4 ms·

Wow, the idea that you shouldn't ask about educational background is pretty fascinating. If it were placed at the same level as, say, sexual orientation in int

Wow, the idea that you shouldn't ask about educational background is pretty fascinating. If it were placed at the same level as, say, sexual orientation in interview questions (e.g. verboten)... it would be a very effective way to skip straight to your capabilities and make a self-taught homeschooler be on the same playing field as an Ivy Leaguer. The only "problem" would be one of getting off the ground. Currently there's a reasonable ecosystem around interning and recruiting on campuses and so on, which would muddy that "I don't know where you came from" line. Further, when you're straight-out-of-college there's a fair expectation that you're nigh useless at virtually every complex job and will need to be trained, so there's a fall-back that education is essentially vetting-by-proxy and gets you "street cred". e.g. "Hey, look, I managed these activities and was a member of these honor societies and still managed to get a 4.0 GPA, you should hire me because I've proven that whatever I'm in, I kick ass at." If I'm not allowed to talk about school, what the hell do I tell you I've been doing? Still... pretty cool thought experiment.

geoelectric 10y ago
I've actually been convinced of this stance for some years, though everyone I've talked to seems to think it's nuts. The thing is that education--and particularly choice of school--is tightly linked with class, which in turn is linked with race, etc. Add to that the bias of "I graduated from here, therefore I favor people who graduated from similar" and I'm pretty sure there's some bad stuff that comes out of it. We already recognize a little bit of this in that there's often advice not to put the schooling dates on your resume because it implies age, but people somehow don't make the jump to the schooling itself implying other discriminatory factors. Plus the emphasis on schooling filters non-traditional learners and autodidacts. The software industry exploded in part because we historically haven't done that, at least during the high-growth periods that corresponded to high-demand periods. There are obviously some sectors for which you absolutely want formal training (medicine, EIT/PE-type engineering, etc.) but I'd argue that's the exception and not the rule. In most jobs it just matters that you know what you're doing. We should figure out a way to evaluate and select on actual competencies rather than trying to use school as a surrogate for them. For many professions this should be relatively straightforward. Competencies are not the be-all/end-all (as we know from programming interviews) but to the extent that we expect schools to represent them we should be able to evaluate with testing if they're truly anywhere near objective. Unfortunately, that won't happen as long as the easy option is available.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > though everyone I've talked to seems to think it's nuts. gee, I guess everyone else is just wrong.
  - geoelectric 10y ago
    A stance can be nuts and have value at the same time. Most anything resulting in a social change will be nutty at the outset since it challenges assumptions around status quo. Basic income was pretty nutty too when I became a vocal proponent ten-odd years ago, but the world seems to be catching up.

geoelectric 10y ago

I've actually been convinced of this stance for some years, though everyone I've talked to seems to think it's nuts. The thing is that education--and particularly choice of school--is tightly linked with class, which in turn is linked with race, etc. Add to that the bias of "I graduated from here, therefore I favor people who graduated from similar" and I'm pretty sure there's some bad stuff that comes out of it. We already recognize a little bit of this in that there's often advice not to put the schooling dates on your resume because it implies age, but people somehow don't make the jump to the schooling itself implying other discriminatory factors. Plus the emphasis on schooling filters non-traditional learners and autodidacts. The software industry exploded in part because we historically haven't done that, at least during the high-growth periods that corresponded to high-demand periods. There are obviously some sectors for which you absolutely want formal training (medicine, EIT/PE-type engineering, etc.) but I'd argue that's the exception and not the rule. In most jobs it just matters that you know what you're doing. We should figure out a way to evaluate and select on actual competencies rather than trying to use school as a surrogate for them. For many professions this should be relatively straightforward. Competencies are not the be-all/end-all (as we know from programming interviews) but to the extent that we expect schools to represent them we should be able to evaluate with testing if they're truly anywhere near objective. Unfortunately, that won't happen as long as the easy option is available.

serge2k 10y ago
> though everyone I've talked to seems to think it's nuts. gee, I guess everyone else is just wrong.
- geoelectric 10y ago
  A stance can be nuts and have value at the same time. Most anything resulting in a social change will be nutty at the outset since it challenges assumptions around status quo. Basic income was pretty nutty too when I became a vocal proponent ten-odd years ago, but the world seems to be catching up.