These days, hiring managers think that a candidates personality, job and life experiences are not as important as their professional academic qualifications. I believe that this is because nowadays academic institutes have started to give learnings and experience that are ideal for the job and since new age digital jobs don’t require prior experiences or any kind of personal trait the only way to judge a potential employee’s fit is through their academic background. While I think that for certain roles this trend is a positive but there are still many jobs where it’s beneficial to have skills and qualities other than scholastic ones.
Universities have evolved their curriculum to better fit the job requirements of today for instance computer programming is one of the most popular career option and having a university degree in it is all that anyone would need to start a career in it as this job does not require any other skills. Therefore employers thinking of hiring new programmers focus on academic merit more than any other trait.
But if employers start to prioritise educational qualifications over other qualities in all roles that can lead to disastrous results, for example jobs like teachers, corporate trainers and doctors require life experiences and personal qualities necessary for the role and only a candidate adept at them will be successful at their job.
To conclude, I feel that employers should identify key qualities required for the roles they are hiring for and should then place importance towards those to maximise their chance of employing the right person for the position.