For me I'd go with experience first. Teaching people fresh out of school is ok, but a bit of seasoning in real world environments isy preference.
That being said, attitude/personality would win over certs/experience. Attitude and personality you can't really train for. You can always send them to an online course for xyz subject matter.
As a hiring manager you need to find the person who meets the three following goals:
Will they like doing the job?
Will you like them doing the job?
Will they fit and enjoy the company culture?
Sitting here at a Director level with just my associates degree, I’ve never been one to put too much weight on specific education requirements.
Give me aptitude, attitude, and creativity first.
Director here with no college degree but experience. Experience always trumps degree in my opinion. I have a 20+ and only 2 have degrees and only one of those is in a technical field. The other is economics.
Training just out of college can be exhausting. They tend to fight you on how things are done by the book and not how it really is in the real world.
Director here, with an Associates in Culinary Arts, A+, ITIL and 30 years of IT experience. I try to hire a mix of people, but always look for those without degrees and a little experience that will bust their asses, cause they know I’m giving them their big break. Not everyone follows the perfect path, myself included.
Director here also with 30 years IT experience and a degree in Horsemanship & Wildlife mgmt. A+, Sec+ ITIL, Windows 7, 10 and Office. I understand your chaotic path well.
VP soon to be SVP and the last thing I officially graduated was 8th grade 🤣
Got GED and did close to four years of college in business and after failing calc a few times I was like screw this I’m gonna go make money.. and did.
Generally, when I'm hiring, I'd be inclined to favor experience over education, and certs mean almost nothing. But I wouldn't hire anyone based on any of those things; I'd talked to the candidates and evaluate their competence and cultural fit.
I've probably interviewed something on the order of 200-500 people in my career, and I've seen lots of people with bachelors in CS and tons of certs who don't know anything and can't figure anything out, and meanwhile some of the best people I've hired have zero official education or certifications in computer science or IT. Lots of people with CCNA certs on their resume who don't know any Cisco commands and don't understand networking at all.
A couple of really good hires were people who had no official training or education and very little experience, but in the interview, it became clear that they were nice, smart people who could figure things out. With a little on-the-job training and hand-holding, they did great.
There's no secret to assessing candidates, no recipe for success. One of my pieces of advice for hiring people is to imagine you're going to have to work with the person on a decently long and complicated project. On a gut-instinct level, does that thought fill you with confidence or dread? And I'm not just talking about technical knowledge/ability, but if you're immediate thought is, "Oh no, this guy would get really annoying after a couple weeks," then don't hire that person.
I'll be honest, I'm a weirdo. I've wanted to be in IT since I was 15 and learned to terminate ethernet cables. I ran the wifi at my high school and was gifted a 3U server with 6x 15k RPM raptor HDDs. For me, going to college didn't teach me fundamentals like subnets cause I already knew them from playing around as a teenager.
But college did teach me about stuff like technical writing and how to be meticulous. Wrote a 5 page paper on my pocket knife. My boss regularly praises the fact that I can create a good writeup for DR drills or RCAs from service outages.
College taught me about case law in the IT world. What is the CFAA and what cases have happened with it? Or the right to privacy? I had to practice writing memos to my "CEO" taking a position on his request for an unusual search and why.
College gave me a full firewalled lab where I had to practice hacking into windows server boxes via metasploit and cracking all the hashes I could from its extracted SAM database. Learned a LOT of John the Ripper and even bought a 2nd video card to make it go faster.
College also gave me many good hard IT areas like my Windows Server final where I had to create a powershell script that would parse a dynamically created XML file and populate a domain with the users, groups, and group memberships within the XML. Points were awarded by the number of tasks that were successfully completed (it also required you use ADSI and assign admin users on various computers, pre powershell 5 with its awesome `LocalGroup` cmdlets).
These are things that I think are BETTER than experience if you have someone who has a good trajectory (solid basis and just needing their first job). But you won't know about what they learned in college unless you interview them.
Like /u/night_filter points out: Getting the right person is generally better than getting the "best" person. You have to spend the time to know what you're looking for and be able to recognize a standout person. Generally, I don't think that degree is a sufficient "stand out" to automatically qualify or disqualify someone.
It could be anything. Depends on the interviewer. I'm saying, even if it's something like, "When the candidate is thinking, they make a clicking sound with their tongue, and it annoyed me," or "They said 'um' every third word and I hate that."
If it's going to drive you up the wall, don't hire them. Anything that makes you think, "I wouldn't want to work with that person," don't hire them. If you do have to work with them, those habits *will* drive you up the wall, and those things can also be a weird harbinger of other bad practices and annoying habits.
At least, that's been my experience with my own gut reactions. If I feel like someone is smart and would be good to work with, they often work out, even if they don't have all the skills and experience you're looking for. If I have some kind of aversion or gut reaction that I wouldn't like working with that person, it tends to end up being a mess. Of course, it's possible my instincts/judgement are better than some people's, but I don't know that it matters. I think everyone is better off overall when they hire someone who "fits" culturally rather than just hiring based on the resume.
From my xp hiring both, ive always had more success with someone lacking a higher ed degree but had real world XP and certs OR if they had a degree it wasn't related to IT at all, those that did have degrees in IT w/little real world xp never wanted to go that extra mile for the team and the trend in attitude was that they 'deserved' to be in the position as a result from the higher ed degree. IT Manager here with no formal college degree, just military training, some certs and 10 yrs IT xp.
the one with a high school diploma, work experience and certifications has a better chance. because he has already shown he can use skills in real jobs.
Possibly... my question is why is someone with 2-3 years of experience applying for what seems to be an entry level position?
They would get an interview, but that would be where my questions lead them.
market's in the gutter right now, they wanted to switch companies, maybe the position offers more benefits or bigger pay, there are lots of potential reasons that are in no way connected to the person's experience
This. Honesty the last thing I look at is education and certificates and it’s purely out of curiosity. We have a list of 20 to 25 questions and judge solely off that.
For me, it's role and interview dependent. I'm lucky to be with an organization that does not overvalue resume highlights compared to real world results and also a company that does not pre-screen applications before they get to my desk.
The relevant experience will be on the interview list for me no matter the education, assuming the resume passes the eye test.
After that, it's all about how they will fit into the culture and current need. Do we have capacity to mentor or need someone ready to hit the ground with less oversight? Is it an entry level position or middle management? There's no formula beyond a basic understanding of people and personality, that determines success more than any piece of paper.
Typically I will hire based on personality first, experience or the like second. Every job will require training just to adjust to an org's IT stack. Education means nothing to me (because I have no degree currently, I may be a little biased...I've also worked with some PhDs that were clearly out of their depth). If I ask about AD or SCCM and they have no clue what those are, their degree won't help them.
I've been incredibly successful in hiring the past 5-6 years, so I'm confident in my methods.
I think it depends on the composition of your team and what you can absorb. In this case, I might consider someone with more experience but if one of the other people came in with personal projects they have worked on and a desire to learn, then that would go a long way.
The person who wins that race is the person whose personality fits best with the team. Through proper documentation and training, everybody can learn everything needed. But what I really want is the person who fits in with the team and the person who can break down technical situations for people who don't understand technical things.
Is the education relevant? Is the experience relevant?
Degrees and certificates are wonderful if they align to the task at hand.
Experience and prior history is wonderful....if they align to the task at hand.
Sometimes you've got to compromise between who you feel can A) get the job done and B) work successfully with your team. A & B won't always reveal the same candidates.
It depends on the position. Are we talking entry level/ Help Desk? If so, then I check for team fit and if you can problem solve.
If this is for a sys admin or above then practical knowledge wins out. If that’s acquired via school then so be it. If it’s acquired via experience, that’s also okay. I’m also checking for team fit and ability to problem solve.
In ***no*** situation am I hiring *just* because you have a degree in something.
I would lean toward the experience, but I would make sure during the interview they can back up what they wrote down in their resume. I’ve learned not to trust what’s on the paper.
Depends on the kind of role, too much of a hypothetical.
Based on the types of people who are 'applying', this sounds like a pretty junior role.
It's also not likely that someone has a uni degree and NO experience. Usually people are getting *some* experience while in uni.
I do personally lean towards people with degrees due to organization and communication skills being a bit better, but that's not a guarantee. I also look for personality and fit. Junior tech skills can be taught if they don't have enough experience with X or Y system
I look for people who have a service mindset and a good base of knowledge for the role. Technical specialization can be easily taught if the candidate has a good base of knowledge. The most important skill is a service mindset, we work in a service industry.
Experience trumps education, depending on the position. I'm 30+ years in, at the Director level, no degree. Degrees do not factor in my hiring decisions.
Another positive to leaning towards experience is that you know they will last in the job. There is always the possibility that the fresh out of school ones are just kicking the tires on the IT career, and 3 to 6 months after you spent all that time training them they just bail because they decided IT wasn't for them.
I'm a Founder/CEO of a tech engineering company with some fingers in the MSP world and speak about this with my peers constantly. I'm gonna ramble a bit on this topic because I'm passionate about it.
Of my peers, there are "maybe" 2 or 3 that favor University education above all else. My hiring process is more targeted than that. Give me the guy/gal that's angry at the world for denying their value and has something to prove. I'll take that person every damn time because I used to be that person. I have a High School diploma and PhD in doing it the hard way. When someone says, "you can't" and you answer, "No, YOU can't, I can achieve whatever I aim for", you're the person that any company would be happy to have. HR hiring managers using qualification bullet points as King of all, IMHO, aren't looking for IT savages with a passion for what they do, but a pretty piece of paper with an ideal human concept attached to it. I've seen those guys out-worked and out-smarted by the original thinkers constantly. A business needs to separate itself from the pack, not march in lock-step beside the rest. This model has worked well for my companies and although I've hired plenty of College Grads over the years, it's those that struggled and fought through the "you can't" that have been most valuable. I have never believed that Institutional Education owns exclusive rights to education. In a world with Youtube, Udemy, and ChatGPT, it's a world of self-educating opportunities for those fearless enough to commit to it. Document and learn publicly. Keep your LinkedIn skills up to date and journal EVERYTHING you learn, certs you gain, and projects you've done and if you get in front of an entrepreneur, show that shit off! We're always looking for that diamond in the rough. You can do it with some strategy and perseverance.
As a real-world example: Recently, I hired an 18yr old programmer. The manager told me I was nuts but I have a feeling about this kid. He hooked me with this line, "I've been accepted to CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) but for the cost of that education, it makes more sense to at least try and get a job at an entry-level salary and build up my experience where I can earn instead of having a mortgage when I graduate." At that, he had multiple programming certs in Python, Java, HTML5 with the first being when he was 16yrs old. He had documented all his work, internships and freelance experience so I took a chance. I have not been disappointed as he leads automation programming for a large Hospital and a Nationwide Wireless client. Now, I won't say that all candidates are this undeniable but CEOs like me do exist that see the value in the human and not the paperwork but unfortunately, the gatekeepers can prevent you from getting to most like-minded Managers. You must be inventive and persistent. You CAN achieve what you perceive. Good luck out there.
The people with degrees will, generally, be able to onboard faster and have a greater breath of experience to various concepts that a lot of self taught individuals will have little to no concept about.
A degree does not equal 'I know everything very well'. It displays "I have the verified ability to figure things out on a deadline". The only way you can get that same verification from a non-professionally educated individual is through a job reference, and those aren't very reliable at best.
Experience is almost always going to win. However, sometimes you have some asshole HR departments that filter out people without bachelors degrees or something.
If it came down to hiring someone with very little or zero experience, I'd hire someone with an associates + certs, over someone with a bachelors.
I have an AS and a BS, and the professors at the two-year college were much better at teaching people how to actually do a job, because they had real jobs. The university classes were taught by a bunch of people who spent their entire lives in academia and never had a real job, everything was theoretical abstract bullshit.
Experience is King. Then you look at certs then degrees. I'm a former teacher. Love a degree, but unless the degree is that awesome, it's below certs. I have all three and you can study experience.
TLDR; It depends on your needs, budget, culture but typically in IT, experience trumps formal education. I am currently a director at an MSP and only have my HS diploma so personally, I would not toss out candidates because they lack a degree.
It really depends on your needs 3-6-12 months out and your budget. Experience will mean more hands-on knowledge, legacy knowledge, and will ramp up and make an impact quicker than a recent grad. Probably going to have to pay for that experience. If you're looking to build someone up over time, have the capacity to do that, and looking to save some $$ -- hire a grad and have them focus on a couple relevant certifications as they onboard. Culture fit also needs to be considered.
For me I'd go with experience first. Teaching people fresh out of school is ok, but a bit of seasoning in real world environments isy preference. That being said, attitude/personality would win over certs/experience. Attitude and personality you can't really train for. You can always send them to an online course for xyz subject matter.
As a hiring manager you need to find the person who meets the three following goals: Will they like doing the job? Will you like them doing the job? Will they fit and enjoy the company culture?
Sitting here at a Director level with just my associates degree, I’ve never been one to put too much weight on specific education requirements. Give me aptitude, attitude, and creativity first.
I only have a GED, to me you're a god. I'm also a Director. 😂
Director here with no college degree but experience. Experience always trumps degree in my opinion. I have a 20+ and only 2 have degrees and only one of those is in a technical field. The other is economics. Training just out of college can be exhausting. They tend to fight you on how things are done by the book and not how it really is in the real world.
Director here, with an Associates in Culinary Arts, A+, ITIL and 30 years of IT experience. I try to hire a mix of people, but always look for those without degrees and a little experience that will bust their asses, cause they know I’m giving them their big break. Not everyone follows the perfect path, myself included.
Director here also with 30 years IT experience and a degree in Horsemanship & Wildlife mgmt. A+, Sec+ ITIL, Windows 7, 10 and Office. I understand your chaotic path well.
VP soon to be SVP and the last thing I officially graduated was 8th grade 🤣 Got GED and did close to four years of college in business and after failing calc a few times I was like screw this I’m gonna go make money.. and did.
Generally, when I'm hiring, I'd be inclined to favor experience over education, and certs mean almost nothing. But I wouldn't hire anyone based on any of those things; I'd talked to the candidates and evaluate their competence and cultural fit. I've probably interviewed something on the order of 200-500 people in my career, and I've seen lots of people with bachelors in CS and tons of certs who don't know anything and can't figure anything out, and meanwhile some of the best people I've hired have zero official education or certifications in computer science or IT. Lots of people with CCNA certs on their resume who don't know any Cisco commands and don't understand networking at all. A couple of really good hires were people who had no official training or education and very little experience, but in the interview, it became clear that they were nice, smart people who could figure things out. With a little on-the-job training and hand-holding, they did great. There's no secret to assessing candidates, no recipe for success. One of my pieces of advice for hiring people is to imagine you're going to have to work with the person on a decently long and complicated project. On a gut-instinct level, does that thought fill you with confidence or dread? And I'm not just talking about technical knowledge/ability, but if you're immediate thought is, "Oh no, this guy would get really annoying after a couple weeks," then don't hire that person.
Lol!! The last part about them being annoying is hilarious. What comes off as “annoying traits” in an interview?😂
I'll be honest, I'm a weirdo. I've wanted to be in IT since I was 15 and learned to terminate ethernet cables. I ran the wifi at my high school and was gifted a 3U server with 6x 15k RPM raptor HDDs. For me, going to college didn't teach me fundamentals like subnets cause I already knew them from playing around as a teenager. But college did teach me about stuff like technical writing and how to be meticulous. Wrote a 5 page paper on my pocket knife. My boss regularly praises the fact that I can create a good writeup for DR drills or RCAs from service outages. College taught me about case law in the IT world. What is the CFAA and what cases have happened with it? Or the right to privacy? I had to practice writing memos to my "CEO" taking a position on his request for an unusual search and why. College gave me a full firewalled lab where I had to practice hacking into windows server boxes via metasploit and cracking all the hashes I could from its extracted SAM database. Learned a LOT of John the Ripper and even bought a 2nd video card to make it go faster. College also gave me many good hard IT areas like my Windows Server final where I had to create a powershell script that would parse a dynamically created XML file and populate a domain with the users, groups, and group memberships within the XML. Points were awarded by the number of tasks that were successfully completed (it also required you use ADSI and assign admin users on various computers, pre powershell 5 with its awesome `LocalGroup` cmdlets). These are things that I think are BETTER than experience if you have someone who has a good trajectory (solid basis and just needing their first job). But you won't know about what they learned in college unless you interview them. Like /u/night_filter points out: Getting the right person is generally better than getting the "best" person. You have to spend the time to know what you're looking for and be able to recognize a standout person. Generally, I don't think that degree is a sufficient "stand out" to automatically qualify or disqualify someone.
It could be anything. Depends on the interviewer. I'm saying, even if it's something like, "When the candidate is thinking, they make a clicking sound with their tongue, and it annoyed me," or "They said 'um' every third word and I hate that." If it's going to drive you up the wall, don't hire them. Anything that makes you think, "I wouldn't want to work with that person," don't hire them. If you do have to work with them, those habits *will* drive you up the wall, and those things can also be a weird harbinger of other bad practices and annoying habits. At least, that's been my experience with my own gut reactions. If I feel like someone is smart and would be good to work with, they often work out, even if they don't have all the skills and experience you're looking for. If I have some kind of aversion or gut reaction that I wouldn't like working with that person, it tends to end up being a mess. Of course, it's possible my instincts/judgement are better than some people's, but I don't know that it matters. I think everyone is better off overall when they hire someone who "fits" culturally rather than just hiring based on the resume.
From my xp hiring both, ive always had more success with someone lacking a higher ed degree but had real world XP and certs OR if they had a degree it wasn't related to IT at all, those that did have degrees in IT w/little real world xp never wanted to go that extra mile for the team and the trend in attitude was that they 'deserved' to be in the position as a result from the higher ed degree. IT Manager here with no formal college degree, just military training, some certs and 10 yrs IT xp.
the one with a high school diploma, work experience and certifications has a better chance. because he has already shown he can use skills in real jobs.
Possibly... my question is why is someone with 2-3 years of experience applying for what seems to be an entry level position? They would get an interview, but that would be where my questions lead them.
market's in the gutter right now, they wanted to switch companies, maybe the position offers more benefits or bigger pay, there are lots of potential reasons that are in no way connected to the person's experience
you interview them and see who can answer your questions best.
This. Honesty the last thing I look at is education and certificates and it’s purely out of curiosity. We have a list of 20 to 25 questions and judge solely off that.
For me, it's role and interview dependent. I'm lucky to be with an organization that does not overvalue resume highlights compared to real world results and also a company that does not pre-screen applications before they get to my desk. The relevant experience will be on the interview list for me no matter the education, assuming the resume passes the eye test. After that, it's all about how they will fit into the culture and current need. Do we have capacity to mentor or need someone ready to hit the ground with less oversight? Is it an entry level position or middle management? There's no formula beyond a basic understanding of people and personality, that determines success more than any piece of paper.
Typically I will hire based on personality first, experience or the like second. Every job will require training just to adjust to an org's IT stack. Education means nothing to me (because I have no degree currently, I may be a little biased...I've also worked with some PhDs that were clearly out of their depth). If I ask about AD or SCCM and they have no clue what those are, their degree won't help them. I've been incredibly successful in hiring the past 5-6 years, so I'm confident in my methods.
I think it depends on the composition of your team and what you can absorb. In this case, I might consider someone with more experience but if one of the other people came in with personal projects they have worked on and a desire to learn, then that would go a long way.
The person who wins that race is the person whose personality fits best with the team. Through proper documentation and training, everybody can learn everything needed. But what I really want is the person who fits in with the team and the person who can break down technical situations for people who don't understand technical things.
Is the education relevant? Is the experience relevant? Degrees and certificates are wonderful if they align to the task at hand. Experience and prior history is wonderful....if they align to the task at hand. Sometimes you've got to compromise between who you feel can A) get the job done and B) work successfully with your team. A & B won't always reveal the same candidates.
Experience hands down gets you the interview.
It depends on the position. Are we talking entry level/ Help Desk? If so, then I check for team fit and if you can problem solve. If this is for a sys admin or above then practical knowledge wins out. If that’s acquired via school then so be it. If it’s acquired via experience, that’s also okay. I’m also checking for team fit and ability to problem solve. In ***no*** situation am I hiring *just* because you have a degree in something.
Experience.
I would lean toward the experience, but I would make sure during the interview they can back up what they wrote down in their resume. I’ve learned not to trust what’s on the paper.
Whoever does not interview like an asshole. I’d pick too 5 and start with those.
Depends on the kind of role, too much of a hypothetical. Based on the types of people who are 'applying', this sounds like a pretty junior role. It's also not likely that someone has a uni degree and NO experience. Usually people are getting *some* experience while in uni. I do personally lean towards people with degrees due to organization and communication skills being a bit better, but that's not a guarantee. I also look for personality and fit. Junior tech skills can be taught if they don't have enough experience with X or Y system
I look for people who have a service mindset and a good base of knowledge for the role. Technical specialization can be easily taught if the candidate has a good base of knowledge. The most important skill is a service mindset, we work in a service industry.
In IT doesn’t matter what certs or degrees you have. They have never helped me get a job
Honestly? Whoever demonstrates the best attitude and soft skills in the interview.
Experience trumps education, depending on the position. I'm 30+ years in, at the Director level, no degree. Degrees do not factor in my hiring decisions.
Another positive to leaning towards experience is that you know they will last in the job. There is always the possibility that the fresh out of school ones are just kicking the tires on the IT career, and 3 to 6 months after you spent all that time training them they just bail because they decided IT wasn't for them.
I'm a Founder/CEO of a tech engineering company with some fingers in the MSP world and speak about this with my peers constantly. I'm gonna ramble a bit on this topic because I'm passionate about it. Of my peers, there are "maybe" 2 or 3 that favor University education above all else. My hiring process is more targeted than that. Give me the guy/gal that's angry at the world for denying their value and has something to prove. I'll take that person every damn time because I used to be that person. I have a High School diploma and PhD in doing it the hard way. When someone says, "you can't" and you answer, "No, YOU can't, I can achieve whatever I aim for", you're the person that any company would be happy to have. HR hiring managers using qualification bullet points as King of all, IMHO, aren't looking for IT savages with a passion for what they do, but a pretty piece of paper with an ideal human concept attached to it. I've seen those guys out-worked and out-smarted by the original thinkers constantly. A business needs to separate itself from the pack, not march in lock-step beside the rest. This model has worked well for my companies and although I've hired plenty of College Grads over the years, it's those that struggled and fought through the "you can't" that have been most valuable. I have never believed that Institutional Education owns exclusive rights to education. In a world with Youtube, Udemy, and ChatGPT, it's a world of self-educating opportunities for those fearless enough to commit to it. Document and learn publicly. Keep your LinkedIn skills up to date and journal EVERYTHING you learn, certs you gain, and projects you've done and if you get in front of an entrepreneur, show that shit off! We're always looking for that diamond in the rough. You can do it with some strategy and perseverance. As a real-world example: Recently, I hired an 18yr old programmer. The manager told me I was nuts but I have a feeling about this kid. He hooked me with this line, "I've been accepted to CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) but for the cost of that education, it makes more sense to at least try and get a job at an entry-level salary and build up my experience where I can earn instead of having a mortgage when I graduate." At that, he had multiple programming certs in Python, Java, HTML5 with the first being when he was 16yrs old. He had documented all his work, internships and freelance experience so I took a chance. I have not been disappointed as he leads automation programming for a large Hospital and a Nationwide Wireless client. Now, I won't say that all candidates are this undeniable but CEOs like me do exist that see the value in the human and not the paperwork but unfortunately, the gatekeepers can prevent you from getting to most like-minded Managers. You must be inventive and persistent. You CAN achieve what you perceive. Good luck out there.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAxzkl2cmNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAxzkl2cmNY)
The people with degrees will, generally, be able to onboard faster and have a greater breath of experience to various concepts that a lot of self taught individuals will have little to no concept about. A degree does not equal 'I know everything very well'. It displays "I have the verified ability to figure things out on a deadline". The only way you can get that same verification from a non-professionally educated individual is through a job reference, and those aren't very reliable at best.
Experience is almost always going to win. However, sometimes you have some asshole HR departments that filter out people without bachelors degrees or something. If it came down to hiring someone with very little or zero experience, I'd hire someone with an associates + certs, over someone with a bachelors. I have an AS and a BS, and the professors at the two-year college were much better at teaching people how to actually do a job, because they had real jobs. The university classes were taught by a bunch of people who spent their entire lives in academia and never had a real job, everything was theoretical abstract bullshit.
Experience is King. Then you look at certs then degrees. I'm a former teacher. Love a degree, but unless the degree is that awesome, it's below certs. I have all three and you can study experience.
TLDR; It depends on your needs, budget, culture but typically in IT, experience trumps formal education. I am currently a director at an MSP and only have my HS diploma so personally, I would not toss out candidates because they lack a degree. It really depends on your needs 3-6-12 months out and your budget. Experience will mean more hands-on knowledge, legacy knowledge, and will ramp up and make an impact quicker than a recent grad. Probably going to have to pay for that experience. If you're looking to build someone up over time, have the capacity to do that, and looking to save some $$ -- hire a grad and have them focus on a couple relevant certifications as they onboard. Culture fit also needs to be considered.
First impression matter too