4 ms·
Perhaps minus the degree requirement though.
by j_baker 17y ago
Perhaps minus the degree requirement though.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- swombat 17y agoTrue. I disagree with degree requirements for hacker jobs too.
- vinhboy 17y agoso, we always say this... but doesn't the success of amazon, and other "degree" driven companies mean we are wrong?? maybe having a degree does matter?
- j_baker 17y agoCorrelation does not imply causation. That said, I won't say that a degree is worthless. I will say that too often we think of a degree as a bullet point on a resume or a job listing rather than thinking of it as a means to actually learn something.
- gaius 17y agoThat is the trick to admissions at elite colleges. They admit people who would succeed regardless. Sure the name brand and the alumni you know helps, but it helps by saving time, you don't need to prove yourself so much. You still need to be you tho'.
- cookiecaper 17y agoThere are many counter-examples. What about the success of non-degree-driven companies like Microsoft, where the founder dropped out before completing school? Does that prove that degrees are silly and worthless? The thing is that degrees might mean something or they might not; it's not too hard to get through higher education without retaining anything or even learning anything relevant in the first place, but by the same token, some people do some really cool and meaningful work at college and it means a lot. You just have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
- jbarham 17y agoNo, it's a false dichotomy to say that because Bill Gates dropped out of college that all degrees are therefore "silly and worthless". He dropped out of Harvard (where simply being accepted is an achievement in itself) in order to found the the company that would eventually make him the wealthiest person in the world. There is no doubt that he would have been capable of completing his degree had he chosen to. For regular people who need to persuade someone else to hire them, having a degree certainly helps and is often a requirement.
- chc 17y agoThat is the point. Not having a degree doesn't imply that one wouldn't be capable of completing a degree. Bill Gates is an example of that. People here also aren't saying that that a degree isn't "often a requirement" in job listings — they're saying it shouldn't be, not that it isn't. Incidentally, I would bet most people who don't have degrees could have one if you gave them a full free ride. Getting a degree these days requires several years of your life and huge gobs of money, but that's pretty much it.
- chc 17y agoIf degrees "might mean something or they might not," then they don't mean anything. In order for a predictor to be useful, it has to be reliable. If I have to take it on a case-by-case basis anyway, why would I bother looking at the degree itself? That puts it on the same level as the applicant's star sign and blood type.
- cookiecaper 17y agoI wouldn't go that far. A star sign and blood type are almost never relevant. A degree might be relevant, but it might not. You're correct that it's not a good way to filter resumes, but that doesn't make it completely useless.
- spudlyo 17y agoI got hired there in '97 without one, so it wasn't a hard and fast requirement.
- lsc 17y agoNearly every job I've gotten past the age of 17 listed a degree as a requirement. I have about as much college now as I had when I was 17, which is to say, almost none. Considering that I've never had trouble finding employment, I think that a degree being listed as a requirement in the job ad is quite often another meaningless bullet point that will be overlooked if you are attractive enough otherwise. (obviously, there's some pretty strong observer bias here; the companies where that really was a hard and fast rule wouldn't have approached me, or wouldn't have given me an interview if I approached them. Still, I find that 'required' doesn't actually mean 'required' in many cases.)