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why is it artificial? Credentials are everywhere. You need credentials to be an account, a physician, a teacher, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, a (insert

why is it artificial? Credentials are everywhere. You need credentials to be an account, a physician, a teacher, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, a (insert various iteration of crazy welding techniques) welder, a steel fabricator (AISC), a child services worker, heavy machinery operator, if you are an engineer and want to work for the public, you have to get licensed, and the list can go on and on. And I am really, really thankful that the above jobs require credentials.

randomdata 10y ago
Some of those are only at the discretion of the employer/commissioner. For instance, your teacher and engineer examples. When the government is the employer, they have decided they want to hire only within the pool of those who have certain credentials. If you want to hire someone for private works, you are free to make your own choices and suffer the consequences if you choose wrongly. I think it is fair to say that is not artificial. That is market choice. Some of your other examples, like lawyers and dentists, however do seem artificial. There is no legal option to hire someone without credentials (at least in the jurisdictions I am close to), even when the buyer understands the risks and poses no external risk to others. I don't know about this heavy machinery thing. As a farmer, all I need to drive my 30,000 lbs. (when dry) combine down the road is a standard automobile license, and nothing at all once I'm off the public roads. Nobody thinks twice about that. Even more curiously, I do not need any credentials to produce food that people willingly stick into their mouth! You'd think that would be orders of magnitude more worrisome than many of the other careers you pointed out – especially given the difficulty of tracing food origins as a consumer – yet nobody bats an eye.
innocentoldguy 10y ago
I think the difference is that credentials as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, chiropractor, etc. tend to be all-encompassing for those professions. In software, credentialing is extremely narrow (i.e. credentials for subsets of Cisco's offerings, or Microsoft's). Other than college degrees, there really isn't any type of broad credentialing available in the computer industry. Credentials are also short-lived. Does anybody really care if someone is a C.N.E. anymore? Computer credentials are also a for-profit business model, rather than an organized body that ensures a certain degree of competency is met. For example, being a board certified physician requires a lot more than simply passing a bubble test, which is what a lot of credentials in the computer industry consist of. I think credentialing does demonstrate a certain degree of competency, but it also does create an artificial scarcity, since many, many, many people out there have the same skills, or better, but just don't feel the need to obtain credentials.
- treehau5 10y ago
  C.N.E no, I don't think it ever mattered. An R.N., however...
  - innocentoldguy 10y ago
    +1 See? I rest my case. (C.N.E. = Certified Novell Engineer, but who would know that nowadays, or care?)
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Sorry, I read that as C.N.A
tannhauser23 10y ago
The credentials you mention fall into three kinds: 1. Credentials Legally Required: Lawyers, Doctors, etc. Credentials and accredited schooling are required in these disciplines because they involve specialized knowledge AND because misuse or malpractice can seriously hurt people. Even then, there's plenty of cartel-like behavior going on. For example, the U.S. system of accrediting lawyers (three years of graduate school plus bar exam) is almost certainly overkill. 2. Specialized Technical Skills: Welders, Trades Welding, fabricating, etc. require specialized skills and knowledge. These skills are taught in trade schools and through apprenticeships, not four-year colleges. The credentials are usually not LEGALLY required to work in the area - you can hire a welder who doesn't have one - but in practice, you want to hire people with the credentials because they probably know what they're doing. 3. Non-Technical Skills: Teachers, Social Workers Teachers, child services workers, etc. Here I think the argument for credentials is the weakest. Why do we NEED accredited teachers? For centuries we've had teachers who never had one, and even now, many private schools don't require credentials. In fact, some of the best teachers I had in school never had teaching degrees - they had degrees and experience in the relevant field (say, chemistry) and came to teach. In fact, in some of these fields, the credentials are attempts to form bars to entry, thus protecting the existing members of the profession - just why do we need school + certificates for hair dressers? So where does software engineering fall? I think the second category is where it belongs, and bootcamps are attempts to create the kind of technical training / apprenticeship that exists in the trades. That doesn't mean official CS degrees are worthless - far from it - but it also means that we don't need any bars to entry for people who decided to learn coding in another way.

randomdata 10y ago

Some of those are only at the discretion of the employer/commissioner. For instance, your teacher and engineer examples. When the government is the employer, they have decided they want to hire only within the pool of those who have certain credentials. If you want to hire someone for private works, you are free to make your own choices and suffer the consequences if you choose wrongly. I think it is fair to say that is not artificial. That is market choice. Some of your other examples, like lawyers and dentists, however do seem artificial. There is no legal option to hire someone without credentials (at least in the jurisdictions I am close to), even when the buyer understands the risks and poses no external risk to others. I don't know about this heavy machinery thing. As a farmer, all I need to drive my 30,000 lbs. (when dry) combine down the road is a standard automobile license, and nothing at all once I'm off the public roads. Nobody thinks twice about that. Even more curiously, I do not need any credentials to produce food that people willingly stick into their mouth! You'd think that would be orders of magnitude more worrisome than many of the other careers you pointed out – especially given the difficulty of tracing food origins as a consumer – yet nobody bats an eye.

innocentoldguy 10y ago

I think the difference is that credentials as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, chiropractor, etc. tend to be all-encompassing for those professions. In software, credentialing is extremely narrow (i.e. credentials for subsets of Cisco's offerings, or Microsoft's). Other than college degrees, there really isn't any type of broad credentialing available in the computer industry. Credentials are also short-lived. Does anybody really care if someone is a C.N.E. anymore? Computer credentials are also a for-profit business model, rather than an organized body that ensures a certain degree of competency is met. For example, being a board certified physician requires a lot more than simply passing a bubble test, which is what a lot of credentials in the computer industry consist of. I think credentialing does demonstrate a certain degree of competency, but it also does create an artificial scarcity, since many, many, many people out there have the same skills, or better, but just don't feel the need to obtain credentials.

treehau5 10y ago
C.N.E no, I don't think it ever mattered. An R.N., however...
- innocentoldguy 10y ago
  +1 See? I rest my case. (C.N.E. = Certified Novell Engineer, but who would know that nowadays, or care?)
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Sorry, I read that as C.N.A

tannhauser23 10y ago

The credentials you mention fall into three kinds: 1. Credentials Legally Required: Lawyers, Doctors, etc. Credentials and accredited schooling are required in these disciplines because they involve specialized knowledge AND because misuse or malpractice can seriously hurt people. Even then, there's plenty of cartel-like behavior going on. For example, the U.S. system of accrediting lawyers (three years of graduate school plus bar exam) is almost certainly overkill. 2. Specialized Technical Skills: Welders, Trades Welding, fabricating, etc. require specialized skills and knowledge. These skills are taught in trade schools and through apprenticeships, not four-year colleges. The credentials are usually not LEGALLY required to work in the area - you can hire a welder who doesn't have one - but in practice, you want to hire people with the credentials because they probably know what they're doing. 3. Non-Technical Skills: Teachers, Social Workers Teachers, child services workers, etc. Here I think the argument for credentials is the weakest. Why do we NEED accredited teachers? For centuries we've had teachers who never had one, and even now, many private schools don't require credentials. In fact, some of the best teachers I had in school never had teaching degrees - they had degrees and experience in the relevant field (say, chemistry) and came to teach. In fact, in some of these fields, the credentials are attempts to form bars to entry, thus protecting the existing members of the profession - just why do we need school + certificates for hair dressers? So where does software engineering fall? I think the second category is where it belongs, and bootcamps are attempts to create the kind of technical training / apprenticeship that exists in the trades. That doesn't mean official CS degrees are worthless - far from it - but it also means that we don't need any bars to entry for people who decided to learn coding in another way.