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> The more people have degrees, the more employers will insist on recruiting graduates. In many countries jobs such as teaching and nursing, which did not requi

> The more people have degrees, the more employers will insist on recruiting graduates. In many countries jobs such as teaching and nursing, which did not require a degree 30 years ago, are now reserved for graduates. When just a small elite went to university, plenty of decent jobs were available to those with only secondary schooling. That is no longer true. This is the most interesting part of the education puzzle to me. There is quite clearly an oversupply of people with degrees, both undergraduate and post-graduate, but the harsh reality is that you still need one due to credentialism, the shrinking number of "low-hanging fruit" problems, and, paradoxically, the increased supply of people with degrees. One solution from a hiring perspective is a DaaS (Degree as a Service) model such as HourlyNerd [1] or Gigster (YC15) [2] where you can hire well-pedigreed business and CS graduates as micro consultants or coders. But in the future the biggest change I expect to see is one in the hiring attitude. As more and more future managers go through college, I expect many to become more and more skeptical of the aptitude and capabilities of the average graduate. I expect brand names to decrease in value as businesses and decision makers increase prioritization on demonstrated ability (Github, portfolio of work) and cost to hire, which will generally be lower for less well-branded schools and alternative methods of education, such as apprenticeships and online education. That's just my gut feeling from personal observations. There's a good chance I'm 100% wrong and getting a branded education will be more important than ever due to the high number of candidates w/ degrees, and the increasing importance of connections and network. That seems to be they way SV is moving these days. [1] https://hourlynerd.com/ https://hourlynerd.com/ [2] http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for-developers/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for-developers/

pc86 11y ago
> As more and more future managers go through college, I expect many to become more and more skeptical of the aptitude and capabilities of the average graduate. We agree there, but doesn't the next sentence represent a fundamental shift in thinking? I would think it much more likely for businesses and managers (particularly HR) to simply shift their signalling from Bachelor's degrees to Master's degrees rather than from Bachelor's degrees to a context-sensitive review of your body of work. It's much easier to say "I have a Master's in CS from Stanford" than it is to say "Here's my GitHub portfolio, let's talk about a few of my projects." I'd much rather folks focus on what they've actually accomplished rather than the institution they happened to attend, but I don't see it happening, particularly from HR folks who are not technically inclined and are simply trying to get a pile of 500 resumes down to a dozen. And like you said with SV, in elite circles you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a job ad looking for someone from {Stanford|Harvard|MIT}.
Retric 11y ago
One solution might be for HR to start removing university qualifications from resume's unless explicitly required for the position. This would put downward pressure on getting a degree. AKA if the position requires a bachelors degree, remove anything after that and remove all references to the school name. Assuming this is useful, it could catch on as a competitive advantage.

pc86 11y ago

> As more and more future managers go through college, I expect many to become more and more skeptical of the aptitude and capabilities of the average graduate. We agree there, but doesn't the next sentence represent a fundamental shift in thinking? I would think it much more likely for businesses and managers (particularly HR) to simply shift their signalling from Bachelor's degrees to Master's degrees rather than from Bachelor's degrees to a context-sensitive review of your body of work. It's much easier to say "I have a Master's in CS from Stanford" than it is to say "Here's my GitHub portfolio, let's talk about a few of my projects." I'd much rather folks focus on what they've actually accomplished rather than the institution they happened to attend, but I don't see it happening, particularly from HR folks who are not technically inclined and are simply trying to get a pile of 500 resumes down to a dozen. And like you said with SV, in elite circles you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a job ad looking for someone from {Stanford|Harvard|MIT}.

Retric 11y ago

One solution might be for HR to start removing university qualifications from resume's unless explicitly required for the position. This would put downward pressure on getting a degree. AKA if the position requires a bachelors degree, remove anything after that and remove all references to the school name. Assuming this is useful, it could catch on as a competitive advantage.