
Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business - paulovsk
http://carlosmiceli.com/defaulting-to-hire-on-credentials-will-put-you-out-of-business/
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jspiros
I 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.

~~~
randomdata
I received a similar lecture from a former employer, except it was by email,
after I had handed in my resignation.

He wanted to make it quite known that I wasn't qualified to work in the
industry (even though I worked for him in the industry just fine for several
years and I was the one leaving the job on my own accord?) and that I wouldn't
be able to find another job without a degree. Even though I deep down knew
everything he was saying was not really based in any reality, the things he
said were actually pretty hurtful at the time.

I had no trouble walking into another job that provided far more interesting
work, and paid considerably more, for people who showed a much greater
appreciation for us to be able to work together. I still don't know what the
purpose of that email was. Sad to see me go, I guess?

~~~
gte910h
Emailing people who are leaving more than a nice to have worked with you or
let's connect on linked in always seems like a giant lose lose proposition.

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ChuckMcM
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.

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.

~~~
riggins
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.

~~~
randomdata
> 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.

Do you have more information about these studies? I have always assumed that
to be true. When you look at successful people, it is the indicator that
stands out most often. I'd love to look at the formal research.

~~~
riggins
here are a couple papers.

<http://ftp.iza.org/dp6580.pdf>

[http://www.economics.uci.edu/files/economics/docs/micro/f07/...](http://www.economics.uci.edu/files/economics/docs/micro/f07/tsai.pdf)

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mindcrime
Interesting 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/>

[2]: <http://www.shawu.edu/>

[3]: <http://www.st-aug.edu/>

[4]: <http://www.peace.edu/>

[5]: <http://www.meredith.edu/>

[6]: <http://www.waketech.edu>

[7]: <http://www.durhamtech.edu>

[8]: <http://www.uncp.edu/>

[9]: <http://www.uncfsu.edu/>

[10]: <http://www.ncat.edu/>

[11]: <http://www.wssu.edu/>

~~~
hkmurakami
As for the Bay Area, I've consistently been impressed by Cal Poly SLO guys
I've met.

Their education is so much more practical and real-world-ready than my Ivy
League engineering education (which was largely theoretical in nature).

~~~
mindcrime
I mean, I have nothing against Ivy League schools, or their graduates. And I
won't even say that I think they are _overrated_ so much as I think other
schools, and their graduates are _underrated_. I also think there are a lot of
other factors that affect the extent to which someone is a valuable employee,
beyond sheer academic ability. Attitude, work ethic, personality, ambition,
perserverance, cultural fit, etc. Net-net, my personal belief is that a firm
can hire recruiting largely from schools that are _not_ the famous, elite "top
tier" schools, and still hire plenty of smart, talented, successful people.

Maybe time will prove me wrong, but we'll see...

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InclinedPlane
I've interviewed a fair number of people for tech positions over the years and
one of the fastest lessons I learned was that the correlation between a CS
degree on the resume and technical ability is basically non-existent. More so,
among the best devs and engineers I have worked with one was a physicist by
training and several had no college degree whatsoever. Credentialism is a
sucker's game, if you fall victim to it you'll be at a competitive hiring
disadvantage. Hiring is tough, but it's also one of the most important things
you can do as a company, make sure to put the right amount of effort into it.

P.S. As the article points out, falling victim to the credentialism trap as an
employee is also a sign of conformity. Some companies want that, but hiring
extremely talented non-conformists is an easy and excellent way to kick the
competition's ass in many cases. The future of technology is almost never
created by conformists.

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auctiontheory
Here's the thing: for the typical job listing, there are dozens, or hundreds,
of applicants. Maybe more.

You do not have the time to do a full-fledged investigation of every one of
them, or bring them all in for a lengthy interview. You just don't. You need
some filter to reduce the number to something more manageable, and
degree/school is a straightforward way to do it.

Also recognize that 99% of jobs, even technical jobs, do not require (1) a
one-in-a-million technical skill which is (2) easy to identify and measure.

Is filtering by degree flawed? Absolutely. But that's an academic argument.
The question managers face is: what's a _better_ way, subject to real
limitations of time and resources?

Last but not least: in my experience, most jobs require navigating some amount
of bureaucracy and difficult people. Someone completely unwilling or unable to
make these "compromises" probably would be better working for himself, and not
within an organization.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
Filters should be created and maintained based on their efficacy, not on how
easily they can be applied.

Yes, it's impossible to interview _every_ applicant, but a company focused on
minimizing time spent and resources used instead of maximizing recruitment of
employees who can create the most value is doing it wrong.

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dmourati
The article made me think about my own recent process getting hired at a
startup. We certainly have mostly degreed and credentialed employees but we
have at least one senior member who dropped out of college to co-found the
company. I think a mix of both types is the right approach. To quote
FAKEGRIMLOCK: THIS LAW 9: FIRST BATMAN, THEN ROBIN.

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columbo
One thing I absolutely do not agree with is Bryan Caplan’s laughably narrow-
minded view on people that do not attend college.

Not everyone turns 18 and suddenly has everything they need but simply decides
not go to because, like, non-conformity, man!

It is just as likely that <insert life> happened. Is someone who decided to
raise an unexpected child a non-conformist? The oldest child staying home to
work because the breadwinner in the family died... clearly that person is a
non-conformist.

Are you serious?

~~~
kenko
For that matter, is someone who went to trade school or got an apprenticeship
or went into a manufacturing job a nonconformist?

Equally laughable is the idea that "going to college signals conformity to
organizations that want you to be a conformist in order to work there".

Right, that's exactly what going to, say, Deep Springs, or St. John's, say,
signals. I signalled conformity by going to a school with a rep for weirdos
and grinds, and concentrating in something widely agreed not to have much
direct relationship to the business world (and which has an observable
correlation with disputatiousness and disrespect for ipsedixitry)---of course!

It's true that going to college is the default option for people in the middle
class or above (or who wish to join the middle class or above), but it's
simply fallacious to conclude that if you don't go to college you don't go out
of nonconformity. Your action doesn't conform, but that doesn't in any deep
sense make you a nonconformist. (The person who decides to raise an unexpected
child might well be very much a conformist.)

Caplan strikes me as one of those people who can't distinguish between the
novel or unusual and the praiseworthy.

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old-gregg
Worked pretty well for Google, no?

While reading "In the Plex", one fact stood out: nearly all of their early
hires were well-respected CS figures from 1st grade universities. Not only you
had to be smart, but you had to have good grades from a good school to get
hired by Google early. The only exception I could find was Salar Kamangar. At
least that was my impression from reading the book.

~~~
pc86
Isn't the early Google work a good definition of a Hard Problem, though?

[Startup X] does not need a CMU PhD to build the latest Node app. The domain
is blocked at my office so I can't read the article, but I'd argue that
spending the extra money on "10x" talent does nothing but shorten your runway.

~~~
dingfeng_quek
On the other hand, the investment in [Startup X] is partly justified by the
idea that spending money on "10x" talent is a chance for "100x" returns.

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johngalt
Fundamentally 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.

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dingfeng_quek
There are many sources of competitive advantage, which includes but is not
limited to good hiring practices and the development and retention of talent.

Companies which were not dependent on cheap/competitive talents were able to
get away with many inefficient work practices. Companies which are not
dependent can and will still do that. Introspection is stressful and costly,
change even more so.

"This is why great designers, salesmen or computer programmers are still
highly valued": A very narrow selection of professions where productivity is
very sensitive to variations in ability.

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mikecane
Thank god Andrew Carnegie didn't live today. He'd have never gotten a job
other than his first one: shoving coal into an oven. The same for all of the
people who started companies before degrees existed.

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sscalia
HR 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.

~~~
afterburner
I'm always amazed how much HR filters before it even gets to the relevant
manager who actually needs the hire (and knows what he/she needs from them).

~~~
protomyth
The worst HR filter I've ever head came from Microsoft somewhere between
1990-92. There recruiter informed a group of CompSci students gathered to hear
about careers at Microsoft, that people graduating from our school were only
allowed to apply for jobs in customer support. I think the professors were
more ticked off than the students.

~~~
afterburner
wow...

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Kudzu_Bob
Over forty comments on credentialism so far, and nobody has mentioned the
elephant in the living room, Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Pardon me while I
feign surprise.

