Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

I didn't go to college, though I grew up in a college town and eventually even worked for a while as the college's lead web developer. I've been developing software professionally for customers and clients since I was 14 (currently 25; so, for 11 years).<p>Once, when I was applying for a job, I ran into someone with the same perspective as Bryan Caplan's from this article. I had made it through a few interviews and tests into the process at this company, everything was going well, when at some point I mentioned my not having a college degree. I didn't even realize it until later, as by that point in a process people are usually satisfied (or not) with my skills and experience to make the lack of a degree mostly irrelevant.<p>I was asked to have a call with the CTO of the company. The call became a 45 minute lecture, wherein the CTO questioned the sanity of everyone who had hired me previously, urged me to consider not applying for jobs in this industry in the future, and suggested going to college as my only viable option. The call lasted 45 minutes, with me in shock and unable to believe that someone could be so rude, and not knowing how to end it politely. Still, to this day, I'm amazed. Not so much at the basic idea, not even that someone would admit to being reliant on it, but just that someone could be so rude.<p>Thankfully, I've avoided such dramatic rejections since, and my lack of a degree has, if anything, continued to serve as a nice filter, keeping me away from jobs where I'd be working for insane people. I've had no issues finding good positions despite my not having a degree; in most cases, my experience, portfolio, and references are what really matter. And, now that I'm focusing on working for myself/entrepreneurship, I'm not going to have to worry about it at all for the foreseeable future.<p>I like the explanation given, about "credentialism". It's not just confused or inept HR departments that rely on the credential of a college degree to guide their work. It's also young CTOs at technology startups trying to justify the time and money they (recently) spent earning their credential.

The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do.<p>I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people who have neither a college degree nor any long term project in their history which often indicates they are unwilling to put up with any inconvenience.<p>But the message that there is no silver bullet that will make sure all of your employees are "great" is true. If you assume that credentials are that bullet you will eventually get populated with a bunch of highly credentialed and ineffective bozos who will drive out the good people and leave behind an empty husk of a work force.

Interesting stuff. Personally I'm from the camp of people who don't put a lot of stock in credentials. I wouldn't go so far as to say they carry <i>no</i> weight, but I certainly don't weight them particularly heavily, especially if I have anything else whatsoever to go on.<p>And to the extent that I do care about, say, a college degree, I definitely am not of the mindset that "You have to have gone to an Ivy League school, or you're obviously a dolt who will never accomplish anything". In fact, I think recruiting at less prestigious schools could be a source of competitive advantage, especially for cash starved early-stage startups. Why try to compete with Google and IBM and Cisco and Microsoft, etc. for grads from Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, MIT, etc., etc? Forget that, we will probably recruit at schools like North Carolina Central[1], Shaw[2], St. Augustines[3], Peace[4], Meredith[5], Wake Tech[6], Durham Tech[7], UNC-Pembroke[8], Fayetteville State University[9], NC A&#38;T[10], Winston-Salem State[11], etc. There's talent to be had everywhere, and I doubt we'll be finding a lot of Google recruiters on those campuses.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.nccu.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nccu.edu/</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.shawu.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.shawu.edu/</a><p>[3]: <a href="http://www.st-aug.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.st-aug.edu/</a><p>[4]: <a href="http://www.peace.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.peace.edu/</a><p>[5]: <a href="http://www.meredith.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meredith.edu/</a><p>[6]: <a href="http://www.waketech.edu" rel="nofollow">http://www.waketech.edu</a><p>[7]: <a href="http://www.durhamtech.edu" rel="nofollow">http://www.durhamtech.edu</a><p>[8]: <a href="http://www.uncp.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.uncp.edu/</a><p>[9]: <a href="http://www.uncfsu.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.uncfsu.edu/</a><p>[10]: <a href="http://www.ncat.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncat.edu/</a><p>[11]: <a href="http://www.wssu.edu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wssu.edu/</a>

I've interviewed a fair number of people for tech positions over the years and one of the fastest lessons I learned was that the correlation between a CS degree on the resume and technical ability is basically non-existent. More so, among the best devs and engineers I have worked with one was a physicist by training and several had no college degree whatsoever. Credentialism is a sucker's game, if you fall victim to it you'll be at a competitive hiring disadvantage. Hiring is tough, but it's also one of the most important things you can do as a company, make sure to put the right amount of effort into it.<p>P.S. As the article points out, falling victim to the credentialism trap as an employee is also a sign of conformity. Some companies want that, but hiring extremely talented non-conformists is an easy and excellent way to kick the competition's ass in many cases. The future of technology is almost never created by conformists.

Here's the thing: for the typical job listing, there are dozens, or hundreds, of applicants. Maybe more.<p>You do not have the time to do a full-fledged investigation of every one of them, or bring them all in for a lengthy interview. You just don't. You need some filter to reduce the number to something more manageable, and degree/school is a straightforward way to do it.<p>Also recognize that 99% of jobs, even technical jobs, do not require (1) a one-in-a-million technical skill which is (2) easy to identify and measure.<p>Is filtering by degree flawed? Absolutely. But that's an academic argument. The question managers face is: what's a <i>better</i> way, subject to real limitations of time and resources?<p>Last but not least: in my experience, most jobs require navigating some amount of bureaucracy and difficult people. Someone completely unwilling or unable to make these "compromises" probably would be better working for himself, and not within an organization.

The article made me think about my own recent process getting hired at a startup. We certainly have mostly degreed and credentialed employees but we have at least one senior member who dropped out of college to co-found the company. I think a mix of both types is the right approach. To quote FAKEGRIMLOCK: THIS LAW 9: FIRST BATMAN, THEN ROBIN.

One thing I absolutely do not agree with is Bryan Caplan’s laughably narrow-minded view on people that do not attend college.<p>Not everyone turns 18 and suddenly has everything they need but simply decides not go to because, like, non-conformity, man!<p>It is just as likely that &#60;insert life&#62; happened. Is someone who decided to raise an unexpected child a non-conformist? The oldest child staying home to work because the breadwinner in the family died... clearly that person is a non-conformist.<p>Are you serious?

Worked pretty well for Google, no?<p>While reading "In the Plex", one fact stood out: nearly all of their early hires were well-respected CS figures from 1st grade universities. Not only you had to be smart, but you had to have good grades from a good school to get hired by Google early. The only exception I could find was Salar Kamangar. At least that was my impression from reading the book.

Fundamentally credentials make sense to me. If we were designing an employment system from scratch, some form of independent standards and certification would be difficult to pass up. It would aid accurately sorting skilled/trained people into appropriate areas of work.<p>I say this with no credentials whatsoever, so I'm not just trying to be part of the 'credentialist conspiracy'.<p>In practice our existing system just isn't fulfilling that purpose enough to justify the enormous amount of money being spent. Accurate signalling on knowledge/skill level has been lost in the noise of wealth/conformity signalling.

There are many sources of competitive advantage, which includes but is not limited to good hiring practices and the development and retention of talent.<p>Companies which were not dependent on cheap/competitive talents were able to get away with many inefficient work practices. Companies which are not dependent can and will still do that. Introspection is stressful and costly, change even more so.<p>"This is why great designers, salesmen or computer programmers are still highly valued": A very narrow selection of professions where productivity is very sensitive to variations in ability.

Thank god Andrew Carnegie didn't live today. He'd have never gotten a job other than his first one: shoving coal into an oven. The same for all of the people who started companies before degrees existed.

HR departments are largely the problem.<p>Even if you have a savvy, dynamic, progressive team in a large company - looking for coding/sales/marketing savants - HR will typically not even pass candidates resumes if they don't have a BA/BS etc.

Over forty comments on credentialism so far, and nobody has mentioned the elephant in the living room, Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Pardon me while I feign surprise.