Education and learning

Life’s full of contradictions and misconceptions that many people will readily stake their lives on, without knowing the full consequences of their actions or inactions.

Here’s one that has to do with education and the elitist perception of those that have formal education and the defeatist perception of those that don’t.

As you go through life, you’ll find that the majority of those with their certificates, degrees, masters and PhDs in a certain “specialized field” do not end up working in their areas of expertise. (Notwithstanding that, for those worrying unnecessarily about their field of education and vocation later in life, I can only say this… Chill it!)

The preoccupation of HR personnel with paper-qualified candidates over experience-qualified means nothing more than short-sightedness and well, a serious lack of understanding of their industry’s business. They may be well-versed in operational matters of their companies, but not the business aspects. And to have inexperienced candidates managing senior positions in companies can only spell disaster, both internally and externally.

There will always be paper-qualified candidates aplenty but experience-qualified is a very limited resource. Hence I cannot understand why advancement in age is thought of something of a liability here in Asia when elsewhere in the world, it’s an asset.

In addition, I’ve come across numerous lazy-as-hell highly qualified people who aren’t worth even a tenth of the money they’ve spent on their education, but I’ve yet to come across a lazy non-qualified/lowly qualified person.

So, to the elitist, I’d say “Get real… time will show your inexperience” and to those depressed because they didn’t get formal education, “Get real, too and be proud of something you have that’ll literally take others years to acquire.”

As you can see, I’m one that’s all for the hiring of experienced personnel over formally-qualified ones. See, there’s a world of difference between being educated and learned. While one’s used to describe students, the other’s used for sages.