LJ Idol Week 2-- Topic: "I Don't Care About Apathy: What I Should Care About but Don't"

[copyright1983]

"Show Me What You've Learned...but Put the Diploma Away"

Growing up, I was always told that I needed to get good grades, have a variety of interests, and post good scores on my SATs. Now, while all of these things are good in their own right, the people who were telling me these things (mostly my teachers and parents, but also society at large) saw

Comments

[sky_designs]

*applauds* well said. I don't know many people except doctors and lawyers who actually use their degree for what they went to college for. And with the loans that will haunt me forever and a day, i wish I hadn't even gone sometimes.

Great entry.

[copyright1983]

Well, I wouldn't go *that* far - college provided me friends and experiences you can't put a price tag on. But I agree on the loans, though I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to repay them.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

[baxaphobia]

Having been in a administrative role for several years, I can say I agree with you. I've seen people with beautiful resumes not be able to get themselves in to work on time, not be able to relate to peopl in the way that they should, etc. And I've seen people just the opposite who barely got through high school. Interesting.

[copyright1983]

Exactly. Pity they don't have degrees in common sense and people skills.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

[wisemonkey]

i was a reporter for years, and at every paper i interviewed at, writing a story on deadline was part of the process. many jobs do include some sort of skill-based test as part of the interview process; teacher candidates are asked to teach a class. for consulting, you'd have to analyze a case in the interview.

as imperfect a proxy as it may be, a degree does convey some information about a person's skills, and i can't blame employers for wanting as much as they can get. while i certainly agree that going to an elite college doesn't guarantee competency (as would most employers), i find it hard to believe there could be no correlation between a person's credentials and their ability, or that a formal education is worthless.

[copyright1983]

I applaud those employers you mentioned for doing things right. But there are still plenty of companies that regard the resume and interview process as the be-all and end-all. (Maybe I'm biased, as it seemed that, during my recent job search, I interviewed at a *lot* of those places.)

And I'm not saying the degree is worthless, just overvalued. There are other ways to demonstrate competency, and while it seems many employers are coming around to them, it's still not universal at all.

Thanks for your insights!

Mike

PS--You're the first Scrabble person to comment on these posts...where's everyone else? :/

[galebird]

What a good read. Thank you.

Good luck!

[copyright1983]

Thanks!

[meep]

#1. I totally agree

#2. On hiring: check out a book called =Topgrading=. It's got some interesting ideas on improving the hiring process -- namely, to get the interview portion be more useful.

[copyright1983]

I'll look for it next time I'm in the bookstore. Thanks for reading!

Mike