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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."
4 year project? I need people to finish their stuff during a two week sprint!
love is just extroverted narcissism
It's all about finding the employees who are willing to sacrifice their life and time for the good of the company.
No one, and I mean no one can work themselves into an early grave for zero overtime pay quite like the average scared white male with an inadequacy complex. You don't have to worry about training them up and having a competitor hire them away to fill a quota. Their white skin and privilege is like kryptonite to any lawsuit they could bring against the company for discrimination, harassment, working conditions, or unfair treatment. They don't require maternity leave, and if their spouse gets pregnant they just freak out and work even harder than before. Most of them haven't had it rough before, so they are terrified of being unemployed, making them so much easier to control than someone who has come from a rough spot. They have very little dignity, so you can really mistreat them without severely affecting their performance. Also, if you push them too far and they lose their shit, they will go and shoot up a church, or a school, or a mall somewhere instead of their place of business. Well unless its the post office. Best of all, when they get older they tend to pop off with a sudden, unexpected massive heart attack or aneurysm, thereby saving the company millions in medical expenses. No weekly dialysis, no lingering diabetes, no years of fighting cancer. Just exploding hearts and brains and someone gets a new office.
So please, hire white males. It's the safe, economical choice for comprehensive corporate risk management.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.