I would prefer someone with the required experience over someone with a meaningless degree.

#7 | POSTED BY MADBOMBER

When I was hiring I preferred both.

Some jobs require a degree in the field AND some experience to be competent. Some jobs just require a lot of experience. Some jobs require neither just common sense and the ability to be trained.

I did make a mistake once and hired an employee with a PHD and little to no experience. THAT was a total mistake. So a an advanced degree and no experience is not a great option. Especially those with PHDs because of they think they know everything already. And definitely more than you.

When I was in the Marines I went to the actual Top Gun event when it was in Miramar.

I was there to support my planes and pilots. I didn't have a degree in anything. But lots of training and experience. My job and my partners job was to keep the Phantoms ECM and Comm Nav systems fully operational for the mock battle contests. Without my experience and abilities they could not have competed. The equipment was always prone to failure. We had a spare plane to rob parts from just in case.

And we won. And so I WAS the Top Gun Tech that year. We sure had fun in San Diego and La Jolla after that. At least the parts i can remember ... And Blacks Beach ... wow.

My experience got me a federal job in electronics engineering. And eventually I was hiring.. people with (and without) degrees to be on my team. And while I did not have a degree I had lots of college courses and thousands of hours of electronics and computer training.

So you CAN get good training in the federal government and you don't really need a degree for many jobs. Just the ability to be trained. Having said that there are still some federal jobs for which you should have a degree and experience.

Sure. Like an accountant or a nurse. I have a BSBA and an MBA. I don't need either one for my current job.

I was thinking scientists and lawyers and such. Jobs that the government doesn't have the training facilities for.

The F4N fighter attack jets I worked on did have the ALQ 126. Not sure if they still use it but you could not shoot down an F4 with a good working ALQ-126. It would reflect radar signals back and your plane would appear to be in an entirely different location. It had other cool features to jam SAM and AAA radars. It worked in conjunction with an EW suite of equipment. Like the ALR 45 scopes which told you the range and direction the threat was coming from.

They were once classified but I would imagine they have much better systems now. You can find them online.

I discovered that the trick for peak performance was always sweeping (and resweeping) the antenna systems and of course running self tests. . There was a lot of antennas and it was a pain but it helped guarantee the system would work properly when needed.