Vantage
The résumé is strong, the references are warm, and the line for the degree is blank. A manager has a minute to decide whether that blank is a warning or just a detail. Pass, and a rival may land the person; hire, and the choice must be defended to everyone who took the exams.
Renous put the question to four senior leaders. Their answers turned on one point: what a hiring manager should trust when the paper is missing.
The best hire thinks like an owner
Saurav Chakraborty, Founder & CEO, Travel Buddy
"Honestly, yes — and I have. … I think it comes down to something simpler than credentials: how deeply someone internalizes the vision and mission of the organization. When that happens, they stop behaving like an employee and start behaving like an extension of the company itself — almost like a promoter would. That mindset compounds faster than any degree ever could.
I have a live example of this in my own company. Someone who joined us as a trainee, became a sales associate, then a manager, and is now a senior manager — all within two years."
"That mindset compounds faster than any degree ever could."
Not every trait can be built on the job, and Sudhir Aggarwal starts from there.
Skills can be built, attitude barely moves
Sudhir Aggarwal, CHRO & Director, Orbit Techsol
"In principle, 100% - Yes. Additional mandatory characteristic required with a brilliant candidate is 'Right Attitude'. Degree is little more aligned with skill, though not absolutely. My belief and experience, I can work with people to build skills; but extremely tough to change the attitude. 'Attitude' is a trait of make or break. Look at some of the innovations in India emerged from rural areas, it has been the phenomenon of very ordinary persons coming up with path-breaking disruptions."
"I can work with people to build skills; but extremely tough to change the attitude."
— Sudhir Aggarwal, Orbit Techsol
Varun Sachdeva looks at the other side: what a person can pick up, and how fast.
Speed of learning beats the diploma
Varun Sachdeva, SVP & APAC Head, NLB Services
"For decades, our industry treated the degree as a proxy for potential. It was convenient, defensible and often wrong.
Having built recruitment and staffing businesses across markets for over two decades, I have watched credentials open doors that capability later had to hold open. The inverse is equally true: exceptional talent, filtered out by a checkbox, thriving elsewhere.
As AI compresses the shelf life of skills, the question shifts from 'what did you study?' to 'how fast can you learn?'
Would I hire a brilliant candidate without a degree? Yes. The evidence demands it."
"As AI compresses the shelf life of skills, the question shifts from 'what did you study?' to 'how fast can you learn?'"
Manash Kumar Bhattacharyya asks how any of this can be seen before the offer is made.
Ask what the person has built
Manash Kumar Bhattacharyya, Head of HR (N&W), Keller Asia BU
"I see a degree as one data point, not the complete picture. I would want to understand: What has this person learned? What have they built? What problems have they solved? And most importantly, can they demonstrate the skills and mindset required for the role? … Of course, there are professions where a formal qualification is mandatory, and we have to respect that.
But where a degree is only being used as a screening criterion, I think we should challenge ourselves. So, my philosophy is simple:
"Don't hire the degree; hire the demonstrated capability, potential, and character."
If the degree was only ever a stand-in, what exactly was it standing in for? A hiring team should be able to say it in one sentence. The candidate without one has to prove all of it at once. Would the graduate in the next chair be asked to prove any of it?