Why business needs philosophers.

Have you ever had time to reflect on what it is that employers expect from graduates competing for entry-level jobs? Other than specific skills or behavioural attributes, they are most likely looking for a relevant academic qualification. In other words, if you want to start your career in marketing, you will be expected to hold a degree in marketing. For all those enchanted with finance career, the primary requirement would most likely be, not surprisingly, finance qualifications. And so on. In other words, having a relevant degree gives you an edge over other candidates.

What it the obvious implication for graduates having a philosophy degree (or any other that in this context can be considered an offbeat one) and willing to pursue a career in business? Do most corporate recruiters have difficulty imagining a philosopher working in a business-related function and thus will immediately discard candidates with such background?

Luckily, not necessarily so, as there is a growing number of companies who are open for such seemingly risky (at least at first sight) experiments in the search for thought diversity.

Educational diversity

Apparently diversity has to do with more than just race, ethnicity or gender. The idea behind is that the workplaces need to be composed of employees with varying characteristics. Apart from the most obvious mentioned above, these can include religious and political beliefs, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, but also education. The key to understanding the diversity as an organisational advantage is to think of it in terms of diversity of thought — the idea of "more-than-one-way". We interact with the world around us driven by our identity, culture, but also education and experience. In this context greater educational diversity can mean greater heterogeneity of perspectives, mindsets and resulting business problem-solving approaches.

Greater educational diversity can mean greater heterogeneity of perspectives, mindsets and resulting business problem-solving approaches.

Executives with surprising majors

Needless to say, in the context of employability, social sciences often get a bad reputation in the media, especially in post-crisis economies. Interestingly enough a history of business knows many examples of successful executives who graduated from humanities.

One good example is the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina graduated from medieval history and philosophy. Michael Eisner, who had been leading Disney for twenty years until 2005, was an English and theatre major. Another good example is Denise M. Morisson, acting CEO of Campbell Soup Company, holds a degree in psychology. CNN founder Ted Turner is a classics major. Peter Thiel in turn, co-founder and CEO of Paypal, got his undergraduate degree in philosophy. Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, surprisingly (or not) holds his first degree in English, and only then decided to complement it with an MBA. Finally George Soros, often referred to as self-made billionaire known for his investment savvy and vast body of philanthropic work, earned both his Bachelor and Ph.D. in philosophy. Even though it dates back to the early 1950s, his case is especially inspiring. Once inquired by a journalist so as to how he turned from a impoverished immigrant and philosophy major to a top-notch hedge fund manager Soros responded, "I wrote to every managing director in every merchant bank in London, got just one or two replies, and eventually that's how I got a job".

So there is definitely a prospect of business career for humanities and arts graduates. To be able to compete with traditional business or STEM educated colleagues (academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), however, they must understand where the value of their education really lies and consequently what they can bring to the (recruiter's) table.

Value of humanities degree

Least to say that liberal arts allow people to think in radically different ways. Graduates holding degree in humanities are likely to come at questions (business problems) from fundamentally different angles. Steve Jobs once said that "It is technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing."

To understand what really makes non-business graduates employable, we need to have a look at the generic skills that the employers are looking for and think of which of them can be developed when pursuing degree in humanities.

Analysis & Judgement. Relating and comparing information from different sources, identifying issues and relationships in order to draw conclusions and determine appropriate course of actions can be viewed as generic skills acquired by sudying any degree, including one in humanities.

Communication & Social Skills. Listening, questioning, but also expressing ideas effectively so as to convey information and thus influencing others in a group and in one to one situations, but also recognising and respecting different perspectives are all valuable skills that are without any doubts developed during discussions in liberal arts classrooms.

Learning & Delivery. Desire to learn, improve self-awareness, self-starter capacity (initiative backed with decisiveness), but also ability to do the job by maintaining effectiveness in a changing environment (adaptability and flexibility) are all traits that can be developed by social sciences adepts as these, like no other majors, require from their students the ability to think for themselves and have the intellectual courage and creativity to develop alternative viewpoints.

You need to take initiative and be responsible for your own professional development.

It all sounds eminently sensible, but how to unlock potential of your degree? How to become an asset on the job market? Things will not happen for you just because you hope they would. You need to take initiative and be responsible for your own professional development. The sooner you start, the bigger chance you have to overcome stereotypes about the inferior value of humanities degrees in business environment.

Manage career from the onset

While the door for corporate career for humanities students remains open (and is likely to become even more so in the following years), the formula for success is no different from that of business graduates:

• understand the requirements of a desired career-path,
• map ones strengths and weaknesses against identified requirements,
• seek for relevant opportunities (internships) to build your personal brand around your strengths and fill-in critical competence gaps.

Good luck with your career philosophers and adepts of other social sciences. I truly hope to see more of you "on the business side" soon.