
Google, Apple ditch college degree requirements - vpillari
https://www.axios.com/google-apple-college-degree-hiring-a290bca8-65a7-4de2-8fa9-d93b4c30457a.html
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lawnchair_larry
None of these companies ever had college degree requirements. Weird that this
is getting press.

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joewee
We are returning to an apprenticeship society and it’s about time if we want
to keep pace with our need for knowledge workers. I wonder how long it will be
before AI reduces our need for knowledge workers and we return to using things
like degrees to disqualify candidates.

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jzoch
I would tend to disagree as there are few trends to support this. Even this
news is a formality as Apple and Google have not required degrees for years,
if ever really. There are plenty of people hired by these companies without
degrees. That said, the workforce does not seem to be trending towards that.
If anything, with more people graduating, its becoming a checkbox like high
school degrees are now. Its so field dependent and experience dependent that I
would think no hard conclusions can be had

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joewee
Look to the largest employer in the USA, the federal government. The primary
hiring criteria is on the job experience and certifications. Most cyber
security certifications require prior work experience. In cyber security
former government employees are an important source for commercial recruiters.
So I’m extrapolating from cyber security what appears to be a general trend
towards hands on experience and certifications over degrees.

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fenwick67
The actual article is three layers deep:

[https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/no-degree-
required/](https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/no-degree-required/)

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adrianmonk
Which eventually leads to this article from 2014:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-
how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html)

Which refers to this interview from 2013:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-
hunting-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-
data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html)

In that interview, Laszlo Bock of Google says: "What’s interesting is the
proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased
over time as well. So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made
up of people who’ve never gone to college."

The title strongly suggests that ditching degree requirements is a new
development for Google, but in reality if it ever was a requirement, it wasn't
true over 5 years ago. (5 years plus whatever "over time" means.)

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mikestew
Apple apparently didn't require a degree four or five years ago when I
interviewed with them for an SDE role. And Google didn't require it when I
interviewed for test manager. So I'm curious where this is coming from. Yes,
Google is known for hiring PhDs. That doesn't mean they _require_ it.

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siruncledrew
Even if someone has a college degree, it's still incredibly difficult and
competitive to get jobs at Google or Apple. A college degree really isn't that
special for the sake of employment unless it's from a top-tier university.
Connections or experience are stronger employment influences.

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ggggtez
This is a report about a report about a report.

Actually it's just that Glass Door compiled a list of tech companies that
don't require college degrees. That's all.

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microtherion
The fact that Apple used to have a college degree requirement probably would
have come as a surprise to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

