This still did not prevent the whole process taking about 3 weeks from initially advertising to having the new team in place. Thank Goodness!!