
Can we solve giving validation to life experience vs. a degree? - ryanmercer
As someone without a degree a constant problem I have when trying to find a better job is that I have no degree.<p>- At my employer, want to move up? You need a 4 year degree, in anything, period.<p>- When applying to jobs, &quot;Bachelors required, Masters preferred&quot; and I&#x27;ve even seen this for administrative assistant listings.<p>- Even startup at the tens of employees stage often want degrees.<p>It seems the only way really around this at present is to have successfully exited a startup. Since we&#x27;re on YC, take Sam Altman. Sam dropped out of Stanford to focus full time on Loopt, ultimately selling Loopt. 2 years after Loopt was purchased Paul Graham handed over the keys of the castle and named Sam president of YC.<p>Obviously that&#x27;s not a realistic scenario for 99% of the population. That&#x27;s a whole lot of luck and right place right time. PG seeded Sam with Loopt, Sam was then offered a part-time partnership with YC where he probably proved himself more, then exited Loopt which gave PG plenty to look at and go &quot;yeah, he&#x27;s capable of this, let&#x27;s take a chance on him&quot; but a lot of people have mountains of life experience but get the door slammed in their face before even speaking to a human being because they don&#x27;t have a 4-year degree listed on their CV (in fact, some online applications make you input your degree, university and GPA in their own fields and will not let you leave them blank).<p>We&#x27;ve got a lot of smart and talented people here on HN, and a lot of startup types and independently wealthy individuals. Who wants to take a stab at the problem, even if just in a hypothetical approach?<p>Do, as a society, we start a sort of staffing firm with &#x27;counselors&#x27; that evaluate individuals and use some sort of secret-sauce formula to say &quot;this is what we think about this individual&quot; as a sort of professional certification&#x2F;degree alternative?<p>What outside of the box ideas might there be that we can discover and work towards implementing?
======
ryanmercer
I think there are tons of ways to evaluate a given individual if one were to
go the 'secret-sauce' route:

\- some standard testing

\- some aptitude testing

\- some sort of manual/physical creativity with some sort of toy construction
set (lego, erector) to solve a problem or demonstrate something,

\- give a scenario and then allow unrestricted access to a phone and a
computer connected to the internet with a time limit to present one or more
potential outcomes/solutions/etc "Global warming is an issue, we face these
general problems. Go!" or "It is winter, power goes out at your office, you
have these 20 items. There is this much snow, it is this temperature and you
live x miles from your workplace and may not use a vehicle. Power will not be
restored for x days, what is your plan type things.

\- Asking specifics about past job/club/religious duties and developing a good
idea of general skills

Obviously degrees have their uses but college isn't for everyone and not
everyone needs a degree to do well in various roles/fields. Yes, I want a
doctor/lawyer/engineer to have a degree but apparently 'One in eight
billionaires on the Forbes 400 are college dropouts,' [1] (and yes I know that
article starts out saying people should get degrees, because it's a business
site and this is 'how it is done').

Why can't we find a way to give people without degrees more of a chance?

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-college-
dropout-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-college-dropout-
zuckerberg-bill-gates-2018-10)

