What qualifications ore equivalent to a bachelor's degree?

Answer:

This is something fairly ambiguous placed in employment ads by employers (often municipal or government) who sometimes don't want to "narrow the field" too far in locating a candidate, because then they risk having no one apply, on account of the miriad of specifics required for a job. In many cases, they are looking for someone who has the basic qualifications and skills, but simply want a certain "quality" of individual that would actually possess a particular degree.

For example: Someone who has a bachelor's degree may have a certain level of so called sophistication. Someone who has a masters degree, may have another level of sophistication or interpretation when it comes to a business decision. That is really what they are after, and that level can be achieved in a variety of ways through the term "equivalency".

So what would be equivalent to a bachelor's degree for an employer? This can only be answered through scenarios, and the scenarios are endless. Equvalency could be (l) 90-100 college credit units, that placed you perhaps a semester or semester and a half short of graduation; (2) An AA degree plus another professional designation, that takes some degree of expertise to achieve, such as a certification in Risk Management, completion of a certificate program in Human Resources from a junior college, etc; (3) other combinations of professional designations.

Sometimes, multiple AA degrees are considered equivalency, and sometimes they are not. It depends on the interviewer and number of candidates applying for a job. If an employer ultimately has his/her heart set on a bachelor's degree, no amount of applicants will change that until a resume appears with the desired degree. How often is someone hired with a bachelor's degree in a subject such as Art, for example, in advertising a job that requires a bachelor's in Business Administration? Certainly the Art major knows little about business (from an education standpoint) however, they have qualified as the "quality" of individual the employer is looking for and are "sophisticated" enough to learn the subject matter while working on the job.