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Hiring Based on Skills Instead of College Degrees is Vital for the Future, IBM CEO Says (gizmodo.com)
What does the future of getting a job in the tech industry look like? According to the CEO of IBM, Ginni Rometty, it's important that tech companies focus on hiring people with valuable skills, not just people with college degrees. From a report: Rometty made the comments yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The CEO said that technology's fast-moving pace here in the 21st century makes it harder for people to find jobs and has led to disillusionment with the future. "With the new technologies that are out there, I think there is a huge inclusion problem, meaning there's a large part of society that does not feel this is going to be good for their future," Rometty said. "Forget about whether it is or it isn't or what we believe. Therefore they feel very disenfranchised."
[...] "So when it comes to education and skills, I think the government can't solve it alone," Rometty said. "I think businesses have to believe I'll hire for skills, not just their degrees or their diplomas. Because otherwise we'll never bridge this gap." "All of us are full of companies with university degrees, PhDs, you've got to make room for everyone in society in these jobs," Rometty said as other business leaders on the panel nodded their heads. She added, "We have a very serious duty about this. Because these technologies are changing faster with times than their skills are going to change. So it is causing this skill crisis. [...] We have to have a new paradigm. You would have to have new pathways that don't all include college education and you would have to have respect for that job -- not blue collar or white collar, I call it new collar."
[...] "So when it comes to education and skills, I think the government can't solve it alone," Rometty said. "I think businesses have to believe I'll hire for skills, not just their degrees or their diplomas. Because otherwise we'll never bridge this gap." "All of us are full of companies with university degrees, PhDs, you've got to make room for everyone in society in these jobs," Rometty said as other business leaders on the panel nodded their heads. She added, "We have a very serious duty about this. Because these technologies are changing faster with times than their skills are going to change. So it is causing this skill crisis. [...] We have to have a new paradigm. You would have to have new pathways that don't all include college education and you would have to have respect for that job -- not blue collar or white collar, I call it new collar."
I attended a private school. That school is now closed because it churned out the lowest quality product it could, flooding the market with under skilled employees.
A drop in college quality right now has a lot to deal with trying to run colleges like a business which cuts into the ethos of how a college is supposed to operate.
I have some college teachers who run their classes like businesses and I do have to say that they have a proper ethos in that, class is cancelled, but assignments are still due.
Granted my professor is the exception, not the rule, but that person left the business world because education was more fulfilling.
I am now in a public university and the difference can be noted between private for profit colleges and public universities. I would be far more willing to work with public university students. Teachers are more focused on making certain the students grasp the knowledge instead of trying to pass the student to the next course because tuition is everything. I think if we are to get quality students from quality public colleges, we need to properly fund our colleges so that they are less reliant on tuition and can focus on only passing students that put forward the effort.
Place something witty here
I know it's hard to imagine, but it appears at first blush they're actually walking the talk: I checked a couple of entry level posted jobs at IBM:
Entry Level HW Computer Technician/System Services Rep- Palatine, IL
https://careers.ibm.com/ShowJo...
and ..and BOTH required only High School Diploma/GED.
(Cyber) Security Services Specialist - Intern
https://careers.ibm.com/ShowJo...
That's great and refreshing.
-Styopa
Back in 1000s a bunch of aristocrats joined together and bargained for their rights and made John The Great sign Magna Carta. Its significance is limiting the power of the Monarch. Then the aristocrats ruled the country with their fiefdoms. Only they would get to be inducted into the Officer Corps of the army and all the teeming masses were consigned to "Other ranks" aka cannon fodder.
Renaissance, industrial revolution, the rise of mercantilism, colonialism all gave rise to new classes of wealthy people and they were inducted into the power structure by doling out aristocratic titles etc.
But the teeming masses, unseemly ungrateful bunch, made a power play and grabbed the hard won rights of the aristocrats for every one, suddenly the Old Money is on the back foot. They removed the power of the House of Lords, and The Commons had all the power, the Monarch a mere titular head, hereditary aristocratic titles have no meaning, the Heir to the Holy Roman Empire, Her Most Serene Princess someononeortheother is working for a wage in Economist or Tribune, ...
The remnants of inducting only the aristocrats for the Officer Corps of the armed forces, merchant marine, and Civil Service morphed into "Degrees from Top Universities". Eton and such schools in Britain, Ivy League in USA, where there is a significant quota for the Old Money in the form of Legacies. About 50% on merit, 25% for the minorities, 25% of the Old Money Legacies seems to be the current quota system. Once these degrees are awarded, the graduates with connections get on to the fast track and get very rewarding very light duty sinecures, risk free jobs sitting on boards and VP of Beer Analysis or Executive Vice President of Trivial things. The graduates with merit end up with ulcer creating tense difficult, but well rewarded careers. The token minorities with degrees from top school, their prospects depend on cultivating/developing connections with the other groups. The degree alone does nothing for the minority graduates.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
At my company the party line is we hire the best and most distinguished people not the people who happen to be on hand for the job at hand.
At first this seems really dumb. A lot of jobs require some specific skills and it's hard to get people with less specialized experience to do them since they need to retrain.
But over the course of a career you see that the people who manage to stick around and succeed are the ones with a broad base and ability to shift and retrain.
THis is not exclusive from deeply experienced people who are good at one job. But the level of deep experience in new hires is nil. They have a few tricks they recently learned and maybe one great project they once did. But that's not deep expeince, it's more of a fad skill that could become the basis for getting started fast and developing, but it isn't deep experience yet.
Millenials however see jobs as more transitory in my experience. They are less career oriented. I don't know how that's going to work out for them. Maybe great.
But if you combine that with IBM hiring less degreed people and more for specific skills it's going to make people more disposable. It used to be the IBM was the pinnacle of developing career oriented workforces dedicated to the company. I guess not any more.
So what's so great about degreed people? Well especially for pHDs it proves they can take on a task and finish it. Postdocs show they can plan a job, and finish it on time. Undergrads show they can learn new things and if they have a masters, concisely reach for the right tools and apply them.
That's what degrees show. It's not just that you learned stuff, but you know how to learn, apply, and plan with new tools. Innovating, Planning the job and delivering on time are the real drivers and it's why senior people are actually worth their pay, at least the good ones are
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
A degree and experience isn't mutually exclusive. We require both for prospective employees.
The problem is how many skilled people might you be excluding based on your college degree requirement. A college degree should be a crutch, it helps you acquire new skills rapidly and should offer the foundational knowledge to give insight into why the various tools and processes behind those skills exist in the first place. Essentially it should be something the student elects to get on his own accord, not because someone requires it. Thus the cost/benefit analysis of a college degree can once again fall upon the person paying it, and he doesn't feel obligated to it (and perhaps universities can finally get around to reshaping themselves to fit the needs of the world, not existing to serve themselves).
Anyone who can learn a skill should have equal chance at the job, provided he can demonstrate competence with that skill in some fashion. Doctors have to pass their licensing exam, lawyers have the bar exam. It makes sense that to declare competence with a skill should require some meaningful demonstration of that skill.
A college degree has never offered that, and I spend a lot of time interviewing people and basically administering them a final exam, when I really should be talking to them about other things. However, if they can't pass my final, the rest is worthless anyway. They may have a great attitude and really want to contribute, but if they don't have the skills... I got nothin. HR makes sure I don't see anyone without at least a Master's degree, and precious few of them seem to have the skills. So I'm not sure the status quo is really working for anyone.
Personally I think the only solution to this problem is to forbid college degrees from being considered in employment. Obviously this is a huge grenade to throw in the field, but until we can come up with some better way, the system will continue to be broken.
> Millenials however see jobs as more transitory in my experience. They are less career oriented. I don't know how that's going to work out for them. Maybe great.
I'm not sure they have a choice. Companies don't train any more.
If you train on your own, up to and including a new, verifiable, cert/degree/whatever, your employer has no obligation to recognize that, let alone give you a raise. Frankly, your employer would rather have your cheaper replacement, so why bust your ass to get the training?
Let's say you get the training anyway. Your current gig (probably) won't value it, so your only viable option is to tout your new skills at a different employer, hopefully getting enough cash to justify the loss of stability. Lather, rinse, repeat until you find some position/situation/lifestyle you actually want to be.
Then start praying it lasts. In many modern situations, it won't. I don't know whether companies are going bust at historically high rates, but it sorta smells that way to me.
Anyway, I'm not convinced that the next generation eschews stability, so much as lacks a path to it.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
I had a similar experience, but came to a different conclusion.
I was at my first employer (a Dow 20 company) for 13 years. During that time I received the maximum raise corporate policy allowed (1.5x the average) almost every year and was promoted 4 times. I also led some awesome projects, always on time and budget, but more importantly, that exposed me to a tremendous range of knowledge in my field. At the end of those 13 years, a local company offered me 50% to leave, and I finally took it. I went on from there a few years later to another company that offered me a bit more.
It was that second move that was my big mistake. It turned out to be a bait and switch in which they stuck me in management and started raising my salary even more. I'm great at business and management, but it isn't my passion, and I'm honest to a fault. Turned out honesty is not the best policy when getting negotiating government contracts. An ex-marine heading up a government facility tried to get me to make a promise I couldn't while attending our corporate Christmas party and asked me to go outside with him when I wouldn't mouth the lie he wanted.
In short, moving ended up souring me to the whole career which I abandoned.
A friend that I started with in '86 is still at that original employer though he was as talented as I was and could easily have asked for a similar raise to leave. I wish I'd stayed with him. He's much happier and more relaxed, and, he hasn't done so bad. His 401K and investments are in the multi-million level now since he saved 25% from day one in '86. But, he still lives in the same apartment. I now understand that.