Degree-Less Job Opportunities
I am very sure that by now almost everyone has seen the infamous Glassdoor article titled: “15 More Companies That No Longer Require a Degree”
What was unfortunate about this was the way it was received in the region, although I absolutely agree with most of what was mentioned in the article, and by now I have made my position very clear when it comes to the educational system, The article was shared by the majority of the masses with a large blaming finger pointed -as always- directly at the local human resources departments. Not being a stranger to such position I started to read to maybe find some objectivity in the blame, but it soon shows that most of the commentators haven’t read the actual article, and don’t understand the concept with some HR professionals trying to explain furthermore the complexity of the matter.
Therefore, I thought it would be worth while to comment on the subject accordingly…
Before going into the article itself, What a degree does for someone in the job market isn’t secure a job opportunity, it only get’s you an interview (you can review the process here) the reason it is a necessity in today’s market is the sheer volume of applicants, and this has been a major hurdle to thin the stack of applicants to a manageable size for the recruiter to do their job properly.
Where I agree with the majority of the comments is on this point:
Should you find an employee that matches the position advertised they should be hired accordingly (regardless of the type of degree or lack of…). But be extremely cautious when applying this, as mentioned before, the business will be first to point the blaming finger should that hire not live up to the expectations of the business. I think here comes the majority of the problem, the interview isn’t a long enough interaction for a recruiter to make such decision… and here we reach a stalemate. The only way a recruiter would take that type of risk is by having to work previously with that candidate and can be sure of their results.
The article explains further in the details the job titles and locations that perform such practise.
Not all professions can be degree-less (medical, engineering, …etc), not all locations can be degree-less (job market and competition has to be taken into consideration. Also knowing corporate mentality, you can almost feel the tax breaks they get hiring in those locations).
And let’s dig a little deeper, if you go and search for a job in the #1 company on the list, for a job title that is in a city that was mentioned, well,,, you can see for yourself…
What the aforementioned companies (or it could have been the source of the article) have done is merely a cheap publicity stunt that is meant to be an attack on the educational greed that we are seeing in most educational corporations (and the corporate genius here is that they are probably being incentivized for it). But the solution isn’t there, it might be in the merger of corporate mindset and academic mindset somehow…
Therefore, let’s stop and think about the big picture before praising and really understand where the problem/solution is instead of blindly complementing parties that didn’t really do something innovative…
