How an online degree can impress recruiters

Publish date	2008-01-08
Employment	Career Advice
Available Articles	Full articles without membership

MBA graduates in the US are entering the most competitive talent pool for years, according to research from the Graduate Management Admissions Council.

With more quality graduates going up for top jobs in consulting, management, banking and IT, how do distance learning graduates stack up against their full-time counterparts in the eyes of corporate recruiters looking to pick out future stars?

A decade ago, the answer would have been simple: full-time wins over distance every time. Online degrees were perceived (not always unfairly) as being less academically rigorous and somehow more ‘easy’. In most cases, the truth could not have been more different, as distance learning students more often than not have to juggle intensive study with work and family commitments.

Advances in the technology and improvements in the quality of e-learning have gone a long way to overturning negative public perception of this mode of study. It seems this accepting attitude has now spread to the hirers and firers.

Rebecca Fielding, UK talent manager at Heinz, believes distance education is more credible than it was a decade ago.

She says: “I have seen not just reputation of distance learning change but also the calibre of candidates and the perception of managers in the business who have themselves become much more familiar with online learning routes and methodologies.

“It’s a much more accepted way of learning. Ten years ago it was met with scepticism and was maybe seen as a ‘cut and paste’ degree but now it’s seen as having much more academic rigour behind it.”

Fielding says she is seeing an increasing number of high-quality candidates coming from a flexible learning background. “One of the reasons for that is the pressure around fees for full-time study,” she explains.

One criticism leveled at distance management degrees is that they lack crucial face-to-face elements of traditional programmes such as team building and working on projects with classmates. However, distance learners often have other qualities to compensate for this.

“Most distance learning candidates I’ve come across have done their degree while they’ve been caring for others or balancing that with work. A lot of the face-to-face skills we look for, such as project work, team building, self-learning and self-development tend to be developed just as quickly – if not more quickly – by those people who are already in a work environment.

“Skills like adapting to a political environment, and to the working environment, appropriate dress for the office, appropriate language in the office – all these things that seem to be not that important when you’ve been in the world of work for a few years are really important in the early stages of a career.

“Those people who have gone through a flexible learning route have a big head start because they know how an office works, how it operates and how to make things happen much more quickly.”

Neville Howard, a partner in consulting at business advisory firm Deloitte, also sees merit in distance learning.

“It takes enormous strength, commitment and time to take a degree in that way. It’s not an easy thing to do and that shows a focus that is admirable, and that could count as much if not more than the qualification itself.

“As a consulting firm we want people who are strong academically but in a way that’s table stakes – people who in developing themselves have managed to gain a degree in this way are very impressive.”

Keywords: Graduate Management Admissions Council, e-learning, recruiters, Deloitte.

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