Slashdot Mirror
Why Do Employers Require College Degrees That Aren't Necessary? (thestreet.com)
Slashdot reader pefisher writes:
A lot of us on Slashdot have noticed that potential employers advertise for things they don't need. To the point that sometimes they even ask for things that don't exist. Like asking for ten years of experience in a technology that has only just been introduced. It's frustrating because it makes you wonder "what's this employers real game?"
Do they just want to say they advertised for the position, or are they really so immensely stupid, so disconnected from their own needs, that they think they are actually asking for something they can have...? Here is a Harvard Study that addresses one particular angle of this. It doesn't answer any questions, but it does prove that you aren't crazy. And it quantifies the craziness.
The study's author calls it "degree inflation," and after studying 26 million job postings concluded that employers are now less willing to actually train new people on the job, possibly to save money. "Many companies have fallen into a lazy way of thinking about this," the study's author tells The Street, saying companies are "[looking for] somebody who is just job-ready to just show up." The irony is that college graduates will ultimately be paid a higher salary -- even though for many jobs, the study found that a college degree yields zero improvement in actual performance.
The Street reports that "In a market where companies increasingly rely on computerized systems to cull out early-round applicants, that has led firms to often consider a bachelor's degree indicative of someone who can socialize, run a meeting and generally work well with others." One company tells them that "we removed the requirement to have a computer science degree, and we removed the requirement to have experience in development computer programming. And when we removed those things we found that the pool of potential really good team members drastically expanded."
Do they just want to say they advertised for the position, or are they really so immensely stupid, so disconnected from their own needs, that they think they are actually asking for something they can have...? Here is a Harvard Study that addresses one particular angle of this. It doesn't answer any questions, but it does prove that you aren't crazy. And it quantifies the craziness.
The study's author calls it "degree inflation," and after studying 26 million job postings concluded that employers are now less willing to actually train new people on the job, possibly to save money. "Many companies have fallen into a lazy way of thinking about this," the study's author tells The Street, saying companies are "[looking for] somebody who is just job-ready to just show up." The irony is that college graduates will ultimately be paid a higher salary -- even though for many jobs, the study found that a college degree yields zero improvement in actual performance.
The Street reports that "In a market where companies increasingly rely on computerized systems to cull out early-round applicants, that has led firms to often consider a bachelor's degree indicative of someone who can socialize, run a meeting and generally work well with others." One company tells them that "we removed the requirement to have a computer science degree, and we removed the requirement to have experience in development computer programming. And when we removed those things we found that the pool of potential really good team members drastically expanded."
One theory I've heard (I don't know if it's true or not) is that employers require degrees to avoid sexual discrimination lawsuits.
For example, let's say a company has 20% of its employees male, the rest female. They are open to a discrimination lawsuit prima facie. But if they only hire people with a X degree, they can say, "only 19% of people with degree X are male, we are doing better than average!"
As more people with degree X arrive on the scene, the requirement becomes harder and harder to avoid.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As soon as you stop looking at only the gorgeous ones, you'll enjoy many amazing sex encounters with the ones you previously ignored.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I didn't RTFA, but I'm pretty sure this has been discussed at least nine million times in the last 20 years. The main reasons:
1. Demonstrated ability to stick with something for a while.
2. The average college grad is usually more literate than the average high school grad. Better chance that you'll get an employee that can do basic math, speak properly to customers, etc.
3. Employers will get many applicants for any given job, so this will at least filter out SOME people. And of those that apply for the job, #1 above applies.
Yes, it's lazy, but as long as you have more applicants than open positions, why not? (From the employer's point of view.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
One reason is to filter out some of the applicants, because you have too many. Might as well filter out the ones that don't have a degree first; they might know less than the other ones, and they definitely have demonstrated less willingness to jump through hoops.
Another potential reason is to disqualify applicants because you want to hire a H1B.
Another reason is that the HR employees want to protect the value of their bullshit degrees.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Although of course, YMMV.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Because it filters out idiots.
Yes, there are plenty of smart people with no degree and plenty of idiots with degrees, but the mix is more in their favor with a degree, though it's getting to be less of an advantage now that most people have one.
Because it costs them time & money to interview people, simple filters that make their job easier are widely used, even if there's some opportunity cost of overlooking people who are good but who don't pass the filters.
They make up for that anyhow by using employee recommendations. If someone is willing to vouch for a person, they can often skip some of the requirements as long as they have some evidence of being good at the job.
.
The HR department loves a checklist, and a checkbox saying "college degree required" is an easy item to screen for.
A 1971 supreme court case named Griggs vs Duke Power found that if an employer engaged in their own employee or applicant skills testing, and that testing was found to result in racial discrimination, then the empoloyer was guilty of racial discrimination even though that was not their intent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Griggs is the basis of credentials inflation in the US.
As a result of Griggs, most companies began halting their own applicant testing entirely, and simply began to require more and more education--assuming that this would still weed out the ineffective applicants.
People with degrees start life later, and often times with a lot of debt. They are organized in the most traditional sense, and will probably be buying a home a few years after graduation. This debt load makes mobility hard, and the chances that the person is living paycheck-to-paycheck are a lot higher. However, unlike someone with less earning power living paycheck-to-paycheck, the person with the degree will have a higher chance of having more to lose. You want the employee that needs you, not the one that will just wander off and say fuck-all when they're pissed at you the employer; they don't have anything, much less anything to lose, so why put up with you? The college grad has a credit score, mortgage, car, and family to protect.
Sig: I stole this sig.
There's alot of bullshit that comes out of college, but alot more that goes in. Also, can you finish a 4 year project?
It's a sham how private education has jacked up the price so college is only available to upper class people, or with the burden of huge debt, but also, if you haven't hired for a position, you wouldn't believe the bald-faced bullshit hundreds of people will send you.
After nearly 35 years since I did my first programming for hire, that's the biggest difference I've noticed.
It's an example you can do something without giving up and that's it. They teach you almost nothing useful for most of college. Required basic classes and electives make up the majority of your schooling. Anything below masters is just a slightly better High School Diploma.
Wish I had some mod points. I really hate that college degrees in the US are often viewed solely some kind of career prep/vocational training. Higher education does have to be geared towards some specific job; it can be an end in itself, and it has its own intrinsic value.
I spent about a year in total searching for IT jobs years ago, mainly around Los Angeles.
The ones annoyed me the most, were not just asking for sky high knowledge and experience, what they wanted for you to just work temporarily, until a certain project is completed, or you trained their team for something (or everything).
Interviews are expensive, you don't want to waste them interviewing poor candidates.
If you're looking for really high end people most of them have a degree already. So the degree requirement just gets rid of extraneous candidates.
If you're looking for lower to mid-range people requiring a degree filters out some qualified applicants, but there should be plenty left.
That's not to say companies are hitting the right balance, our most talented hire by far had a degree is a field completely unrelated to software dev, (though he came with a boatload of experience). And certainly, if you find an awesome candidate and HR pushes back because they're missing a checkbox then HR needs to be fixed.
I stole this Sig
One company tells them that "we removed the requirement to have a computer science degree, and we removed the requirement to have experience in development computer programming. And when we removed those things we found that the pool of potential really good team members drastically expanded."
Yeah, that's one way to build a really good team.... shame about the product though. But hey, at least the team all feel good about each other, and someone could lead the meeting! Jeeez. No wonder things are headed down the shitter.
4) when they can't find anyone suitable with qualifications they don't need, is easier to apply for an H1-B
College graduates carry student loan debt they need to service. That means they're more financially vulnerable and less able to walk away from their job. It's like a free ball and chain manacled to their wage slaves. Sure, it's doesn't stop them from leaving, but it's surely a hindrance.
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
I am retired now after a long and successful career in computer maintenance and repair. I received my initial training in the USAF during the Vietnam conflict after I was drafted as cannon fodder by the US Army. I transition into computer after working on fighter]bombers for four years. The switch was initially difficult, but I prevailed and had a 35 year career working for various computer companies as a Field Engineer. I ran my own company for 12 years after leaving corporate America. I still enjoy keeping up with the latest technology and still dabble into repair.for friends and relatives. A college degree....NO. I feel if an individual has the appitude and desire, he or she can succeed in this field.
If you have two applications with no work experience, then I would go with the one with a degree as a baseline filter. But if both have several years of experience then I don't think it matters as much, and if you reject the non-degree candidate in the prescreening phase you might be missing out on a great programmer with a nontraditional background (and in tech not having a formal degree isn't all that uncommon anyways, compared to most STEM fields)
Brown nose. Somebody who will unthinkingly follow instructions from a figure of authority. That sums up the typical college pupil.
tech schools are better then college for ready to work skills. To bad they got roped in to the college system and got an bad rap.
they just want to hire smart people?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"Having a degree" proves nothing in specific, but statistically speaking, it may (vaguely) indicate a few things in general. You'd sure as heck better not depend on those vague indications, though.
What requiring a degree (and various other tickmarks unrelated to actual skill and capacity) does, though, is frees businesses to (a) pretend they can't find viable candidates capable of the work, and (b) consequent to a, allows them fish in pools of skill that are much less expensive without alerting the stockholders.
And of course, all of this facilitates and amplifies various other types of discrimination: age, health, arrest and conviction records, social media participation, political leanings, gender, religious outlook, etc.
The current tech job market is truly a hellhole. I'm really glad I no longer outright depend on it, and I feel intensely sympathetic with those skilled and capable candidates who are trying to crack the corporate wall.
The good news, I expect, will be that none of this will mean bupkis within a few decades, because I highly doubt there will be any jobs at all of this type remaining. Pervasive automation looks to be coming, and if/when it does, it's going to eat the need to be employed outright.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There are many facets to this.
1) As others point out, it is somewhat of a "bullshit detector". You can do projects, you've been exposed to different areas, you can work with people, somebody has judged your skills adequate.
2) It is required if we are to accept applicants on a visa. I'm unsure if this is a federal rule or our HR policy. But, the moment I tell HR that I want a posting open to visa holders, they force me to require a college degree.
3) It is a way for young people to "get in the door" w/out any true experience. We have mandatory employment history lengths for the different levels. Seniors need 9 years, mid level 5, associates need 2. Applicants are allowed to count their education years as long as their degree is in an applicable tech field.
I work in IT as a contractor for 3 years at a large wireless provider. I have consistently been one of the top performers since joining the team of 23. I am 1 of 2 contractors the company refuses to hire me because I don't have a degree.
While these are good skills the degree shouldn’t be a baseline for employment. Because too many people are wasting 4 years of their lives in education just so they can get a job. Many have these skills beforehand but knowing they need to work the system they get the degree to get the job.
College isn’t designed to be a job training center. They want to focus on learning and education.
A lot of good people are wasting time in college just for the degree and not for the enlightenment of learning.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
... then you indeed do not need any CS types in IT, because you do not have a productivity above zero anyways. In that situation, I can well understand at least hiring people that make these utterly pointless meetings more pleasant.
Companies run on this paradigm probably hire consultants for any real work anyways, because they cannot do anything themselves anymore. A slight problem may arise when these consultants realize how indispensable they are and refuse to work for cheap. My last negotiation with a major customer that wanted lower rates consisted of me saying "no" and they basically did not have a choice.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This only makes the case for high quality diploma mills stronger. The bachelor degree is quickly becoming the new high school diploma and we must fight it.
This would make a lot of sense in an era of declining educational standards at schools. It used to be that getting good grades at secondary school meant that you had put in a decent amount of work and commitment. However, now that it is no longer politically correct to fail school kids the qualification has become enormously devalued and it is no wonder that employees no longer rely on it. In fact, even universities are now beginning to question whether using high school marks to determine which admit students is reliable.
To weed out the idiots before they show up at your business.
The more naughty they make the more power it gets
it isn't anything sinister like avoiding lawsuits. It isn't strictly necessary for a software folks (unless one contracts to the government). It is because, in general, people with a degree, usually are better employees in just about any metric (e.g. more organized, self driven, etc). Also, it is because people who are self-taught or coding camp taught, generally have horrible habits and the basic background to understand why their habits are bad upon explanation. It isn't that someone without a degree can't be a good employee, it is because the college degree pool has a slightly higher percentage of good employee folks. Because of this, my search is more efficient. It is my duty to be efficient in my tasks from my employer.
Having said this, I am referring to people entering the workforce. Once someone has 3 or so years under their belt I no longer care about the degree. Then I mostly look at the engineering discipline on the technical side and most importantly how well they treat other people on the inter-personal side. Most of the 'managing' I do is dealing with conflicts between people who have inter-personal issues. Half the mentoring I do is technical, half is inter-personal.
I'm certain folks will ague how wrong I am, but take what I said as fact, because I am a hiring manager and it is how I choose my employees.
Call me elitist, but have you looked at the kind of people who don't go to college, on average?
In our country IT professionals with CS degrees are a small minority and university degrees are rarely required. On the other hand, job requirements almost always include experience with certain OSes, DBMSes, Network Protocols, Programming languages, software frameworks, IDEs and whatever. Certifications count over skills and knowledge. Yes, we want candidates with ten years of experience with Windows 2016. The result is a small percentage of vacancies that are ever filled.
Maybe that's why our country only produces software for the national market. A developer job means you get to write mobile apps or design web pages.
When I applied to work at Mc Donalds they demanded a 4-year degree. Bit much for my first job! I ddin't get the job.
Do you want to hire someone who is qualified for the job and ONLY that job or do you want someone who will continue to give the company what they need. People who complain about college degrees are usually people who don't have them.
Yeah... you can be trained many jobs. Not all jobs are deterministic. You need a brain behind some jobs.
Stop trying to learn stuff. If you didn't apply your self after you left HS and though that assembly line job would be around forever, swallow your pride and get your ass back in school.
but as you work into masters and higher you start going up the Irv Tower and way from skills and stuff that are needed in the work place. The higher up the more skills that only really work good for Irv Tower.
doctors have an association to keep there wages high so they can pay for an full 4 years of college + 4 years of an trade school after that and then some. Now office jobs don't pay $100K-150K so you can't drop $200K-$300K on student loans.
It is obvious that the question was posed by a high school student, so the only valid answer is this: Yes, and you must study and learn and go to class every day. It is required. You have no choice unless your parents are wealthy AND you are so talented you are accepted into prestigious universities already; that is the real "Gates" option which really exists for no one else.
I've got a degree, but I got in the UK before tuition fees and in a subject where it's kind of necessary, i.e. engineering. Still it's harder to justify asking for a degree in other subjects, like the arts. For a lot of programming jobs like web development it's also arguable that you don't need a degree to be able to do it. Even writing embedded code like I do isn't something that actually needs a degree - I've met a lot of people who do it well and don't have one, and a lot of people who do it badly who do.
On the other hand if you have more applicants than jobs why not pick the best qualified ones? And of course if employers demand a degree, more people will do one.
Now since I got mine, more people are getting degrees, prices have gone up and they're doing them in subjects where it is less necessary.
I think it's a classic case of inflation. If employers can eliminate candidates on the basis of graduate/non graduate, of course they'll do it. And if they do it, more people decide they need to get a degree. In the UK the percentage of graduates has increased enormously, tuition fees have risen because the government can no longer fund all those graduates to study without them paying and so now doing a degree means taking on a lot of debt. In the US of course it's probably a fair bit worse.
Of course it's hard to get out of this trap of people only needing a degree because employers demand one, and employers demanding them because they know they can find someone with one. Meanwhile most people are doing degrees in subjects which aren't really helping them do their jobs. Because if you're force to do a degree you don't actually need why not do it in a subject you like.
One option would be to allow people to default on their loans. But that would burst a bubble way worse than subprime mortgages
It was $1 trillion in 2014 and has a high delinquency rate
https://www.forbes.com/sites/h...
The total outstanding student loan balance is $1.08 trillion, and a whopping 11.5% of it is 90+ days delinquent or in default. That's the highest delinquency rate among all forms of debt and the only one that's been on the rise consistently since 2003.
It's easy to see why. If you borrow $100K or more to get a degree and end up in a bad job, you're going to end defaulting.
Maybe if the government only offered degree loans in subjects which have some justification economically they could deflate the bubble because it would forces universities to drop the price of degrees in everything else. Of course telling academics their subject is no longer eligible for loans will cause a massive shitstorm and accusations of philistinism from self interested academics.
Another option would be for the government to get out of the student loans business. Bursting such a large bubble of bad debt will have dire economic consequences however it is done though.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
military Technical Training should count for something at the very least be like an devry.
The lack of retraining is, in my opinion, a major cause of the populist uprising in recent years. In the UK, the majority of areas where people voted for brexit were manufacturing centres until our economy shifted into services, the manufacturing declined leaving massive pockets of vocational workers without any skills that are in demand. These people are also the least likely to move away from their area for work for social and economic reasons, and this is in the middle of massive immigration (which provides workers who do go to demand). They blamed the government, and it was the government, just not the one they blamed.
Because of my age, I've had many colleagues and candidates who lacked degrees, especially advanced degrees. Most computing work was relatively new, and people strongly interested in it at the start of my career often did leave college to pursue the technologies that fascinated them. But over time, that technological fascination has become less critical. The interaction with managers, customers, and collaborators have come to matter more in the IT and developer world, and the educational opportunities have flourished. So the same person with the matching interests from 30 years ago can, and should, find educational opportunities in their fields. A _failure_ to do so in today's educational market is usually a sign of other issues.
If you can't invest the time and effort to get a degree, _now_, with the opportunities to link the degree to fields you find interesting or work that you find inspiring, there is little point to my hiring you or bringing you on my team. There have been exceptions: military service, and coping with poverty or familial responsibilities are challenges that test people in ways that can certainly match up to a college degree. But if you weren't busy between 18 and 22 with something involving commitment and learning real skills, your resume has to give me other very, very strong reasons to want you on my teams.
College is really best for doctors and lawyers mainly, who need to have a high level of rote memorization functioning since they need to be able to react quickly in situations where fast decisions have to be made in life and death situations. This is the way things used to be. This is why college programs are designed to filter out most people except those with very high memory retention. And thus, colleges have 50-80% failure rates. For all other jobs, its overkill, its wasting years of peoples lives, it causes enormous social problems. It throws away large numbers of people because they don't meat the unrealistic demands and expectations of college programs. College for most people Is NOT a pathway to success, its a pathway to failure. So, given this, college is more of a problem, than a benefit that actually locks large numbers of people into poverty. We can train the workers we need without college, using self study and apprenticeships. This is why I believe corporations should be banned from asking employers in non medical and non legal fields for a college degree.
With other fields, such as software development, time is not as much of a problem, and neither is rote memorization. You can use documentation to lookup some obscure API that you need to use, and you have a debug cycle to test the code. The code can be tested and reviewed before it is deployed. There is time to think about the correct algorithm to use and the code to be contemplated.
I am in favor of abolishing college degree requirements for most run of the mill jobs, including software development, and keeping it mainly for doctors and lawyers, and abolishing the H1B program (more on this in a bit). College is a waste of time and overkill for most people. Its years of your life down the drain, often studying things you will never use or need, like French Art. Now, learning about French Art is fine, but the fact is, I can do that on my spare time and I don't need to pay something $100,000 for this .
People can effectively learn what they need to know through self study and apprenticeship programs. You can learn algorithms, programming and mathematics basically for free by buying your own books and reading them yourself. I taught myself calculus, 10 computer languages and dozens of algorithms this way. How many of us got into computer programming by tinkering with writing code on our home computers when we were young? I basically learned the entirety of what I know from self study. The fact is even in college, no one can learn for you. Your still responsible for reading and studying yourself. Your doing all of the work. So basically, your not paying anyone for anything. They are not giving you anything. You are doing all of the work. There is virtually no difference from self study, you basically study, read and learn.
Secondly for most jobs memory refresher as for some obscure detail, like some obscure API, is perfectly acceptable, that is, learning as you go. In fact, learning by doing and as you go is fine for many jobs in regards to many obscure details , and the best way to keep people interested and engaged because there is an accomplishment reward feedback happening.
College has led to many social problems, including high levels of student debt, protracted periods of ones life being taken away that is not productive and income earning, delayed home purchasing and family initiation, making it too difficult and expensive to raise children due to high college costs, etc.
Instead, we should use for the majority of jobs apprenticeship and on the job training programs, self study and test certificates (such as CompTIA). One of the problems as well which has so distorted the US labor market is the availability of H1B visa holders from third world colleges, where they spent a fraciton of an American on their college degrees. This distorts the market and makes it harder for the job market to keep the demands of corporations for college degrees more in check, since essentially they can get Indian H1B visa holders who
That the skills and education received for a degree may not be directly needed to perform the tasks that are required on the job is irrelevant. The only way to do those tasks for them is to get the job, and if the employer wants a degree for applicants, then you need to have a degree. However arbitrary a requirement it may seem, it does not make it any less of a real requirement than skills you would actually need to already have while working.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
(and in tech not having a formal degree isn't all that uncommon anyways, compared to most tech fields)
HUH? The T in STEM stands for 'tech(nology)'. Parsefail
I've taken a few jobs like that, temporary or "ramp us up" jobs. And they've usually turned into permanent positions. I've hired that way too. It's sort-of temp-to-hire, a way to do a more thorough interview without the risk of having to fire someone.
Because too many people are wasting 4 years of their lives in education just so they can get a job.
The problem is that there is a negative feedback loop. Too many people go to college and get worthless degrees, so the job market is flooded with psychology grads. Therefore there is no downside to employers demanding degrees since these grads are plentiful and willing to accept the same low wages as a HS grad ... which puts pressure on the HS grad to go to college and get a degree in something.
I don't know what the solution is. One reasonable proposal is to require taxpayer subsidized student loans to be combined with an internship or apprenticeship to match up students with employers and ensure they are learning something useful.
Most of it is if there are 100 applicants for one job. In some way 99 of these have to go.
Do you pick more qualified people or those who can just get by? Both are willing to work for the same amount.
I get *WHY* they do it. I just do not like it much. Because basically it devalues what I spent quite a long time getting.
It is funny when I talk to my younger colleagues and I point out exactly in computer science terms why whatever it is they are doing is failing. "where did you learn how to do that?!" "in my CS classes". Don't let my sheepish aw shucks attitude fool you. I do know how to work this stuff. I have just not used it in awhile.
More like demonstrated ability to be born into money.
A quality college doesn't require or reward that. There's many shitty colleges out there, but if you actually bother to go to a good one, they don't do that.
...you don't need a degree to dig ditches.
Irv Tower?
Let me say - candidates without college degrees can possibly have the basic work skills you're pretty sure of getting with a college graduate. But they'll usually get that with a longer work history. Entry level candidates without degrees are a friggin' mess, as a group.
Often enough if you apply they will still accept you without the mentioned degree as long as you show competency in said field. Bring a portfolio and show your previous professional works as well as personal works.
Twinstiq, game news
Part of the solution here is for the taxpayer to pay the expense of college, but raise the standards significantly on students pursuing more than a 2 year degree.
Part of the solution is to come down hard on companies whose hiring requirements are so out of line that they require a degree for things that clearly don't require a degree at all. I'm not sure why anybody would think that you need a specific degree to read off a script and follow a flow chart to decide if something needs to be escalated to a more senior technical support rep.
An apprenticeship makes sense for a relatively large number of jobs, but it needn't be a formal apprenticeship, just having companies offer entry level positions would go along way towards solving the problem.
lack of a trades track as well! Germany has a good system.
also get the nfl / nba training grounds out of college and on to a real minor league system like the NHL and MLB.
They mostly are the ones on athletic scholarship.
As someone who has worked in IT for a number of large companies, I can say that sometimes it's less about the company, and more about the HR dept. I've submitted clear job descriptions for posting only to have them rewritten in boilerplate language, adding unnecessary requirements, and in some cases, removing necessary ones. As mentioned many times before, HR departments are really Lawsuit Avoidance departments. Unfortunately, sometimes avoiding lawsuits gets in the way of hiring otherwise qualified individuals.
Here are the counter-arguments (from the employers point of view).
Why it is better to hire people WITHOUT a college degree.
1) You can pay them less. A lot LESS.
2) You get people that are more loyal. They know it's harder for them to get another job.
3) You get people that have experience working long, hard hours rather than staying out late and drinking, then doing a half -assed job to finish off projects at the last minute.
4) You get people that think getting into a ton of debt just to prove how smart they are sounds off to them.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
... is a filter for Wussies.
That's doesn't mean you're a wuss if you didn't go to College. It's only more likely that you *aren't* a wuss if you did go to College and got a degree that actually means something, i.e. STEM.
This is quite simply put, but has solid truth to it. A degree is only a small piece of the mosaic that is your career, but a significant one that can mean quite the difference.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Just no. Part of the solution is for the government to stop paying any part of any degree program that doesn't have high in field employment after graduation. That means kick those programs off public school campuses.
A generation of 'poetry majors' publicly starving in the streets will also help kids focus on getting value for their education dollars, borrowed or not.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
tech schools are better then college for ready to work skills. To bad they got roped in to the college system and got an bad rap.
The nice part about a traditional college is that, regardless of what you may get your degree in, English 101 is required.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Germany USED TO do a relatively good job with their bottom 20%.
But that ship has sailed, they now graduate into apprenticeships not knowing how do basic arithmetic.
Yes my Aunt is a teacher in a German high school. They don't know what to make of it or do about it. It's like the idiot kids have been replaced by American idiots.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
See subject: Either you know the answers or you don't - degrees/certs are valuable but I'd take experience over either (especially after a great tech interview). In a way, they are like engineer certifications (not as std. based stringent but the laws of materials & physics do NOT change as much as the world of computing CONSTANTLY does either) & 'certify' that you know the basic rudiments of your chosen segment of the art & science of computing...
* HOWEVER - there's nothing you CANNOT learn yourself ala "Good Will Hunting's" point too!
(That just takes longer + makes you prone to time-wasted & mistakes your theories may 'crumble' on if hit w/ outlier circumstance or fundamental mechanics errors you didn't see coming the degreework would save you & you may not learn the 'time-saving tricks' in PROVEN by entire lifetimes of work that algorithms shown in say, DataStructures (my fav. of my CS degreework) show you - no wasted time reinventing wheels (unless you want to modify one or apply diff. ones to diff. dataset characteristics etc. to IMPROVE it - yes, it is possible e.g. modified quicksorts vs. std. type)
APK
P.S.=> Ah, but in the end? WTF do I know, right?? Only 2 degrees around the field & 24++ total years professional time around it & another 8 or so on my own before it + academia (now retired into other areas where my money works for ME, not the other way around - computing MADE IT POSSIBLE though) - it's only MY personal experience + opinion though - "YMMV" & be different... apk
I didn't see anyone else mention this, so here's my understanding.
There are three common categories of employees are are exempt from standard overtime rules: supervisors, administrative, and professional.
A college degree (usually expressed as degree or equivalent experience) is evidence that the position has professional requirements, and can qualify for a Fair Labor Standards Act exemption from overtime rules.
How to break the loop is a good question.
Degrees are being used as a (really lazy) litmus test. If the costs weren't as simple as "It took me 6 weeks to hire people when I opened the job up to everyone vs. 3 without," then there would be a variable that could be weighted differently. It would be great to see people incorporate "for the good of society" into their thoughts, but right now, the bottom thought, even if it doesn't need to be, is "Is it cheaper for me."
I've heard a whole slew of reasons why people can't and won't try to play nice with others. Here are just a couple.
- "If I had to get a degree, they should have to."
- I talked to them about college and we both agreed on how we felt about the greeks and our 3rd period teacher.
- They must not be able to hack it
It is ironic that the same people that make sure they hire a "diverse" group, will look at you and say with a straight face, that they are diverse because each person on their team has different color skin.
--
"I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it with my own two eyes"
Ivory Tower.
Must have had some n|ggers working for them.
Unless you work in a licensed professio, job requirements often represent an "ideal candidate wish list" by the employer. Smart job seekers know that and aren't afraid to apply to jobs where the fit isn't clear or the requirement match isn't all there.
âoeactually bother to go to a good oneâ
Take that silver spoon out of you ass and put it back in your mouth.
Higher education is NOT necessarily career preparation. It teaches theory, not necessarily reality. In my old career as a Systems Engineer, I met so many people with masters degrees that had no idea how to actually turn a Windows server into a domain controller, let alone plan complex systems. I have a degree in Criminal Justice which might as well be basket weaving. I learned through teaching myself and a whole lot of studying how today. A college degree doesn't even accurately predict who will work harder. There are plenty of college grads that don't engage in life long learning. Learning and growing is a personal decision.
I have never been asked for my degree, what university or my majors. All my customers care about is that I deliver quality and solve their problems.
That means kick those programs off public school campuses.
What? Private for-profit colleges have a way worse track record than public colleges. Both the dropout rate and the loan default rate are higher than at public institutions.
A generation of 'poetry majors' publicly starving in the streets will also help kids focus
No it won't. At 17 years old, a HS senior is way to naive and oblivious to make the connection. They need better guidance, from either their parents or their high schools, ... or maybe their loan officers. My daughter wanted to major in psychology, and it took me quite a while to dissuade her. I finally convinced her by showing her a list of salaries by major (psychology is at the absolute bottom) and a list of typical jobs for a graduate (under psychology it listed "Uber driver"). She is currently studying biotech.
Universities are not supposed to be vocational training facilities. That's one of the reasons why it's inappropriate to use a degree as a job requirement. You are part of the problem.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Basically, it's called a "cultural fit" which means they're just not comfortable with people different from themselves. They'll require degrees for everyone right down to the receptionist. And why not? Don't want any of the unwashed getting in, eww. They might have hobbies like hunting or fishing instead of cooking with argula or going to artisan cocktail bars.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
One solution would be to mandate that the degrees were actually worth what they were charging. Many schools have increased tuition for nothing more than "free government money" or "we want a new football stadium" and often there is also a drop in quality. (Because when you're handing out free money with no strings attached, you naturally start attracting some of society's less than altruistic individuals.) Demanding that educators put education first and actually show a valid educational reason for the increase in tuition, before the government hands out bigger checks, would help stop this issue. (No, shifting all of your money to the football stadium and then saying you need money to pay your educators is not a valid reason.)
Some schools have also closed and lost accreditation. (all of those for-profits? Like ITT.) The students who have degrees from them, are stuck paying off the loans despite the effective value of said degree being reduced to $0.00, and the issue having been investigated for years. (In ITT's case it was suspected by multiple states back in 2006. Action was only taken 10 years later. With no support being given for those scammed in the interim.) As a result these students have wasted a large amount of time and money with nothing to show for it, other than a huge pile of debt. Debt that may prohibit them from trying again elsewhere, opening their own small business, or (in the extreme case) even being financially solvent. All of which we as a society have to pay for. Having some basic quality requirements, with the school on the hook for the loans, if they fail those requirements, in the federal student loan programs would go a long way to fixing this particular issue.
Some more ideas:
Ban the practice of revoking professional / drivers licenses / degrees for defaulting on student loan debt. You cannot expect them to pay off the loan if you revoke their means to do so. That's just common sense.
Demand that lower education (K-12) actually do what it's supposed to do and not act like babysitters for 13 years. It's not daycare. If that's how you're treating it, then you shouldn't be surprised that the "daycare graduates" have no actual education, social skills, or ability to function on their own. This is a topic of discussion in and of itself, but one thing is certain, the current system is broken and does not work as intended. I have my own opinions both as a former student and as a staff member in the public school system, but there is definitely room for improvement.
Demand that employers publicly post the reasons why they rejected an applicant for the job. I'm not saying this can't be anonymized in any way, but the reasons themselves shouldn't be. This would give local communities two very useful pieces of information: 1. What does the company in question need in their applicants right now? 2. What direction is the company headed? Data trends can help predict future need, so honest data would help students in selecting fields of study that would bear fruit after they get their degrees, instead of being stuck with a degree that's useless in their area.
Stop expecting that the "market will fix everything". News flash: The market is responsible for the loss in jobs to overseas and H1B workers. Why? Because they are cheaper to hire. That's the "market" doing what it does best. You want to get your own people jobs? You have to make your people cheaper. Sometimes that requires a bit of government leverage. Like tariffs on foreign made products, or temporary tax breaks for hiring (and keeping) local workers. In extreme cases it may even require laws prohibiting sales in the area if the company doesn't hire a percentage of that area's population. Don't want to do this? Then watch as the "inv
That would be a super shitty college that did that and would not be respected.
I don't know what the solution is. One reasonable proposal is to require taxpayer subsidized student loans to be combined with an internship or apprenticeship to match up students with employers and ensure they are learning something useful.
Here's another proposal. Let's have the students either have to pay for their own educations, like in working through college, or have to apply for a loan through a private bank. If you pay for your own education up front then no one cares if you study transgender dance theory because that's your money. If someone has to go to a bank and they see an application for a loan to major in transgender dance theory then chances are the bank will refuse the loan. If someone shows up with an even slightly higher than average SAT or ACT score, good grades in high school, and wants to go to college to be a registered nurse then that person is quite likely to get a loan.
Government subsidy just artificially raised the prices and reduces choices. I remember this with the switch to digital television. The government said they'd pay UP TO $50 for a device that received digital TV and had a few other requirements. Guess what happened? Every device was priced at exactly $50. I wanted a device that did something the government would not subsidize so I had little for choices. I could choose the crippled government subsidized solution or a very expensive feature filled device for many times more money. There wasn't a $100 middle of the road digital TV converter device, only the $50 crippled devices or $300 whiz bang devices.
Why is it that an engineering degree costs as much as a degree in transgender dance theory? Because the student doesn't pay for it, the government does. If the student had to pay for it then perhaps the student might give more thought in the value of the degree. If a private bank had to put a risk factor on each degree on every student loan they they'd be handing out loans for things like engineering, nursing, law, business, and so forth but not transgender dance theory. They'd also set standards on who got the loan. The government really only cares if a person has been accepted to a college, not if the degree has any value or the school is any good. Mostly they do this just so they know who gets the check and for how much.
A private bank would also put a market based check on the amount of the loan. They might give a $15,000 loan for studying dance. For someone that wants to be a surgeon, and they have demonstrated ability, the bank is quite likely to give a $250,000 loan. Oh, and the dance school loan would probably have a 15% interest rate and the medical school loan a 5% interest rate.
Oh, and the bank might also get in the business of finding people work if it meant getting paid back on the loan. What incentive does the government have in finding people work? I mean they don't want people destitute but really all they want is people that won't cause trouble. The government doesn't much care if they get you a job, put you in prison, or get you on welfare. It's not their money so some government bureaucrat will "find you a job" just so they can be rid of you and move on. They won't care if you like the job, if it matches your degree, or even if the job pays better than minimum wage. It's not their money.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Is your daughter hot?
Wasting 4 years? I wish I could go back and learn as much as I did in college. It was an amazing time for personal growth and learning. I packed as much life and accomplishments into those 4 years as I did in the next 15.
The person knows they have to get up, arrive on time and do what they are told. They have shown they can do this for years.
The applicant can study, retain what they have studied and recall new and complex information over time to some set standard.
Some long term, risky and unexpected health problems with the person could have been expected to show within the many years of the education system and its work load.
A persons politics and personality should have developed to a stage that can be tracked. Is the person going to want to bring their political issues and outside campaigning to work?
That background check should show who they befriended, what they studied and what disruptive political theories they could be expected to spread at work.
The professional ethics, standing and quality of a person. Did the person have difficulties not cheating? Always need and demand "extra" considerations?
Was the person advanced on academic merit or given non academic considerations?
Did they complain a lot? Disruptive? Did they report their academics for "politics" a lot? Show signs of long term poverty, having a need to push politics, of a faith, a cult that might see decades of company secrets been sold, liberated or given to another nation, gov, mil, faith group?
What does their social media use show about them? No use of any social media at all? Faith? Politics? Long term contact with friend of friends who are criminals, very political active? Interests that could be an issue in the private sector?
A persons personality, faith, allegiance, secrets might have formed and be discoverable before they enter the work force and walk out with secrets.
A few years of considering how a person acted in a university setting can be an insight into years of work place suitability.
Why risk a difficult person of unknown character, cost and emotions at work when a university setting could have provided some forewarning of a very bad attitude.
Put some time in understanding every aspect of your workers and your company will thrive in any economic conditions.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
No, just no, this kind of thing is what kills culture off. The problem with people pursuing those kinds of degrees right now is that they can wind up being starving artists that wind up trying to file for bankruptcy and can't because the debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy.
I do agree that there's a few degrees that have no merit at all, women's studies being the best example, but a lot of those things contribute to society, just not in ways that are measured in dollars and cents.
I personally, would hate to live in a society where there is no art, for example.
Most other STEM fields. Happy?
I've been through the requirements for the job process with an HR department a few times.
They want you to throw the kitchen sink at the requirements list and then hope you get most of what is actually needed for the job.
Don't let the requirements list in a job listing scare you, apply anyway. If I find someone who has shown ability in areas close to what we need, I'll let them learn the rest on the job.
I don't have a degree and I've managed teams with 30 people worldwide for NASDAQ 100 and DOW companies.
Hiring managers are looking for the right person, not the exact right resume.
(and in tech not having a formal degree isn't all that uncommon anyways, compared to most [science, tech, engineering, and math] fields)
HUH? The T in STEM stands for 'tech(nology)'. Parsefail
It makes more sense if you read the first "tech" as information technology as opposed to other technology.
Often they list a degree and a bunch of irrelevant stuff just so that they can pay you less because "you are underqualified".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's like the idiot kids have been replaced by American idiots.
hmmm that seems kinda bigoted? Maybe you have other issues going on and are just looking to blame someone other than yourself?
1. Demonstrated ability to stick with something for a while.
So require someone to waste 4 years of their life while not earning money and accruing debt just to prove they can stick with something. Nice.
I'd bet that a lot of people would be willing to accept a much lower starting salary if they didn't have to finance a student loan.
2. The average college grad is usually more literate than the average high school grad. Better chance that you'll get an employee that can do basic math, speak properly to customers, etc.
That's a failure in the high school system if true. But the quote in the summary of the article says "even though for many jobs, the study found that a college degree yields zero improvement in actual performance"
3. Employers will get many applicants for any given job, so this will at least filter out SOME people. And of those that apply for the job, #1 above applies.
Yes, it's lazy, but as long as you have more applicants than open positions, why not? (From the employer's point of view.)
Why not? Because it's a broken filter. The degree doesn't tell you that they're going to be good at their job, only that they're good at memorizing and passing tests. That and you're filtering out good candidates that don't have a degree.
It's way easier to find the right person when you haven't arbitrarily tossed a good chunk of the candidates away.
The military has always required a 4 year degree for officers - these reasons all apply, particularly #1.
In the same vein:
- I knew a Bombardier-Navigator who had an Economics degree, and that was fine.
- Absolutely perfect eyesight is required for pilot training - but not after training.
That means kick those programs off public school campuses.
What? Private for-profit colleges have a way worse track record than public colleges.
Then split the difference with private non-profit colleges, like Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology or University of Notre Dame.
> Ãoeactually bother to go to a good oneÃ
>
> Take that silver spoon out of you ass and put it back in your mouth.
That's only the case if you're a liberal whining about "institutional bias". For the rest of us, quality is not a function of some over hyped over priced brand.
You can go to a good school and not be a Bush or Kennedy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Translation, there is no STEM shortage. We have so many we can afford to round file people without reading past the top of page 1.
Once I was looking through job postings for a new job fresh out of college. A lot of the jobs I was looking at had completely bullshit requirements. An example was a Broadcom intern position that required a PHD and 6 years of industry experience, or a Masters and 12 years of industry experience.
Another instance was a job posting for a programming language that had only existed for less than 2 years, but the job posting required 10 years experience.
It was pointed out to me by a friend who has been in the industry for decades that these weren't real jobs. These were H1B visa jobs, and that part of the process of getting a H1B visa is "showing" that there is "no one qualified for your job position" and therefor you have to go out of the United States for prospective employees. The catch, is that these H1B visa applicants don't have to meet the same job requirements.
Now I don't know if that is true or not. But it is the only thing that logically makes sense for a company to advertise flat-out impossible, or nigh unrealistic job requirements. And all of the companies that I saw posted these unreasonable job postings were companies that hired H1B visa employees...
We tried removing the requirement for a degree - it opened up some extra good candidates, but it completely exploded the number of terrible applicants by about two orders of magnitude. Yes, flooded with over 100x crappy resumes, and we don't have a giant HR department to handle it (plus they'd bitch about having to stop chatting and playing their mobile phone games that much).
And in the end we ended up hiring a guy with a degree, though there was a strong contender from the degree-less contingent. But it wasn't worth the extra scutwork.
So what we've done for the moment is put the requirement back in the job listing - if we get a great resume but the guy doesn't have a degree, I don't really care for /hiring/, but I want the extra layer of filtering on submissions.
I met so many people with masters degrees that had no idea how to actually turn a Windows server into a domain controller
Benefit of doubt: Were they Solaris, *BSD, or GNU/Linux admins who had never been in front of a licensed copy of Windows Server before?
Why would I have anything to do with idiots in the nation my parents come from?
BTW background: America does great at educating our best students. We _fail_ on the bottom quintile (20% American idiots), where Germany has traditionally done well. Not anymore, German idiots are now just as dumb as American idiots.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You have awakened to the scam that is academia/career preparedness. Rest easy knowing that it's nothing new, this isn't unique for today's new workers. Why do they do it? Because they don't want to hire you, qualifications notwithstanding. Trust me, *you* don't want to work with people that don't want you, either. Networking (real networking), skill, and perseverence are still the best tools you could have.
PS - you don't have to figure out what you want to do 'for the rest of your life'. That is also a lie, and what you do is almost certain to change throught the course of your life. Not because the market changed, but because YOU will. Your life is not a static straight line. You can take your time. Start with something that pays the bills, and go from there.
Every time my employer hires somebody without a degree everybody else besides the person hired ends up regretting it.
4) You get people that think getting into a ton of debt just to prove how smart they are sounds off to them.
You sound like you have a massive chip on your shoulder. Going into massive debt so you can spent the next 40-50 years employed rather than unemployed is almost certainly the better choice. Also:
1) You can pay them less. A lot LESS.
Yep, going into debt to massively increase lifetime earnings is not a terrible plan.
3) You get people that have experience working long, hard hours rather than staying out late and drinking, then doing a half -assed job to finish off projects at the last minute.
Yeah all college students suck! Boo!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The problem with people pursuing those kinds of degrees right now is that they can wind up being starving artists
Why is that a bad thing? Throughout history starving artists have produced far better art than well-fed artists.
My NT4 textbook says impossible. I'm certain it was at the time. I've been local admin on Windows servers much more recently. I've not been domain admin more recently.
If in the Griggs vs Duke Power 1971 case, that Duke Power is prohibited from requiring high school diploma which was disproportionally disadvantageous for blacks, then how can businesses now defend their practice of requiring college degrees which is even more arbitrary and harder to justify for business purpose? It's widely known that college degree is a white privilege much more than high school diploma. I think businesses are just in an ignorant bliss ripe for a lawsuit to slap them back into sense.
I once had a signature.
"first year apprentice, needs 5 years experiance"
An enterprise car rental was looking for managers in training. And required a degree (didnt matter in what) to be looked at for the job. Didnt matter if you have 10 years experiance in retail and management. Had to have a degree to even be looked at.
Private colleges use private money. I don't care what they teach, so long as they aren't using any of my money.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In my experience, your #3 is it. It is a filter. Most places want either a degree or "x" amount of experience.
As a requirement, I've only seen it as a must have in state/Federal/municipal jobs.
Do employers care if someone it more literate? Realistically, in the environments I worked, they didn't care at all, provided the employee was able to get their deliverables in during a sprint.
The ironic thing, the uni I went to has classes on critical thinking. Part of the class was debunking stuff from mainstream media, as well as Infowars and the Daily Kos. Either by wording, or stuff completely fictitious.
Education doesn't just tell you to follow in lock-step. You learn stuff like history, so you know when to follow, versus when to give the finger.
An employer that is trying to keep their H1B employees has to post the position so an "American can have an opportunity" at the job. They use crazy job requirements so they can plausibly meet the regulatory requirements of using H1B labor and then document the job posting, keep a bunch of resumes/CVs noting on each they don't fit some requirement that is actually meaningless.
Tons of positions on job sites are H1B spam. The more implausible the requirements, the more likely it's an H1B compliance posting.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Your view is really the same view as the Enlightenment. It's only been around hundreds of years and most of Western civilization was founded on it, but that doesn't stop conservatives from rejecting the Enlightenment and wishing for the golden age of artisans, serfs, nobles, etc.: (might be behind a pay wall)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
And this is how science dies in America.
I'll add one to that which is a major factor for us: upward career mobility. It doesn't do us much good to have someone who will only be able to do the same job they were hired on for in 10 or 15 years: their pay will generally increase, but they won't be doing much to "earn" it.
That said, a few hires over the years clearly disprove this as a major factor on both sides. It just becomes so much harder to filter out people for a blind ad, and it wastes a lot of time interviewing every applicant.
Is your daughter hot?
Yes, very much so. She is half Asian and half white, with all the best features of each. I say this objectively, because I can see that plenty of guys think she is hot. I like walking about 20 paces behind her at the mall so I can watch them rubberneck as she passes by. I especially like it when they crash into a kiosk or trip over a bench.
I'd also like to point out that several, if not all, of the H1b visa shops simply lie about their candidates. I'm sure Tata will be happy to sell you somebody with 10 years experience in .NET 5—a product which does not exist. Or who has a "master's degree" in "application development" that has "heard of, I think" multithreading and has no idea what the "event" keyword means. Or come up with three candidates one after the other, all of whom were the project leader for the same project at the same company at the same time. (All of these are actual examples, although at the time it was .NET 4.3 that didn't yet exist.) So yeah, when the actual requirements are "$40k gross and a willingness to lie," all sorts of things become "requirements."
I have a degree and I have worked in IT for many years, both as a developer and someone that hires developers. As near as I can tell, a degree doesn't make one bit of difference. I have worked with smart people that had degrees and smart people that didn't. I have worked with people with advanced degrees that were as dumb as the day is long.
I think it is a mistake to assume that people that did not attend college or finish college are less intelligent than people who did. One of the big problems is identifying talent. The gatekeepers - HR - are largely unskilled in my experience and often unable to identify talent. Simply excluding people without degrees dumbs it down. It makes their job easier. Relying on software that scans resumes for key words just compounds the problem. This leads to people gaming the system and tailoring resumes to trick the software into thinking they are the better candidate. People that can't or won't play the game are left on the sidelines.
Higher education, particularly in some of the more prestigious schools, is little more than a giant country club. Some people are able to milk these sorts of relationships for their entire career. As the old saying goes, it's not what you know it's who you know. This holds true mainly in executive positions and less so in individual contributor positions. But there is a discrimination of sorts and a stigma attached to those without degrees.
and stick with some kind of a program, if nothing else.
Presumably, you had to actually do something, to get your degree...you showed up for classes, paid attention, took notes, made some attempt at actually learning the subject matter, took the tests, and completed the coursework, etc.
If you can stick with a program for multiple years and complete it, it shows that you are a (presumably) competent person, who can read, write, follow instructions and generally behave in an intelligent, appropriate manner over an extended period of time....these are generally desirable qualities in employees, but difficult to quantify with respect to screening applicants.
The need for a college degree started with lazy HR staff who didn't want to look through all the applications they were getting for posted jobs. So, to immediately make it easier they just tossed those that didn't list a degree and only focused on those that did. It then became the norm to advertise the need for a college degree for practically every farking job. This has come around and bit them in the ass and soon you will start seeing every job requiring a master's degree so they can easily cull the applicant pile once again.
pics or gtfo
Jesus christ, you didn't even get half the letters correct in "Ivory". You don't know what you're talking about.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
THAN I guess you decided a trade school was better THEN college?
* 4.5
Psychology is the lowest because "women's studies" is inevitably classified there, and it drags down the whole rest of the field.
Oh, wait, this week it's "gender studies". I mean "non-binary-unidentified-invent-a-word" studies this week. The refusal to actually admit to having a gender, or that a choice matters, has poisoned the whole field. And yes, I admit it. As soon as I see "non-binary" on a resume, I don't *need* to look for an excuse to reject, there are always at least half a dozen completely legal reasons to dump it. I "self-identify as competent" is not the same as actually training or doing a job.
Many employers would like to do background checks or do IQ tests, but most methods of evaluating the suitability of potential employers has been ruled illegal by the government. The ability to obtain a bachelor's degree, while mostly irrelevant to most jobs, does indicate that the graduate has the ability to show up and stick to a task. A college degree is a flawed tool, but in many cases, it's the only tool available.
Because too many people are wasting 4 years of their lives in education just so they can get a job.
If what you are doing is a waste, then you're doing it wrong. Sure I could probably do my current job without my university degree, but that doesn't mean I didn't gain a shitload of benefits as a result of doing one.
sootman averred:
I didn't RTFA, but I'm pretty sure this has been discussed at least nine million times in the last 20 years. The main reasons: 1. Demonstrated ability to stick with something for a while. 2. The average college grad is usually more literate than the average high school grad. Better chance that you'll get an employee that can do basic math, speak properly to customers, etc. 3. Employers will get many applicants for any given job, so this will at least filter out SOME people. And of those that apply for the job, #1 above applies. Yes, it's lazy, but as long as you have more applicants than open positions, why not? (From the employer's point of view.)
Er ... no.
What you have to understand is that job listings are the responsibility of Human Resources personnel. They will solicit input on minimum qualifications from the folks whose department has the vacancy, but, from there on, it's entirely the HR department's baby. The problem is that, particularly for STEM-related and other hghly specialized positions, HR's own people are themselves extremely unlikely to know ANYTHING about the actual job requirements. So, when the team manager of the department with the vacancy responds to their query with, "We need a programmer (for instance) with experience in C# and Oracle middleware," HR translates that as "A four-year degree in computer science, plus 10 years experience in C# and 10 years experience in Oracle middleware."
Because, obviously a programming position requires a degree in computer science - or, at least, it does if you're an HR professional.
The late, great Robert A. Heinlein described it as too many cooks who "like to piss in the soup to make it taste better." He wasn't wrong.
(I'm too lazy to HTML-format your list. Guess it's my lack of 10 years' experience in HTML. Oh wait ... I actually HAVE more than that. Please don't tell HR ... )
Check out my novel.
I am not in tech... let me clear that first.
But frankly I've gotten hundreds of resumes that are basically identical. They all went to Ivies, they all did a year of poverty tourism / "charity work", blah blah blah.
And so I have to focus on the minutiae just to make a distinction. So why not just pick the top 10 resumes that have the most crap on them? I don't have anything else to base a decision on without expending a ton more of work and time. And that isn't going to happen.
uh nice rant but no. the government would not pay for your education. your parents foot the bill if they have the resources or the government fronts you the money and you reemburse them over time. its called a LOAN. no free lunches.
1. Demonstrated ability to stick with something for a while.
2. The average college grad is usually more literate than the average high school grad. Better chance that you'll get an employee that can do basic math, speak properly to customers, etc....
these are basic skills that should have been acquired by high school graduation. if lacking, the military service is still an excellent environment in which to acquire requisite skills and training.
Interesting article. Thanks for the link.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Worst interview techniques ever - testing your degree knowledge.
I can program in several assembler, SQL, PHP, Python, C/C++, Gambas, VB, 'Arduino', Fortran, Pascal, and a couple more.
So if someone tests me on C to the nth level of depth, its bound to come apart either with the syntax or heap management depending on which way the wind is blowing. But who cares? I now have a higher paid job than that interview I went to, and I'm writing Bluetooth code, and fixing scruffy code written by interns and updating github for everyone distributed to follow. If you can't pull your weight, github will make that clear on day 1. So I'm assuming management trolls who demand degrees and test your degrees are insecure around ideas of github or don't know how to use such technology to retain staff.
I met so many people with masters degrees that had no idea how to actually turn a Windows server into a domain controller
Benefit of doubt: Were they Solaris, *BSD, or GNU/Linux admins who had never been in front of a licensed copy of Windows Server before?
You judge people because they don't know how to add a role to a Windows server? That seems like an incredibly strange data point to judge someone.
If what you are doing is a waste, then you're doing it wrong.
So true. If someone doesn't learn anything on college, whose fault is that?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What these HR people are really doing is advertising for a position they already have someone slotted for, but to satisfy company rules and EEOC laws, they load the necessary qualifications list with things that can't possibly exist. They can then say they satisfied the rules and laws and have to use the insider as most qualified on the list of applicants.
I was about to ask the same question. I've got a master's degree, gainfully employed, have done plenty of development, sysops, devops, etc (Linux since kernel 0.98pl5, SunOS, Solaris, Irix, etc.).and I only have a guess as to how to turn a Windows server into a DC.
Granted we need some of the ideas above implemented too for it to work, but the idea that you're going to go into permanent debt and be ruined for life, all because you tried to better yourself and get a decent job, is re-pungent and shouldn't be tolerated in a country that fancies itself the "#1 country in the world."
What should be repugnant in the "#1 country in the world" is having a population so poor and dependent on the government that they cannot even afford to pay to educate themselves and their children. A free people should mean being free from being forced, by government fiat or desperation, to go to the government for education. I think this government education is rotting the brains of our nation. The government doesn't much care if people are educated in their schools.
I was in a college history class and part of it covered World War 2. The professor one week in lecture talked about how the Nazi government was teaching children about how the mentally challenged were a drain on society. An example was given on a math problem given to children on how many able bodied workers it would take to support those unable to work. The next week we had a lecture about the post war period and the UK had lots of children that didn't have fathers to care for them. The government set up public schools to educate these children. The professor seemed to this that this was great, children getting free school was good.
I asked the professor what I thought was a pretty basic question. I asked that if the Nazis were using public schools to indoctrinate children then what kept the UK government from doing the same? He thought about the question for a second, waved his hand at me like he didn't have time for that now, and moved on with the prepared lecture. Think about that. This was a professor that was teaching this same lesson for years and I had to be the first one of likely thousands of his students to ask that question. In the space of a week I got two conflicting messages, public school "bad" and public school "good", and nothing to tell me when either one is true.
Here's the lesson I took from that, public school is "bad". If this professor lacked the ability to tell me why UK public school was good then public school must always be bad. I wonder if this professor was taught in public schools.
There's a few other questions that were asked of this professor that he could not answer, which I thought were pretty basic. Students asked for translations on some French and German seen in images he presented in class. It seems odd that this professor, someone I assume had to take a foreign language like I did in college, could not be bothered to find translations for a few words on images he brought to class. I'd think someone that taught the history of France and Germany, and claimed to have lived in Germany as a child, would perhaps know some of the language from where he lived and the neighboring country. I had to go search the internet after class to find out that the name of a French store "Le Bon Marche" translated, basically, to "Best Buy".
I didn't care too much though. I wasn't paying for this class, the government was. Which just another example of how government funded education fails. I saw the problem and I was not bothered by it enough to complain at the time. That's because I was not paying for it.
Stop expecting that the "market will fix everything".
I don't expect the market will fix everything. I also don't expect the government to fix everything either.
The government is good at simple solutions to obvious problems. If the problem is getting goods and people from one end of the nation/state/county to the other then the government knows how to solve that. This means roads, bridges, rails, seaports, and airports. They'll blaze that trail but the government is bad at the more complex problems like operating an airline, a passenger rail system, or ships, that's best left for th
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Because it's one great way to filter out people who are unable to apply themselves to achieve a long-term goal. Those assholes who can't be bothered to show up on time to morning classes are the same assholes who can't get to a meeting on time. You know those idiots who couldn't show up to class when the snow/surf was good? Yeah, those people can't show up to work when the weather's good either.
Then we can start talking about people with basic writing skills, math skills, and logic and critical thinking skills. Do all college graduates have them? Not even close, but more of them do than people who didn't graduate college.
Sure, you can take a risk on somebody, but why take a risk when there's a large pool of people who have already proven capable and are statistically more likely to be well-rounded, capable people? This whole post just sounds like losers whining.
Perhaps I can toss one more possibility into the pile:
Companies prefer college grads because the majority of them are nearly drowning in debt and will do anything to keep their job ? It's a carrot on a stick thing. Pay the poor desperate college grad just enough to keep them here, but not quite enough to ever get ahead. Thus, ensuring a nice obedient employee to abuse for decades.
Though it is true about the " many companies not wanting to train their employees " these days. My own company makes ~$3B a quarter, give or take, and training of any kind has been non-existent for better than a decade now.
It's more of a: " Here's the new equipment you're going to maintain. Make it work. " setup.
That should make you feel all fuzzy inside :D
No it won't. At 17 years old, a HS senior is way to naive and oblivious to make the connection. They need better guidance, from either their parents or their high schools, ... or maybe their loan officers.
Funny ... at 17, I thought my friends were a bunch of morons for planning to go to college without any clue of what they wanted to do. I never did figure out what I actually needed a degree in, so I never went. I didn't even need to see starving artists in the streets; it just seemed like common sense that, if you don't have a realistic career in mind, it's best not to waste 4 years of your life and pay tens of thousands of dollars for it.
Hiring used to be for the length of a career. You stuck with a company for a long time. So rather than hire an idiot that's only good for an entry level job, they hired someone who was able to grow into other positions over time. That habit has held over. Maybe it's better to hire the idiots now for entry level jobs, then refuse them promotions until they prove they're capable (which will be difficult if their writing level is 6th grade, they never took any math classes, and they only thing they're self taught in is PC helpdesk and video games.
In my experience, people are not very good at learning on their own. They're very apt to skip the boring topics, they'll just skim the surface, and they'll have an over-inflated idea of their own worth on the job.
Granted, no everyone can and should go to college. But if someone does have the opportunity to go to college affordably and they skip it, that's is some serious self harm being inflicted.
Do they just want to say they advertised for the position, or are they really so immensely stupid, so disconnected from their own needs, that they think they are actually asking for something they can have...?
In most cases, I think it is just a game of Chinese Whispers between the different departments that need to provide bureaucratic approval for a job ad in a large company. The manager who wants to hire someone wants 10 years industry experience and experience with new technology X. Somewhere along the line, that becomes 10 years experience with new technology X, and that is what goes into the ad. Usually the manager in charge is just as frustrated with this process as the potential applicants, as there is always the fear that the best applicants are not applying because they are too honest about their experience to get through the HR filter based on the screwup in the ad. Managers should always insist on final approval of the ad content to avoid this, and not just throw it over the fence and hope to hear back with a shortlist of candidates.
Why is that a bad thing? Throughout history starving artists have produced far better art than well-fed artists.
Is that actually true? Or is it just that, given the highly subjective nature of art, people tend to assign more emotional value to "art" that has a sob-story behind it?
I strongly disagree that a college degree yields zero improvement in actual performance. While teaching yourself how to program is essential, so is an education.
Also, the article doesn't say how employee performance was measured. I assume they measured employee performance by sprint velocity.
Measuring employee productivity by velocity alone is not correct.
Successful software engineers need more than programming skills. Many software engineers don't even program in the workplace.
In my experience, uneducated software developers don't design applications correctly. Educated software developers are more cerebral.
Also, uneducated programmers use too many third party libraries. They're more concerned with solving problems quickly than solving problems correctly.
A college education is favored because the high school curriculum isn't rigorous enough to educate on computer science.
Historically, students who continue on to college tend to come from richer families. They're more likely to be members of the middle or upper class. They're more likely to come from a European background. This trend may be changing in some states though.
Even experience gets trumped by degrees in (info)tech and many other fields. Maybe less so in hardware and hard science, but not otherwise. Employers know that somebody with real experience applying for a job was: 1) laid off so downcheck regardless of reason; 2) wasn't paid enough so they're looking for a raise - BAD; or 3) has been through the mill and expects a living wage now (variant on 2, but probably with a family in the background so unlikely to accept as much abuse as somebody younger). Besides, in infotech outside of hardware and pure research, it's a business "for the young" so it's expected that by the time you're 30 (40 at the latest) you've moved into management or been laid off permanently ("retired" as a verb). Except possibly for the sex industry and acting (are they perhaps variants on the same thing?), there are few places with as much age discrimination as infotech. So they want the degree and only the degree: somebody with one and no experience probably has a ton of student debt and will accept any amount of abuse to get enough money to pay it off before they die, while somebody with experience probably already has some or all of their debt paid down and isn't as subservient.
The proposal was for subsidized loans. Not a completely free lunch but the government is still paying something.
These interest free loans, guaranteed by the government, has still had effects. It's created an unnatural inflation on the price of an education. We're seeing more bullshit degrees. We're seeing more people go to college that quite likely should not be there. Not everyone needs to go to college. If these loans were not insured by the government then the schools might not be accepting so many marginal students.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
ntr
Irv Tower?
If you went to that big bad ivory tower, perhaps you would have learned context and inference skills among all those other "almost nothing useful" abilities.
Good god this. Years back I was the "IT Manager" for a very small organization. I was alone but shortly added one person. The process of hiring someone for a position a bit higher than help desk was painful. Bad candidate after bad candidate walked through my door.
I finally hired a woman who appeared to be a self taught, motivated individual who did not have a degree. She was fantastic. Personable, hard working, picked up on things quickly. She was a god send. Until I told her to send out an Email to the organization informing them she would be rebooting a server that night. It was like "I am booting server SW twonight becuz of mainence. Shuld be o.k. tomorow. LoL!"
From then on, any communications going out to the company were to come through me, but I would have her write them and send them to me for editing. Finally, I stopped having her attempt writing up a draft and wrote them myself. I tried to help her with her English skills, but she just never got anywhere near acceptable for a professional communication. Note that English was her native and only language.
That said, I'd hire her again. When she asks me career advice, I tell her to really concentrate on her language skills. I think being unable to communicate clearly and effectively through a variety of means gives you a ceiling in IT and most other positions.
There is a much simpler solution: Employers get to make employees pay for their own training and universities make a lot of money selling degrees.
doing exactly what they want and covering themselves legally!
Private colleges use private money.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I don't care what they teach, so long as they aren't using any of my money.
They are using your money.
When a student from ITT or DeVry drops out and and defaults on his government guaranteed student loan, who do you think pays the lender?
When employers ask for impossible things candidates will put them on their resume. Many candidates will just lie. What employers are really hiring when they ask for a lot of experience in many different areas are liars.
You forgot one: They want to hire an h-1b and they're putting artificial requirement in place to make that happen.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yup. I can only assume those who claim there is a shortage are either blind or blinded by an alterior motive.
It's worse than that though. Some people seem to view life solely in terms of getting up the career ladder and accumulating stuff, with no other goal having any intrinsic value. When I'm feeling conspiratorial I wonder if it's just a big con by the rich few to cultivate a class of willingly deluded slaves, but realistically I suspect it's more likely an unfortunate quirk of history.
chapter 11 and 7 for private student loans and government loans have rules that the schools have to deal with.
Irv Tower?
probably a typo for Ivory Tower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower
You don't know the arguments, do you? You call yourself educated? The Enlightenment legacy can be seen all around us: individualism, international commerce and trade, moral cosmopolitanism, freedom of the press and a culture of publicity, technological modernity, the valorization of expertise, and on and on. All of these are bogeymen to the Left and they wish to free our society from their oppression.
The concept of "race" was birthed by the Enlightenment. Before that, there wasn't any racism, just Christians and heathens. But the white man came up with the idea there is "objective truth" and used it to oppress peoples of color. The Enlightenment's ontology, rooted in the new science of the 17th century, created a vision of human beings in nature which provided weapons to a new race-based ideology which would have been impossible without the Enlightenment.
The entire idea behind today's Left-wing thought is that there is no objective truth, only differing points of view, all equally valid. For example, there is no valid genetic basis for human intelligence, there are merely different kinds of intelligence. Native Americans do poorly at intelligence tests designed for whites, but excel at tests designed to measure storytelling intelligence.
White supremacy as enabled by the Enlightenment is most commonly conceptualized as a way for lower-class whites to feel socially superior to people from other ethnic backgrounds. More important, though, white supremacy is a tried-and-tested means for upper class whites to grow their wealth and power. This thought is all over the place on the Left and I am astonished that you are not familiar with it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Solution.
Huge fines for illogical advertisements and a bounty for people who identify them.
H1B enforcement. They don't get the job if the don't meet the advertised ad.
There should have been H1B audits - but we know there is not.
I usually give US employers flak for being abusive and unfair in how they exploit employees, but when it comes to job training I would like to make an argument in their defense. Compared to older times, we have a job market with more job mobility and less loyalty to employers. What would at some time be a good investment in extended training of someone you expect to stay with the company for a long time, may now end up as waste from the company's point of view.
Regarding what competence and experience you ask for when hiring - well, it is not that complex. You list the qualifications that are desired for the job, you see what applications you get, and then you see if you can live with the qualifications of the best ones. You know you probably won't get anyone who ticks off all the boxes, and potential applicants know this as well - so people who are close to meeting criteria, know it's ok for them to apply.
Requiring an education with good performance is not so much about inflation, as it is about proving up-front that you are able to learn and perform. Plus having an education that is sufficiently related to what you will be doing, that you should be able to pick up what you need for the job.
I always assumed was simply ignorant recruiters at work. People that I've talked to in the past that come up with things like "needs 5 years of .NET experience" only 2 years after it was released for the first time. Another form is they they have a laundry list of technologies that that is completely unreasonable to expect in a single person, like a combo .NET developer and senior level AIX SysAdm (along with a dozen other techs from all over the map).
Then they use it to try to beat you up "well you don't have 3 of the 28 requested skills, so we wouldn't be able to give the top of the salary range."
"Like asking for ten years of experience in a technology that has only just been introduced."
May be they want to catch on their lie those claiming to have the "required" experience?
What time line are you asking:
1990s: YOUR OWN!
2010s: The teacher's! The institution's! The government's! Mommy, mommy, mommy they hurt my feelings by giving me a B+! It's not fair! I was totally worth an A!
I finally figured out what you are. You are actually a Russian pretending to be support white supremacy, and you only know enough English to throw around a few keywords like Federal government state university loan but the sentences are completely made up. You don't even insult people properly in English, and you are such a disgrace.
You either start being nice to people on the Internet or you may stay quietly in your frozen shit-hole eating potatoes.
I once had a signature.
There's a massive oversupply of labour and not enough jobs.
So employers use degrees (or lack thereof) as a quick way to cull the applicant list for the few jobs they do advertise.
They figure a college grad is so far in the hole, all it takes is a little paycheck to pwn you.
I applied to an evangelism ministry once. The application said that you had to have a college degree to be accepted and go through the ministry's training institute. I guess that they think that God would require a college degree before anyone could present the gospel. Fortunately, they accepted me without a degree anyway. They did reject me afterwards however, because they wouldn't allow me to have one of two positions that were normally available after the training, simply because I had not married yet. I was absolutely that the rejected position was the only one I could accept. Thus it is with politics and Christian organization bureaucrats.
When I participated in hiring many years ago my thought was a degree was somewhat like double the experience years. A database or programming assignment for example threw several challenges st you; the course meant you specifically were challenged with multiple scenarios. The same could be said of an accounting or business course. In the real world you would work on one project for a year sometimes. So as a rough measure count a 4 year degree as like a guy with 8 years experience but no education going in.
I think that's a requirement. For some a bachalor's degree makes somebody officially "highly skilled."
If the person is in debt they are less likely to take risks or push the envelope. Meaning they need that job and wonâ(TM)t complain about long hours or low pay. They are less stable so less able to job hop to build up their income.
No, but the GP apparently does. See those little grey bars at the left?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
More likely the people creating the postings are just clueless idiots
You left out a major influence; namely, that many Government contracts require that only degreed individuals be used to supply services to the Government agency letting the contract. Look to the Federal Acquisition Regulations or FARs for this one. Many states use the same rules. Contractors have to comply to win.
For the same reason dogs lick their balls.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So you were smarter than your friends. Your friends were the norm though, and you the outlier.
Makes even more sense when you take STEM as a whole. Science, engineering, and math jobs require degrees across the board. Tech is the only STEM field where that's not the case. So yes, compared to -most- STEM fields, tech is a bit of an exception.
If so, this disparity in education requirements between technology on the one hand and science, engineering, and mathematics on the other hand casts doubt on the validity of STEM as a category of employment.
>The entire idea behind today's Left-wing thought is that there is no objective truth, only differing points of view, all equally valid. It seems to be the some among the right are the most vigorous at rejecting objective truth, from Fox News âoethere are no facts only narrativeâ to the Trump administrationâ(TM)s (and the Republican Party in general) rejection of science and objective analysis. Is âoethe leftâ guilty of the same thing? Iâ(TM)m pretty left in my politics, and what mostly horrifies today is the wholesale rejection of facts in policy making. In the end Iâ(TM)m coming to the conclusion that âoethe leftâ and âoethe rightâ are just convenient caricatures to make it easier for us to do a wholesale rejection of the opinions of people we disagree with.
Employers are offended that someone with valuable skills makes 2-3x's more than they do with less "education" and they're bitter about having to go $100k into debt for a $50k job, when Tony TechGeek makes $150k with no college degree.
I've seen some companies require either a Bachelor's or "three years experience for every year of college experience" which is ridiculous. Time spent thinking about the weekend in a classroom cannot be equated to specialized experience.
It's so easy to get into college now that those who don't are unfairly considered the dolts de la dolts.
Actually, having wasted too many years chasing useless paper to cover nail holes in my wall when I could have been making money, I'm starting to think the ones who skip it are the smart ones. There wasn't a single thing I learned in college or grad school that I couldn't have learned better and more quickly on my own. The Comp Sci courses were especially pointless because they invariably were out of date and taught by people who never used the skills in a production environment.
The "Core Requirements" at the Bachelor's level also guarantee that almost all undergrads (Engineering majors are the only exception I can think of offhand) will spend so much time studying pointless bullshit that their B.A. or B.S. will be useless for any purpose other than going to grad school, where they will take the identical courses as the undergrad equivalents -- often sitting in the same classrooms and listening to the same professors drone on as the undergrads -- for two to three times the tuition. It's a scam.
But college was what employers wanted and going to college was what all everyone said I should do, so I did it. If I had to do it all again, I doubt I'd bother. American higher education is a racket worthy of a RICO indictment.
I spent the first 10 years of my career leveraging my military training working as a non-degreed engineer for 2 or the largest technical firms in the world. I eventually found myself leading 4 degreed engineers in an R&D lab, all made more money than me and and were able to move in job market which was harder for me since I didn't have the paper. So I went to college and got a BSBA with minor in MIS and I did learn a lot but more than that I refined what I knew and layering the business skills on my technical skills made me more valuable. The article is basically correct though, and there's another aspect. There are very few potential H1 employees that do not possess degrees and that creates market pressure. I suspect the perception of hiring management, is that a degreed "white collar" employee is better than a non-degreed "new collar" employee. My employer is a case in point, we very much promote "new collar" workers in our marketing and technical trainings, but on the other hand I haven't seen one employment opportunity that doesn't require a degree.
Itâ(TM)s probably at least partially simply that 99.9937256%* of artists are starving... theyâ(TM)re going to vastly out-produce the non-starving variety, and simply by the âoemillion monkeysâ principle the starving ones will produce more good art than the well-fed artists.
*I have no idea if thatâ(TM)s true, but of all the probably hundreds of musicians that I know, only a handful donâ(TM)t need a âoeday jobâ to make ends meet.
If you committed to a Major, achieved some post-graduate specialist status, you are someone with major debt and a one-track mind. Perfect "Company Man" material.
Quite right, corrupt government is a major factor.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I think one problem is the economic incentive of paying for college. Every single degree from the same college costs the same amount of money even tho the college probably pays math and engineering profs more than they pay lit and history profs.
If you only have to pay $20 grand for an English degree and $100 grand for a computer science degree, then some aspiring students might make a slighty smarter choice. But if you're going to spend $100 grand anyway, then you might decide to go for the degree that takes as little time as possible away from all the other non-curricular acitvities that are supposed to broaden your outloook (most of which you could do for free without paying tuition while working at Whole Foods or McDonalds).
That would make sense, except for the fact that my company has such a rule. However, we have someone who was hired as a temp in Accounting. She cleaned up many problems the accounting department had had, but, despite having an open permanent position in accounting, they will not hire her for that position because she does not have a college degree. So, the temp has proven both the ability to stick with it and to do the job better than the college graduates they had doing the job previously, but they will not make her permanent because she does not have a degree.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Most jobs really don't require a college degree as you can train a monkey to do most everyday tasks - but most employers are looking for people who are going to stick around for a while, get along with others, and provide some kind of long-term value.
As someone who used to hire/fire IT people - a college degree (with bonus points for someone who went away to school) tells me that the candidate has a better chance of:
1.) Finishing something he/she started
2.) Can deal with a diverse group of personalities (particularly if they went away to college and endured dorm life)
3.) Developed better reasoning and coping skills
4.) Can meet deadlines and other goals required of college students
5.) Proving they don't rely on mommy and daddy to get through the day
6.) Tend to have better soft people skills
I also gave military vets without college degrees equal footing... and if I had someone with both an honorable discharge and a 4-year degree, they usually went to the top of the pile... but I tended to weed out combat vets due to issues such as PTSD, rigidity, frat-boy mentalities and personality disorders that are common with that segment of population as they likely would not gel with the rest of the department.
For temporary / project work - college degrees aren't as much as a requirement as these people are usually working within a fairly narrow set of requirements and duties anyway. So long as they show up and do what's required of them - that's fine. If they're exceptional workers and there's an opening in the department they'd be a good fit for - they usually get first crack at the job as they're now a known quantity.
Now that said - not everyone's cut out for college, and not every job is suited for a college graduate. Skilled trades are having a tough time filling openings (i.e., carpenters, electricians, plumbers, steelworkers, welders, heavy equipment operators, etc...), and someone who isn't afraid to put on a hard hat, endure the elements and get their hands dirty will likely out-earn most college grads anyway.
Stop expecting that the "market will fix everything". News flash: The market is responsible for the loss in jobs to overseas and H1B workers. Why? Because they are cheaper to hire. That's the "market" doing what it does best. You want to get your own people jobs? You have to make your people cheaper. Sometimes that requires a bit of government leverage. Like tariffs on foreign made products, or temporary tax breaks for hiring (and keeping) local workers. In extreme cases it may even require laws prohibiting sales in the area if the company doesn't hire a percentage of that area's population. Don't want to do this? Then watch as the "invisible hand" becomes the "invisible finger" as it moves everyone ever closer to the bottom of the barrel. (That's Capitalism for you.)
Yeah, I don't really agree that we should strip the government of power and let the market do as it wants. We have this problem of losing jobs to overseas because all the free market cares about is what will cost the least. The free market just cares about the bottom line.
1) I have a college degree. Many people go into massive debt and do NOT increase their earning potential.
2) Most people do not really need their degree. More than half end up regretting the money spent.
3) College doesn't suck, but it doesn't educate most people. It acts as certification not education.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Or get out of the loan business entirely. If we stopped guaranteeing loans for every student, tuition wouldn't be rising faster than inflation, and kids wouldn't be going to college for no reason than to check a box on an application.
It's been my experience that many HR departments are largely inept when it comes to technical hiring.
Why don't you bet on yourself ? In many fields, requiring degrees has become the norm. If you start a business in one of those fields and follow your recommendations of hiring non-degree holders, you could compete the shit out of all your competitors.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
HR departments like it when they can 'apply the formula' in hiring. Even back in the 90s it was all about checking all of the boxes. I worked on a programming contract that, while I didn't have a college degree (and was the only one with practical experience) all of the others have four year degrees.. in things like International Studies, Business Admin, and two that crashed out of going to medical school. Not a programmer in the lot but the corporation that they worked for (I was a subcontractor) would put them through a programming 'boot camp' that would make them 'software engineers'.
We needed additional hands to work on the interface portion of the app (Java was 1.2 at this point and still somewhat primitive when it came to GUI) so the manager had HR give us something to put in the paper (services like Monster didn't exist yet) and he gave it to me to look over. He didn't understand why I was doubled up laughing over the requirement for five years Java experience - for a language that was only two years old.
Many if not most of the responses here posit that the degree requirement, even if not directly related to the job, is a cheap, if crude, way to filter out a deluge of job applicants.
If there is such a shortage of STEM workers that it is necessary to import so many that Silicon Valley has become majority Asian in less than a generation, it is rather difficult to justify such crude measures.
In reality, what is going on is that capturing positive network externalities has increasingly been the VC business model -- not invention. This creates monopoly profits that insulates management from bad hiring decisions. Rather than letting those bad decisions go to waste, Asian cultures, which can smell economic rent 10,000 miles away, ramped up their diploma mills (a diploma being the equivalent of a taxi cab medallion in terms of rent seeking), targeted the network effect monopolies, targeted the hiring authority of those companies, imported their "degreed" coethnics in huge numbers under the H-1b program, and focused more and more of the VC world on the rent-seeking network effect business model. The "guest workers" are then on a green card track which, when obtained, raises their value in the dowry market by tens of thousands of dollars. Everyone wins, except Western civilization and the folks that built it.
Seastead this.
The days of a Bachelor's degree meaning anything significant are vanishing in today's employment market. A more penetrating question is why do so many of today's employers require advanced degrees and all too often expect candidates to accept a ridiculous sub-standard idiot wage in return?
In Belgium when they ask for it it is implied "or equivalent with work expoerience' except in professions where it is needed by law, like a lawyer or doctor or when it is for a governement job, but then they will ask what is actually relevant.
Yes, there will be some idiots who will ask for it when not officially needed and they will have huge problems finding the right people for the price they are willing to pay. And by that I mean that they will finally pay more and still not get the quality they need.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
When it's typically costing you more than $10k/yr, the 'intrinsic value' of a degree has very real cost/benefit concerns for most people. I'd love to pursue an advanced degree in something genuinely interesting, but it is prohibitively expensive for me to do so. So I will finish the MBA slog, and get paid more in my next job, and use my free time to pursue something more rewarding outside of academia.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
I think it depends on your choices and priorities. How much per year does the average person spend on smartphones, internet, electricity, gasoline, auto insurance, car payments, etc. etc.? The only things we truly need in life is food, shelter and medical attention if we are sick...Where you choose to live or go to school plays a big part in the cost.
Personally, I chose to join the military, I'm essentially retired at 39, and the government pays me a little over $2000/month to go to school full-time (GI Bill) and another $5900/yr (Pell Grant). I have to pay for books and tuition, but if you shop around you can determine your own balance of cost and quality. Life choices.
School doesn't have to cost more than $10k a year. Pell Grant alone is enough to not only pay for an associates degree at a local community college, it will most like net you some actual profit. I understand that an Masters or PhD is a different beast altogether, but my point is that you don't necessarily need a ton of money to go to college (scholarships and other grants are plentiful as well).
And my original point was that employers requiring a college degree that doesn't relate to the job activity itself, does not necessarily make it an unreasonable standard for employment. Anyone can be trained in a specific job or skill (albeit with varying degrees of effort). Things like a positive attitude and a genuine desire to seek self-improvement can't really be instilled in people. It has to come from within, and I believe pursuit of higher education is a very strong indicator of those traits. I think that requiring a college degree for a job is no more unreasonable than requiring that a person has a clean criminal/credit record or quality references from past employers etc.
I find it disheartening that so many people see education as a means to an end (to make more money), rather than an end in itself. I think we all spend plenty of money of much more frivolous things than education. Everything in life has cost/benefit concerns.
Qualifications (whatever they're in) are evidence of ability. If you have a good degree, for example, you've pretty much demonstrated that you can self-motivate, self-organise and deliver. You may well also have demonstrated an ability to think critically, and to direct your own learning. Having qualifications in specific areas can certainly be desirable - but equally it may not only be unnecessary, but even a bad idea. As an example - I worked for years as a software tester, and without exception the most egregious wastes of time and resources that we pursued over the time were sold to a management who didn't know better by people with "relevant" qualifications and an excessive conviction that they knew more than people who'd merely been doing the job for years, but rather less true experience. Whereas some of THE best professionals I worked with came from completely different disciplines entirely. Given a choice, I'd have taken the latter group every time.
If I were hiring, and needed someone to fill a role quickly, I'd look for specific related skills. But if I wanted someone permanent to start a career from the ground up, I'd look for evidence of more rounded abilities first.
You know, there's more than one professor in the country. You got one that sucks. It happens.
Also, I'm free and unarmed. It's called civilization, and it works a lot better than individual weapons. Try it sometime.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
the time where a college degree _guaranteed_ a job has been over for at least a decade
part of the problem a lot of joung people face is massive college debt and the inability to find a job as anything other then a barrista
when you have facts that say only 15% of college grads in 2015had jobs...
well then going into massive debt to get a degree becomes something that can destroy your economic situation for the next couple of decades.