Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
carlosmiceli.com
Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
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Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#2I didn't go to college, though I grew up in a college town and eventually even worked for a while as the college's lead web developer. I've been developing software professionally for customers and clients since I was 14 (currently 25; so, for 11 years).
Once, when I was applying for a job, I ran into someone with the same perspective as Bryan Caplan's from this article. I had made it through a few interviews and tests into the process at this company, everything was going well, when at some point I mentioned my not having a college degree. I didn't even realize it until later, as by that point in a process people are usually satisfied (or not) with my skills and experience to make the lack of a degree mostly irrelevant.
I was asked to have a call with the CTO of the company. The call became a 45 minute lecture, wherein the CTO questioned the sanity of everyone who had hired me previously, urged me to consider not applying for jobs in this industry in the future, and suggested going to college as my only viable option. The call lasted 45 minutes, with me in shock and unable to believe that someone could be so rude, and not knowing how to end it politely. Still, to this day, I'm amazed. Not so much at the basic idea, not even that someone would admit to being reliant on it, but just that someone could be so rude.
Thankfully, I've avoided such dramatic rejections since, and my lack of a degree has, if anything, continued to serve as a nice filter, keeping me away from jobs where I'd be working for insane people. I've had no issues finding good positions despite my not having a degree; in most cases, my experience, portfolio, and references are what really matter. And, now that I'm focusing on working for myself/entrepreneurship, I'm not going to have to worry about it at all for the foreseeable future.
I like the explanation given, about "credentialism". It's not just confused or inept HR departments that rely on the credential of a college degree to guide their work. It's also young CTOs at technology startups trying to justify the time and money they (recently) spent earning their credential.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#3HR departments are largely the problem.
Even if you have a savvy, dynamic, progressive team in a large company - looking for coding/sales/marketing savants - HR will typically not even pass candidates resumes if they don't have a BA/BS etc.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#4HR departments are largely the problem. Even if you have a savvy, dynamic, progressive team in a large company - looking for coding/sales/marketing savants - HR will typically not even pass candidates resumes if they don't have a BA/BS etc.
I'm also reminded of a great FedEx or UPS ad - a new hire walks into a company, and an employee is showing them their shipping system.
New kid in suit: "No no no, you don't understand - I have an MBA"
Woman: "Oh? Oh. Then I'll have to SHOW you how it works."
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#5The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do.
I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people who have neither a college degree nor any long term project in their history which often indicates they are unwilling to put up with any inconvenience.
But the message that there is no silver bullet that will make sure all of your employees are "great" is true. If you assume that credentials are that bullet you will eventually get populated with a bunch of highly credentialed and ineffective bozos who will drive out the good people and leave behind an empty husk of a work force.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#6The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do. I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people…
I believe this is the same thinking the author of the article is rallying against.
So a candidate is more qualified because they ran a (potentially) meaningless gauntlet of bureaucracy, debt, and busywork?
I know that's not quite what you're saying. As I stated below - the issue is the gatekeepers. Large companies are ignoring incredibly talented individuals - simply because their HR departments are inept - or their hiring prerequisites don't allow anyone without a degree.
That said - startups can use this to their advantage. Review code samples, ask REAL questions, get to know your hires.
I love finding the savant coder, the incredibly motivated sales rep, etc - and using them to build our company - and looking at their past projects, samples, experience to make a hiring decision.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#7Interesting stuff. Personally I'm from the camp of people who don't put a lot of stock in credentials. I wouldn't go so far as to say they carry no weight, but I certainly don't weight them particularly heavily, especially if I have anything else whatsoever to go on.
And to the extent that I do care about, say, a college degree, I definitely am not of the mindset that "You have to have gone to an Ivy League school, or you're obviously a dolt who will never accomplish anything". In fact, I think recruiting at less prestigious schools could be a source of competitive advantage, especially for cash starved early-stage startups. Why try to compete with Google and IBM and Cisco and Microsoft, etc. for grads from Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, MIT, etc., etc? Forget that, we will probably recruit at schools like North Carolina Central[1], Shaw[2], St. Augustines[3], Peace[4], Meredith[5], Wake Tech[6], Durham Tech[7], UNC-Pembroke[8], Fayetteville State University[9], NC A&T[10], Winston-Salem State[11], etc. There's talent to be had everywhere, and I doubt we'll be finding a lot of Google recruiters on those campuses.
[1]: http://www.nccu.edu/
[7]: http://www.durhamtech.edu
[8]: http://www.uncp.edu/
[10]: http://www.ncat.edu/
[11]: http://www.wssu.edu/
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#8The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do. I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people…
In a similar vein.
GED recipients have been less successful than originally anticipated. Social scientists were surprised because these are people who are intelligent enough to pass the curriculum but they weren't achieving greater success than other dropouts. In trying to understand the gap, what they focused in on is that life success isn't just intelligence, its soft skills like stick-to-it-iveness, willpower, concentration, etc. The GED recipients were talented but unfocused. And the same habits that kept people on track to graduate were the habits that led to life success.
How is that relevant? It's relevant in that college signals more than conformity. It signals soft skills that matter. A willingness to slog through sometime tedious, un-exciting work. Which is what companies need sometimes.
So while I'm kind sympathetic to the argument, its a bit too black/white IMO.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#9Fundamentally credentials make sense to me. If we were designing an employment system from scratch, some form of independent standards and certification would be difficult to pass up. It would aid accurately sorting skilled/trained people into appropriate areas of work.
I say this with no credentials whatsoever, so I'm not just trying to be part of the 'credentialist conspiracy'.
In practice our existing system just isn't fulfilling that purpose enough to justify the enormous amount of money being spent. Accurate signalling on knowledge/skill level has been lost in the noise of wealth/conformity signalling.
Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business
#10The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do. I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people…
> The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do.
As long as we accept that it is one way of proving you can do something that takes a long time to do. I'm not sure that's what the author was saying when he talked about the signaling of a college degree though. It's more a matter of the acceptance of the dogma of the degree, not the signal that the application can commit to long term projects.
More directly, it's fine to look at an applicant who has a college degree and say, "this person was willing to put in the time and effort to get a college degree", so long as you're willing to evaluate other long term commitments with a similar measure. For example, if I see that a developer has a Github profile containing a handful of active libraries with commit activity dating back a year or more, I'm similarly impressed.