What if we hired for skills, not degrees?

https://hechingerreport.org/what-if-we-hired-for-skills-not-degrees

by jseliger • 7 years ago

34 83 7 years ago

hechingerreport.org

jseliger• 7 years ago

That would be good. https://jakeseliger.com/2018/03/12/the-case-against-educatio...

toomuchtodo7• 7 years ago

Hire for curiosity, grit, and empathy. Everything else can be taught.

Skunkleton3• 7 years ago

What a ridiculous over simplification. Those are great qualities, but they also describe most dogs.

toomuchtodo7• 7 years ago

Trades are taught in apprenticeships, IT and SWE can be taught on the job and in boot camps. Barge captains are taught out of high school on the job, same with construction, retail, hospitality. What cant be? Doctors, lawyers, and a few other deep knowledge niches. Some jobs require lots of formal education, most jobs do not. I’d never recommend an MBA to someone now that YC’s Startup School is available online.

A gross simplification doesn’t mean the thesis is wrong.

alanfranz8• 7 years ago

I think one of the problems of the modern "gig economy" or the general "job hopping" approach to the job market, is that teaching and coaching doesn't work.

Why should an employer risk with the education of a worker that may then leave for another company?

Such approach worked in the past, when you entered a company when you were 19 and left when you retired (unless the company blew up, of course). Then, you could expect to get 100% training on the job, by your company.

Now, you need most skills before entering. And you should expect minimal training.

winrid• 7 years ago

Heh, I joined as a S/E at my current company when there were only a few engineers at age 19 and am still there six years later.

SantalBlush• 7 years ago

This appears to play a large role in the issue of job training nowadays, and it's almost certainly related to college degrees as a screening tool.

There is also a CYA component here. If a hiring manager takes a risk on an applicant with no degree and it doesn't work out, the hiring manager will take the blame for choosing an "underqualified" applicant.

paulie_a2• 7 years ago

Why should an employer risk with the education of a worker that may then leave for another company?

The result is the employer retains that employee.

Godel_unicode• 7 years ago

Those can all be taught as well.

alanfranz8• 7 years ago

Yes, sure. But shouldn't degrees teach (or improve) skills as well? So, shouldn't they be useful, at least for tech/stem/engineering jobs?

I agree that strictly requiring a Bachelor even for candidates with years of experience is pointless. But would you hire a zero experience programmer without a Bachelor?

Sure, for a lot of administration/sales/marketing positions a degree may be an excessive requriment.

But isn't the real problem that a) sometimes universities don't teach enough actual skills and b) they are too expensive?

maxerickson4• 7 years ago

Why not hire someone you think is smart but inexperienced into a low level programming job?

There's lots of chores that don't exactly take a lot of deep knowledge.

(Of course the answer is that companies have discarded the idea of having a training pipeline)

alanfranz8• 7 years ago

There's lots of chores that don't exactly take a lot of deep knowledge.

I think you're doing it wrong. I don't work this way.

If it's a low level job, I'll find a way to automate it. I want all my coworkers to grow to a good level.

At my company, we do train newcomers and young people, and we then hope they stay. But it's an investment that doesn't pay off every time. Other companies just hire experienced developers, by paying more than us... but they don't have a training pipeline. And we can't pay more (we're a small company) because we already spend a lot in training... sob.

mattkrause• 7 years ago

The frustrating thing is that how comically adverse some places are to training.

One place recently passed on me for an R&D position because I had experience with Torque rather than Slurm. I have a PhD and a bunch of research experience—-it would take maybe an afternoon to figure out how to submit jobs on their system...

marcinzm• 7 years ago

The problem with training is that you hire 10 people. 3 of them pan out. Then they leave for 100% more salary from a company that doesn't need to make up for hiring those other 7 in the first place.

In my experience companies that rely on armies of junior programmers to do things manually tend to end with horrible code bases and a lot of technical debt. Few abstractions, lots of repetition, little automation and so on.

codingdave• 7 years ago

If you have two people in front of you, both equally smart, both equally inexperienced, one straight out of high school, one graduating with a degree, why would you not hire the one with more education and years of analytical thought under their belt?

When I got out of college, I took the same low-paying entry level jobs that the 18 year old high school graduates did. I didn't get a jump start because of my degree. But I was able to use the skills I had learned (even in my Fine Arts education), to more deeply approach problems and I moved in my career more quickly. I'm still in touch with some of the folks from that very first job. They are struggling -- they spent decades in tech jobs, advancing, making more money, doing bigger things... but all eventually experienced a layoff, and can't get re-hired despite their skills and experience because younger folk, cheaper folk, with 10 years experience can do everything they can, and demand less salary. Nobody cares that you know 25 year old tech.

So the usefulness of a degree isn't about day one of your career. It is about years 3-5, when you have a few years of skills built up, and then can synthesize them into something bigger and better, and start to make bigger jumps on your career, and put yourself in a position that you are more than just your tech knowledge. And that is what employers care about once you get old.

jandrewrogers3• 7 years ago

I've hired "zero experience programmers without a Bachelor". If there is a clear modicum of ability and desire, I'll give a person a chance to prove themselves.

At least for me, this has generally worked out brilliantly. A few of those hires turned into some of the most technically competent programmers I've ever worked with, and none turned out poorly. Some people are capable of educating themselves to a very high standard in a relatively short period of time. This is a primary characteristic of highly successful inexperienced programmers with degrees as well.

alanfranz8• 7 years ago

I've hired "zero experience programmers without a Bachelor". If there is a clear modicum of ability and desire, I'll give a person a chance to prove themselves.

Did they do something at home? Some hobby project to show? Or they couldn't turn a computer on?

At my company (and in a previous one) we have hired - and still hire - people without degrees and minimal experience. But they should show us something. A github repo, taking some MOOCs, doing a "bootcamp".

How do you tell they have ability and desire if they've got absolutely nothing to show?

I have a liberal arts degree, and I entered the "professional" software engineering world by being hired at a serious company at 26, despite being a passionate PC and Linux user since I was 15. But, heck, at that age I could show some more than decent knowledge of operating systems, Python programming, networking, web protocols, and desktop GUIs. All things that I coded in my spare time or to do small jobs for friends or small family businesses. You could say I had no formal education, but not that I had zero experience.

A few of those hires turned into some of the most technically competent programmers I've ever worked with,

And, all of them stayed at your company? I'm not saying that's not possible - it TOTALLY is. I'm saying that it's risky from an economical POV.

HNLurker2• 7 years ago

In Romania we say without bachelor degree you are nobody. So it doesn't matter what you do or where you studied or even if you are Elon musk.

erlangNewb• 7 years ago

That would be viewed as undermining the trillion dollar higher education business. We need universal higher education. What if the next Einstein couldn't afford college?

suff2• 7 years ago

Then he would have published on PLoS instead of getting 300 paper rejections. The cream rises to the top. It's bureaucracy that artificially stops it. Genius happens in spite of it, not because of it.

fjsolwmv5• 7 years ago

Einstein went to school before he wrote papers.

imagetic• 7 years ago

I'm be employed and in high demand?

rscho4• 7 years ago

What if higher education did its job and actually delivered skilled people instead of offering "the best campus experience"?

Edit: to make myself clear, I absolutely think universities should focus more on thinking than doing. That is not a valid excuse for focusing on campus experience and the like.

maxerickson4• 7 years ago

Academia has never seen itself that way.

It's pretty stupid that a 4 year degree is turning into a checkmark credential. It's a lot of time and effort to invest into something you aren't particularly interested in but need to get some job where the time and effort put towards the degree don't mean a lot.

bhl• 7 years ago

What if we stopped relying on higher education with its high tuition fees to produce skilled workers, and instead focus on community colleges and K-12 education?

rscho4• 7 years ago

I also agree with that. We could also ask parents to actually educate children, but it seems that's too much to ask.

fjsolwmv5• 7 years ago

What if Universities were as low cost as community colleges, as they are in most of the economically developed world?

High tuition colleges only exist prey on low-talent people trying to buy fake credentials. Anybody talented enough to learn from a college what they can't learn at a lower priced college, can get a scholarship to that college.

agent00f5• 7 years ago

All education is inherently time/resource consuming and thereby expensive.

What many are proposing here is expending that into trade schools/edu, which I suppose makes sense for what most coding consists of. But what's most revealing is this insistence on the public shouldering that burden instead of employers who reap the benefits investing into the training.

TomMarius• 7 years ago

What if we made open source (including content) online university?

Kaveren5• 7 years ago

How is this your takeaway from the article? Anyone moderately intelligent is capable of learning most topics traditionally taught in higher education on their own, even if they use the same learning resources that colleges typically do for the topic.

The argument of the article is very clearly that prospective employees should be judged based on skills, not degrees. It doesn't matter if higher education improves. This still holds.

fjsolwmv5• 7 years ago

Why do schools exist in the first place, if almost everyone can just learn on their own?

agent00f5• 7 years ago

Higher ed in form of universities aren't meant to be trade schools. Their purpose is to produce thinkers instead of technicians, which unfortunately industry isn't well equipped to utilize.

Also, parroting political talking points about snowflake kids and such doesn't provide any value, even if draws support from a certain type of crowd.

nafey• 7 years ago

Perhaps more cynically the job of universities is not to train students but to rank them. If you are the top of the class at some ivy league school there is a likelihood of you being good a good paper shuffler at mid level management position

rscho4• 7 years ago

Absolutely, I agree. Thing is, practicals should make students, well... practice a lot. So if a university produces great thinkers and average workers, I'd say that it achieved what it was set for. If a university produces great thinkers and dismal workers, then that university does not exist.

Aeolun• 7 years ago

I don’t think university is very well equipped to produce either thinkers or technicians.

Right up until you get to your postdoc is seems like you’re mostly playing ‘guess the right answer’ with your professors.

It’s great for another dose of slightly more specialized basic knowledge, but it’s not going to prepare you for anything after that unless you stay in academia.

neilv• 7 years ago

There was a long period in software during which it was ordinary to hire people without degrees, including through at least the start of the dotcom boom. For most software as practiced today, I still don't understand requiring a degree, if one looks at what the practice is actually doing -- you don't need a degree for most of what is currently being done.

Separately, it also seemed not-unusual to hire software people for general ability and experience, on the assumption that they could quickly pick up whatever language/tools were needed. This seems to be less common now, outside of new-grad recruiting.

craig1f• 7 years ago

This tends to work better with smaller companies.

In my experience, in a small company, the CEO is still involved in the hiring process. If he's highly technical, he can conduct an interview, identify talent, and if it doesn't work out, it's his problem.

As a company grows, the CEO has delegate to people below him. Whether he's technical or not, hiring managers get involved. If a hiring manager hires someone good, degree or not, everything is fine. They don't get bonuses for hiring people without degrees who work out.

However, if an employee has to be fired, there will be a meeting to discuss what red flags there might have been that could have signaled that this person was a mistake to hire. If the hiring manager believes that they'll get in trouble for ignoring the lack of a degree, they're not going hire people without a degree. They might overlook talent, but at least they won't get blamed for messing up and hiring someone unqualified.

fjsolwmv5• 7 years ago

That's a lot of FUD I've never seen actually happen.

agent00f5• 7 years ago

This comment gets to the crux of this matter, where everyone recognizes industry coding is for the most part not sophisticated enough to warrant a university degree. The majority of jobs are technician 2 year trade school level, but just happen to be well paid for to scarcity. The same folks wouldn't claim the same for doctors or scientists, etc.

didibus• 7 years ago

This seems to be how hiring works in my experience. And today, there's many more roles one can apply too, and different level of schooling one can get. For example, you have System Engineer roles, or Web Dev, or QA Engineer, etc. You've got a lot of bootcamp education options to teach these as well. And if you look at the hiring process, it's all skill based, how good is your knowledge of data structures, algorithms, system design, frameworks, and programming languages. Experience, resume and portfolio is almost completely overlooked, at least beyond the initial HR screen.

2T1Qka0rEiPr• 7 years ago

Economics would suggest that it's purely signally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

The idea that people are hired based on skills is obviously laudable, but _how_ does one verify those skills without extensively testing them?

Whereas deep into your carrier, your professional experience can act as a stronger affirmation of your skill, for that first job degrees seem to be the simplest means of signalling your quality. Its obviously going to exclude would-be great employees, but I guess on a cost-benefit level its understandable given that hiring can be a very intensive process for the employer.

Kaveren5• 7 years ago

See "The Case Against Education" by Bryan Caplan for an argument in favor of the signaling viewpoint.

agent00f5• 7 years ago

The fact that so many here place so little value in their education (I would guess esp the liberal arts portions) reflects more on them than the edu system.

ignoramous• 7 years ago

The idea that people are hired based on skills is obviously laudable, but _how_ does one verify those skills without extensively testing them?

One answer to this is to work for your own self, solve problems that you have, go talk to people who have problems and make them what they want [0].

In an essence, become an indie-developer, a freelancer, or start a business, create/contribute to an open source project. This works very well for technology industry because, more often than not, the barrier to entry to make things is not that high at all.

The advantages are obvious:

1. If your execution gains traction, you make money or get acqui-hired.

2. Most companies will value your ability to build, even if you fail.

3. Being involved in the right communities might even help you find co-founders, or join other founders on their journey, or be found by prospective employers.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

paulie_a2• 7 years ago

I've reviewed my share of resumes and the education section is the least important part. If it is a new fresh graduate sure, it is a bigger consideration. But far more important is their experience, what have they done since graduation. Hell if someone has 5-10 years experience that section is getting skipped entirely.

wallflower• 7 years ago

Since this topic comes up every few months, there is one major reason why college degrees are often prerequisites for job applications.

Pasting the entirety of patio11’s old comment below.

_Are companies really legally disallowed from using IQ tests in the USA?_

Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 1971. US Supreme Court found that a particular use of IQ tests in hiring practices caused a disproportionate impact on African American employees. "Disproportionate impact" can make a facially neutral policy illegal under various US civil rights laws.

This is not a blanket ban on IQ testing in employment, but corporations being risk-averse, most of them don't really do it much any more.

(This is a very happy outcome for universities, since it gives them a virtual monopoly on discriminating on the basis of intelligence. Since that is really useful to do, all a university has to do is maintain its reputation as being a mostly reliable discriminator, and the actual contents of what it teaches are virtually irrelevant.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2414062#2414152

karmakaze• 7 years ago

The basic premise doesn't make sense.

If the candidate has real-world experience, go with that. If they're recent grads assume they know very little and will need on the job exposure to learn. So the most useful criteria is an ability to learn. If there's a better indicator for that than a degree then by all means use it. Skills is only a useful measure if you plan to utilize rather than cultivate them.

analognoise5• 7 years ago

Low priced code jockies with "boot camp" or "self taught" level knowledge are working with industry to try to lower wages, and sure, there are plenty of menial coding tasks out there. Let them have em.

A 14-week training program is the "do you want fries with that" equivalent of coding, and will also get pushed down in wage. So once coding like that is at minimum wage, that's... Success, I guess? But good luck having that stay an easy path to the middle class.

"Anyone with no formal training and 14 weeks of time can make it to the middle class!" - boy is somebody over extrapolating how fast the labor market is going to correct for this. "Well paid" and "quickly trained" don't exist together for a reason (unless there is another component, like "very dangerous" added to the mix).

_cs2017_• 7 years ago

I think some parts of the job market ignore degrees.

I know many people who got very solid SWE jobs through the popular recruitment platforms. Those platforms essentially allow people to get an on-site with big tech and startups without ever sharing one's resume: they rely solely on the results of technical interviews to screen for promising candidates. The employer spends ~$5000 to bring the candidate on-site (fees to the recruitment platform, plus the flight/hotels, plus the full day of engineers' time spent on the interviews). So I highly doubt the employer auto-rejects candidates without a degree regardless of their on-site performance. If they wanted to do that, they would have simply asked the recruitment platform to screen people for degree in advance, to avoid wasting $5k on a hopeless candidate.

Of course, I'm describing only a specific slice (Silicon Valley, maybe NYC) of the specific industry (software engineering). I guess such disregard of degrees hasn't spread to other parts of the job market because most companies, in most industries, believe that the degree provides useful information above and beyond what can be learned in an interview. Are they wrong in that belief? Or do degrees, despite being such a horrible proxy for skill, still provide a valuable incremental statistical signal about the candidate's likely fit?

chriselles• 7 years ago

I believe the university system aspires to produce thinkers, but doesn’t.

Because it has become utterly polluted by non default government backed loans.

If the government removed it’s college loan guarantee, what would happen?

Schools would have to transition instantly from offering unnecessary student experience and switch to essential student value.

In the automotive industry there are financial disclosure and lemon laws.

Car dealers have to disclose their finance profit as well as right if return if vehicle is unsuitable.

Shouldn’t the same or similar exist in education?

At the very least, universities should have to provide externally audited reporting on graduate employment %/$.

I’ve met too many young people with too much student debt. Some will never get out from under it, effectively indentured servitude.

So many university degree programs have negative ROI, partly due to the unnecessary experiences to attract student borrowers.

Trade school have such a stigma amongst those who aspire to have their children move up the human food chain, but really shouldn’t when you run the math.

This is the space that Lambda School and others are disrupting.

It’s a BIG space.

I suspect when it’s all over there will be hundreds of thousands of “white collar jobs” lost that exist only due to the government backed student loan competition over unnecessary and non value added experience.

Basically a repeat of the “manufacturing jobs” lost in the post dot com housing bubble.

Leaner and meaner will eventually have to come to the university system, removing a lot of expensive experience and hopefully some of the highly corrosive politics.

purplezooey• 7 years ago

If this worked, why wouldn't it have happened already. The answer is college means something.

What if we hired for skills, not degrees?

Related Stories