The University of World Wide Web: BBC

North American job hunters can relax a bit if they’ve turned to online courses. Over the last five years, online degrees and coursework have become much more commonplace and accepted in Canada, said Jeff Aplin, president of Calgary recruiting firm David Aplin Group. “Each individual has a slightly different learning style,” he said. “I would tell candidates to try and figure out the way they learn most effectively and to do that.” Degrees, once considered all-important, are losing some of their significance, said employment experts.

Companies are increasingly interested in how much of a self-starter a candidate is, whether he or she has an aptitude for lifelong learning and his or her level of personal accountability, according to Aplin. It’s not about how a degree was earned or even what the degree was in — but more about what a candidate has done with that degree since finishing school, he said. When it comes to online learning, the US has always been a leader, according to Richard Garrett, vice president and principal analyst for online higher education at Eduventures, a higher-ed research and consulting firm based in Boston.