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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

#91

Post by nostrademons »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #85
kozikow wrote: post #71

In some companies, e.g. quantitative hedge funds, PhDs are a selling point by the company. If you have two equal hedge funds to invest in, you would probably put your money into one with more prestigious university Ph.D. quants. Edit: Or startup pitching, M&A or even some sales - basically our deck team slide is "X PhDs, Y ex-Googlers".

If I have two equal hedge funds to invest in, I'll probably put my money into the one with the most consistent average annualized returns over the last 10-15 years.

If I have two equal hedge funds to invest in, I'd ignore both and put it in an index fund. Past performance is no guarantee of future results and all.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#92

Post by walshemj »

randcraw wrote: post #48
copperx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an example of something that can be quickly learned on the job, 1-2 days tops.

I disagree. Production code has to deal with anomalies and failure in a graceful way that allows recovery and identification of the fault. That's not something that's taught in academia at any level, perversely. And it takes time to learn how to use software tools effectively in a standard way in a production environment that others can understand and extend and maintain. This isn't taught in academia either, and usu…

As opposed to some one fresh from a BSc who got through the interview by rote memorisation who will be just as clueless.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#93

Post by analognoise »

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…

A high school or AS degree only would get thrown in the trash directly everywhere I've ever worked for even the most basic technical jobs.

50 years ago big companies would take you with just a HS degree, and if you were smart and showed initiative, put you under the wing of an engineer - or pay to send you to school. This does not happen anymore.

You're also SEVERELY limiting your career if all you complete is high school - you might be OK technically for now, but you will lack all kinds of foundations that would allow you to stay technical, and you'll certainly be disregarded completely as you age for any kind of leadership track.

I think the root of this myth (that having only a HS degree you can still get a technical job) is twofold: One, a currently hot hiring market, and two, the "be what you dream!" movement that was big in the 90's.

If you've worked through a recession (or even just a dulled market), and seen people around you lose their work, their homes, heard their struggles about how hard it is to find work - people would stop parroting this mantra about having minimal education. It's really doing damage to people who hear it.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#94

Post by NullPrefix »

deepnotderp wrote: post #79
tathougies wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it really depends on what kind of tech you're doing. Tech is not just *nix, javascript, python and phone apps. If you're working on chip verification and formal methods, as some people I know are, then a PhD is a huge boon. These are rapidly developing and in some sense still emerging fields with lots of money to be made (especially in the arena of defense, medtech, etc). They are not your 'typical' valley fod…

I found it hilarious that chip verification was your number 1 example. As an end user of such tools, I dearly wish that more people of the "valley fodder" variety joined the field. From week long install processes to loads of crashes during use, this is not a good example of a PhD only success story field.

>From week long install processes to loads of crashes during use, this is not a good example of a PhD only success story field. Clearly, npm ecosystem is a better outcome.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#95

Post by walshemj »

nostrademons wrote: post #91
HenryKissinger wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have two equal hedge funds to invest in, I'll probably put my money into the one with the most consistent average annualized returns over the last 10-15 years.

If I have two equal hedge funds to invest in, I'd ignore both and put it in an index fund. Past performance is no guarantee of future results and all.

If your an "investor" an not a "speculator" you should not be investing in hedge funds right from the off.

You should spend several years of investing starting with index funds then moving up to more complex instruments before you invest in exotica like hedge funds.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#96

Post by Dragonai »

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…

I like this characterization a lot. Thank you!

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#97

Post by decebalus1 »

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…

your post describes two biases: survivorship bias and confirmation bias.

> Anyone can learn to code, be a great sysadmin, or a network guru. All it takes is want power. If you want it bad enough, you will get there.

For a second there I thought I was reading some motivational speaker material. I'm not even going to try to explain how wrong that is.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#98

Post by NullPrefix »

throwawaymath wrote: post #72
stirfrykitty wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ^, and also most HR drones don't know how to properly vet tech candidates. They get a set of vague "wants" from hiring managers and if they see anything worded differently, they balk. I've had to personally talk with HR over the years to get them to realize that RedHat, for example, is Linux, it's not its own thing. Ditto the lazy coding candidates that list JS instead of the proper JavaScript. Let's not even ge…

> My mentor long ago likened these people to Eloi and the IT grunts to Morlocks. I cannot say I disagree. Everyone is the hero of their own story. It sounds like your mentor is arrogant, and could use more intellectual humility.

Haven't read the book, but ...

>By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi live a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing, and inventory for the Eloi.

Please explain how is this arrogant?

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#99

Post by house9-2 »

analognoise wrote: post #93
JamesBarney wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A high school or AS degree only would get thrown in the trash directly everywhere I've ever worked for even the most basic technical jobs. 50 years ago big companies would take you with just a HS degree, and if you were smart and showed initiative, put you under the wing of an engineer - or pay to send you to school. This does not happen anymore. You're also SEVERELY limiting your career if all you complete is high s…

I have a High School education then went to community college in my mid 20's and got certified in Perl and HTML - LOL

I've been getting paid to build web apps since 2000, got in right when the first dot-com bust went down; I have never been out of work since entering this field.

I also tend to work for smaller companies.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#100

Post by veritas_veritad »

entee wrote: post #78
ska wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd add that a PhD in the sciences is like getting punched in the face by mother nature every day with a, "hah! try again!". The rigorous thought process that cultivates by the end is hard to replicate without those very hard constraints. It's possible to do, I've met tons of people who have that same rigor without having wasted the time in a PhD, but it's quite an effective method. When I've worked with non-PhDs in…

> That said, I'm quite biased, have to justify the years I lost somehow :)

I dare you to write a study to excavate and delineate the potential effects of this bias on hiring.

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