Do Tech Firms Really Want Liberal Arts Majors?

Nerval's Lobster writes: Not too long ago, a Forbes writer declared that a liberal arts degree had "become tech's hottest ticket." At so-called 'disruptive juggernauts' such as Facebook and Uber, George Anders wrote, 'the war for talent' had moved into non-technical realms such as marketing and sales. While there's undoubtedly some truth to Anders's thesis, technology recruiters and executives aren't seeing any less demand for strong technical skills in a wide variety of roles (Dice link). When there's a need for tech professionals with 'soft skills,' at least one recruiter just recruits computer-science majors from liberal arts schools, figuring those recruits will be more 'well-rounded.' To be clear, Forbes doesn't suggest that IT employers have begun mixing liberal-arts graduates into their technical teams; the article talks more about those graduates ending up in supporting roles such as sales and marketing, or else becoming intermediaries who translate the customer's product requirements into engineering solutions. But nobody should think that a strong technical background isn't as valued as ever throughout tech companies.

Comments

Re: YAY

[Xaedalus]

Fuck yes, I do. I'm a liberal arts major working as a senior business analyst for an aerospace firm. I work for program management, with an eye towards becoming a program manager, so I step in on the days that my PMs aren't around. I work with a largely engineering workforce, most of whom are male and come from MIT, UW, Embry Riddle, and have either engineering degrees and/or engineering management degrees. They mostly fit the workforce you describe, and those men are almost to-a-man completely inept at interpersonal relations.

Unless I (or my PMs or my planners) either stand over their shoulders and order them to send emails or force-march them to talk to other engineers in order to make progress on a given project, they will not do so. They would all, to-a-fucking-man (and I emphasize the MAN part because my female engineers don't do this) prefer to sit down and do actual engineering work rather than the social aspect of their jobs.

My liberal arts education not only granted me the talents and skills to become a jack-of-all-trades with specific learning strategies geared to teach me how to ramp up in a given subject fast regardless of whether it's quantitative or qualitative, it also enabled me to be able to communicate clearly with most any given individual effectively and efficiently. But I cannot pound those lessons through the heads of my male engineers. They need and require a "gopher" to handle the interpersonal communications because they don't have the skillsets nor do they have the desire to actually lead, let alone communicate. So I enable them to do their jobs.

Your post is fatuous and fucking disdainful, sir. You are better than this, and if you're not... god help your employees if they ever have a moment of humanity in your presence--even the technical ones.