Friday, November 22, 2013

"Masters Degree Preferred"

I convey, what I believe to be, the feelings of the younger generation to all the HR, corporate management types, baby boomers, Gen X'ers, and the education industry who INSIST young people get advanced degrees for jobs that could be done by a 12 year old.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have currently colleagues -with advanced degrees- right now working on a job that will take two-three weeks that , frankly, my 8 y.o. could do, if he could sit still long enough.

It's driving them nuts.

Can we hire 40 high school kids on break to do this in a day at minimum wage? oh god forbid...

And oh btw we so tried to get this automated but the software was specifically written to prevent that. WTF?!

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgzBI1dTaFA

Anonymous said...

I have an advanced engineering degree. I earned it almost 20 years ago. It helped with getting a few jobs. But I would now advise myself against it, because the return on investment is just not good these days. About 3 years ago, I started another advanced degree program, with my employer paying for it. About 2 weeks into the program, I realized that it wasn't for me and I dropped out of the program. Best decision I made career wise in awhile. Advanced degrees are generally not needed for many positions, it's just a weedout criteria these days for useless HR types.

ramram said...

I used to work for a (big) company within Finance Analysts team (95% women). Twice a year each of Analysts spent about a month on building a forecast for the Cost Centres they were in charge of (usually 3-10 per each Analyst). There were also about 300 Cost Centres that were not "forecasted" by anyone due to resource constraints, so in my spare time I built complete automation of the forecasting for these Cost Centres and now the forecast for all 300 was generated in about 5 min. Now try to imagine their reaction when I proposed to automate the remaining Cost Centres. Suffice to say since I left the Team doubled in size and the 300 CCs are not forecasted anymore due to... resource constraints. The only person who knows about the tool in the team by now(a girl my age) is now Head of Team.

Anonymous said...

If you think that the hiring process is rational and that advanced degrees are used to weed out you are deluding yourself.

You can apply for the same job title at two different companies, one will tell you that you are not qualified enough and another will tell you that you are overqualified.

Capitalism rewards capital, not merit nor hard work. The myth of meritocracy is used to give a false appearance of logic in a world which frankly is really not at all about logic.

Well, same thing about weeding out. Employers are extremely subjective, emotional and feely. Skills are the last thing they base their weeding out decisions on.

But they cannot admit that, because it would make them look bad and irrational.

Last thing, those companies are the private property of their respective owners and shareholders.

Any company owner is free to operate it as he sees fit. How can you then claim that those company owners "force" people into getting credentials and going into debt.

If you don't like a particular company's hiring process, you are free to apply for a job elsewhere. Nobody is forcing you to apply at that particular company.

And given that those companies operating that way represent the majority of companies, even mid and small companies operate that way, isn't that what the market wants ?

You claim to live and die by the market forces and you claim to be a nice market abiding citizen.

Well, the market wants to screw you. You will have to either accept it and suck it up or admit that there is something wrong with the idea of letting market forces dictate everything we do. You can't have it both ways.

You claim to be a libertarian but then you go on and lecture private property owners on their usage of their own private property.

You need to either admit that there is something wrong with capitalism or shut up and suck it up.

You can't have it both ways Aaron Clarey.

And if the corporate world is so fucked up, and it is, then why don't you start your own corporation where you will train applicants instead of requiring them to have masters degree.

You can't because you're broke.

You are defeated by the contradictions and irrationalities of the very market forces you claim to abide by and which you worship.

Anonymous said...

I've been through a few interviews some years ago.

One of them was a panel of three people. The division boss, the technical boss and the HR lady.

The division boss and the technical boss all asked good questions related to work and all seemed to be focussed on getting the job done and if I could do the job.

The only negative point I have about the division boss is that he insisted I give him three defects.

I gave him one defect, then when he asked for a second one I told him that my second defect was that I get annoyed with stupid questions about my defects. He wanted a third defect and I refused to answer it.

Then the HR Lady replied: So you are PERFECT then !

What a fucking idiotic child. I did answer sincerely to one defect while she was there. Was she listening ?

That girl brought nothing of value to the discussion and you could tell that her job was to make me look bad.

She had a question about if a coworker or section boss tells me to slow down the productive pace, would I slow down.

I had to answer YES even if that's not what they wanted to hear.

You see, my real boss, the division boss is not following us everywhere we go to supervise us directly and make sure the work is done.

I will almost never deal with the division boss. But I will always deal with coworkers and section bosses.

So they are asking me to be in constant conflict with the ones I will have to work all the time just to please the one I will almost never see ?

They are asking me, the new kid on the block, to serve as the lightning rod for the conflict between the union and the division boss ?

If you don't integrate a team and don't fit in seamlessly, that team will kick you out.

That HR Lady was obsessed with questions about conflicts between people.

My problem is that I am new, will the division boss trust the newcomer or a section boss that's been in place for years before me ?

Basically, what the HR Lady's questions told me is that work environments are basically warzones and the rules of engagement are stacked against the entry level newcomers.

If I want to go to war, I will go to the battlefield, I will not apply for a job.

Anonymous said...

Captain, you have more comments on YouTube, people like you! This is another great video I watch since I last saw you. But this post is so great, many new expressions, and really funny to watch. Yeah, people have different reasons to read you, but its ridiculous whats going on, and its a comedy.

I plan to become an actor but don't know when I will have time to make videos.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'll take the bait Anon. In a country where government consumes at least 40% of GDP, where they inflict regulatory requirement after regulatory requirement on the labor market, where social engineering is enacted through Fabian indoctrinated HR departments. Yes, clearly it's capitalism that has failed us!

Do keep up.

Capitalism can fix this through Schumpeterian destruction if the gov gets out of the way and lets it happen.

Anonymous said...

"You are defeated by the contradictions and irrationalities of the very market forces you claim to abide by and which you worship."

Hey anonymous, corporatism does not = capitalism. Clarey is an advocate for TRUE capitalism. Get your facts straight, buddy.

Father Marker said...

I just earned a Master's degree in an IT specialty. At my age it is highly likely that I'll never use it.

Part of the reason is that I have been offered a courier role which at minimum offers me an income level the same as a starter IT wage and most likely build up to a level better than what half the IT workforce will expect to earn.

On top of this the work requires a physical presence so it is immune to being shipped off overseas the same way that I've seen quite a few software developers roles go.

I would recommend that if at all possible line up a job that requires a physical presence.