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American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

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Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#61

Post by optimuspaul »

nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it.

I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#62

Post by halfeatenpie »

I think the discussions here are missing a critical point. Just like those who mention that their colleague or friend who only has a BS degree or only graduated from high school are able to run circles around those with PhDs, there's a vary level of PhDs as well.

PhD means you've had and accomplished that formalized level of training. There are those who formalized training works very well for, there are also those who it's just not a good fit. That's fine. Just like there's a varying standard and quality of people around in this world, there's a varying standard and quality of people in PhD programs. Just by having a PhD degree simply states that you've gone through the program and learn how to do research. There's a major difference between how academia approaches a problem and how the industry approaches a problem, but what I've understood is that PhDs (in engineering) know how to expand and innovate in a much easier and more structured way than those in industry.

When generalized, most research I find in the industry is mostly "look I changed this thing and it's improved accuracy this bit more in my use scenario!" It's a bit less common to find papers or research done (Engineering-wise) in the industry that fully understands the benefits and limitations of the method improved upon, instead it's mostly "see, here I did it and now try it on your own and see if it works for you!".

All tools and methods can be improved upon or all models are inherently incorrect. I want to know the proper "surface area" that the method can be applied to and what the proper parameters are. Too many times (especially with some international papers) I've seen methods applied to problems that had to be "shimmied in" to make it work. It's like using pastebin.com as a CDN to store your ASCII data of a 3D model for your game (seriously, I've seen this happen...). I mean, it's not the right tool, that's not how it's supposed to be used, but I guess ok?

Source: I'm getting my PhD in engineering in Massachusetts. I've also co-founded a startup and am currently going through another similar experience right now with a "project" that we'll also be transitioning into a product. PhD is something I wanted after seeing what's in the industry.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#63

Post by everdrive »

nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

> Interestingly, depression and anxiety might actually be a feature of developing this skillset, not a bug - these two mental disorders are endemic among these fields as well.

Given how insightful your comment was, I was wondering if you could elaborate on this. Why, outside of comorbidity, do you think depression and anxiety might be related to developing this skillset?

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#64

Post by cuchoi »

optimuspaul wrote: post #61
nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.

Although employers don't care if it is a self selected sample or they learnt that skill during the PhD

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#65

Post by the_jeremy »

ska wrote: post #47
nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

Here is a hand-wavy characterization that is hopefully useful. A bachelors degree in X is meant to take you from nearly zero to "thinking like an X", it is the high points of sometimes centuries of thought in an area, summarized and you are handheld through the process. A masters degree will bridge the gap between the "nice" standard courses and the "messy" current research front. It's meant to get you to the point o…

>Here is a hand-wavy characterization...

I had never thought about degrees in those terms, but that feels like a surprisingly terse and accurate description. Thanks!

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#66

Post by jessriedel »

cuchoi wrote: post #64
optimuspaul wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.

Although employers don't care if it is a self selected sample or they learnt that skill during the PhD

Or that completing a PhD is a filter for a pre-existing skill. All three of those theories are compatible with employers rationally favoring candidates with PhDs.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#67

Post by x0x0 »

JamesBarney wrote: post #20
stirfrykitty wrote: post #3

Very few jobs require PhDs. Tech most certainly doesn't. I've been in this industry across three decades now, and by far the most talented people I've worked for or with have had nothing but HS diplomas and AS degrees. That's right. The bottom rung education levels. My dearest mentor, a man who has forgotten more about *nix, coding, and about anything else than I will ever know has a HS diploma and can and does run r…

I've thought about this before because I've found the same thing. I think it's caused by an over reliance on education as a signal. If you have a stack of resumes you're likely to interview everyone with a PhD, but only the ones with the most stellar github profile if they have no formal education. During the interview if the PhD says something silly you'll probably disregard it. But the person without a formal educa…

I'm a hiring manager who interviews a lot.

In my experience, high performance in difficult degrees at good schools are a very strong indicator of future success.

We find gems outside the above profile, but it holds true even across the people we've hired from code schools.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#68

Post by rhizome »

stirfrykitty wrote: post #3

Very few jobs require PhDs. Tech most certainly doesn't. I've been in this industry across three decades now, and by far the most talented people I've worked for or with have had nothing but HS diplomas and AS degrees. That's right. The bottom rung education levels. My dearest mentor, a man who has forgotten more about *nix, coding, and about anything else than I will ever know has a HS diploma and can and does run r…

In this light, I would recast the story as an addiction to overqualified candidates. I think there's also a parallel (if not multiplying) force here, in postgraduates wanting to be paid more than $20K/yr as an adjunct.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#69

Post by diffserv »

optimuspaul wrote: post #61
nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.

I completely agree with your observation. It's not that the Ph.D. prepares you for it, but that most people that pursue Ph.D. have that attribute.

I don't think all Ph.D. students or any ordinary engineer can take a vaguely defined research problem and make it succeed. Ph.D. doesn't necessarily prepare you for the research part; it does, however, prepare you to advertise a very /bad solution/ as a novel contribution. It wasn't always like this, but it has come to it. It takes credibility, curiosity, character, and of course, research skills to solve a vaguely defined problem---none of which are given to you by a Ph.D. degree.

I have worked at two FAANGs, and more often than not my interactions with Ph.D. degree holders have left a bad taste in my mouth. Speaking of which, there was one person that was "selling" an event timeline as a root cause analysis system that does "temporal" correlation (with no filtering or association at all) :). And another person that was advertising a DFS compilation of a neural net during the training phase (as opposed to the typical BFS that people do) as a superior and novel contribution that changes how we think about neural nets or something along those lines.

A good engineer would have laughed at both after carefully considering all aspects of the problem.

I suspect that Ph.D. "engineers" are more desirable because of their broader skillset (they have worked with more tools and have taken more classes) and also the fact that companies can hire them at almost the same cost as a BS/MS degree holders. Plus universities have already done some filtering on Ph.Ds.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#70

Post by ACow_Adonis »

optimuspaul wrote: post #61
nostrademons wrote: post #28

I worked with a bunch of a Ph.Ds at Google, and my dad had one. I myself have nothing more than a bachelor's, and no desire to get anything more. I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. Your actual doctoral topic as a P…

> I've heard and observed that the Ph.D teaches you one crucial skill - how to take a vaguely defined research problem that nobody has done before, where you're not even sure that a solution exists, and make tangible, rigorous progress on it. I'm not convinced, or I should say my experience does not support this. I think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path.

I'm sure that it's at least rumoured in other degrees apart from economics (we are a cynical bunch), that the purpose of getting a higher education (aside from the ivy leagues where it's membership of a particular class) is not learning, but signaling to employers that you'll 'eat shit for a couple of years'.

Few better ways to take that to the extreme in many cases than a PhD.

Also, as a foreigner, can't help but point out that there seems to universally be a lot of assumptions made with academic qualifications and the like with many countries immigration laws and systems...

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