These are generalizations based on my 20 years of growing up and living in Canada. Canadians are too bound up in credentialism - they want to see degrees, pref

These are generalizations based on my 20 years of growing up and living in Canada. Canadians are too bound up in credentialism - they want to see degrees, preferably from schools that are prestigious. They want to see a degree that maps to what you do (e.g. medieval music to Java programmer does not have the credibility of BA Business to Marketing Dept.) . Uber-hacker jwz would not have been hired by a Canadian company, for example. Canadians want safe money. They are more than happy to trade the safe valuations of more staid companies instead of adding more risk in doing something, well, riskier.