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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

#111

Post by kochikame »

NullPrefix wrote: post #98
throwawaymath wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because of the clear assumed superiority of coders over all other humans

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#112

Post by chrisseaton »

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…

> PhDs are great at research, not so much at actual doing things.

Why do you think research doesn't count as actually doing something?

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#113

Post by chillacy »

NullPrefix wrote: post #94
deepnotderp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually you'll laugh but npm has pretty decent DX (developer experience), especially compared with most chip design tools I've used (which only run on windows and crash a lot).

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#114

Post by [deleted] »

rxhernandez wrote: post #110
hnuser355 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean PhD might be a piece of paper but most people I know who do them in marketable fields don’t pay tuition and get paid assistantships

When I say expense, I mean your time, your youth and the fact that you could have been getting paid a lot more in that time period; all of which are very expensive things to ask of anyone.

[deleted]

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#115

Post by Waterluvian »

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…

Interesting interpretation!

In undergrad I had a really nice meta course called GEOG 100: On Becoming a Geographer. Loved it. One slide I remember was that a bachelor's was becoming acquainted with the discipline. A master's is to become an expert in a domain. And a PhD is to drill deep into a domain and uncover something new.

Breadth vs. depth basically.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#116

Post by throwawaymath »

NullPrefix wrote: post #98
throwawaymath wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The mentor is comparing people without technical skills (specifically HR employees) to the fictional Eloi - the species of humans which "live a banal life of ease". Meanwhile he compares those with technical skills (presumably himself included) to that of the Morlocks, which is a species engaged in Important Work that supports the idle Eloi.

Is the condescension and self-importance more clear now? It's an Us versus Them mentality which patronizes other people and looks down on their work.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#117

Post by throwaway441 »

jpm_sd wrote: post #4

This sounds insane to me. I will never hire another PhD if I can possibly avoid it. I would estimate that I have worked with around 30 PhD-holders in my career. Consistent issues: no ability to hit deadlines, no sense of the big picture, easily distracted by irrelevant details. This kinda says it all. https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-01-21

That's funny, because I avoid hiring non-PhDs. They typically don't seem capable of understanding the concept of sample size and tend to stereotype large and diverse groups of people based on anecdotal experiences.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#118

Post by seanwilson »

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. Your actual doctoral topic as a Ph.D student will probably be useless.

Pretty accurate. I was asked in a job interview once "what practical applications does your research have that would benefit us?" - they were surprised when I said my research results weren't useful to them at all, but the skills and broader knowledge I gained doing the research would be.

It's very uncommon you go seeking a company where you can directly apply what you did your thesis on. Your thesis topic pretty much has to be niche and obscure if it's on the edge of current knowledge.

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#119

Post by ianai »

robertAngst wrote: post #101
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…

>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. Interesting, that was not the impression I had from 2 engineering professors at my local uni. It sounded like I was going to be their assistant in studying their idea for up to 6 years.

And in return he was going to toss you a bone somewhere along the way to something nobody’s done (because he’s the only one with this exact setup).

Re: American Employers Are Hung Up on Hiring PhDs

#120

Post by seanwilson »

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 think it is more likely that those that already have that skill are the ones that pursue the Ph.D path

You might have a bit of that skill to start with but a PhD lets you practice and hone that skill, which you wouldn't be doing in a standard coding position.

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