College is approaching 20 years ago. You would think in 2 decades (5 of which I actually spent working) my skills have improved, my knowledge increased and I would be a better employee today than I was 20 years ago.
That, sadly, cannot be further from the truth.
Have I picked up some things?
Yes.
Have I developed some skills I didn't have in college?
Sure.
But I have forgotten most of what I learned in college. I remember I could do efficient frontier analysis on paper before the professor could do it on the calculator. I remembered how to do a very detailed DCF analysis and the CAPM formula by heart. I even remember being able to value options with Black Scholes. But now my skill set is a mere fraction of what it used to be. Additionally, my work ethic, worn down by misleading job after corrupt job after the world's dumbest most incompetent bosses, is nothing compared to what it used to be. Upon graduation I was willing to work 100 hours a week to prove my loyalty and get promoted. Now I just want to make enough to get by, get the hell out the second that clock hits 4PM and not show up a second before 8AM the next day.
My ability (and desire) to do today as a percentage of what I could and was willing to do 18 years ago I would say is about 20%. I've lost, as far as I can in my estimation, about 80% of my worth as an employee. But this has nothing to do with me or my previous hard work ethic. It has to do with progressive credentialism.
Much as I like to point out what I was willing to do and what I was capable of, those points are moot because that's not what the market demanded.
The market demanded a dataentrysman when I was 22. Not their next all-star analyst.
The market demanded a low-level credit analyst when I was 23. Not the next chief risk officer.
The market demanded a swing dance instructor when I was 24. Not a junior executive at a bank.
And the market demanded a security guard when I was 25. Not a top notch mutual fund analyst.
Though I was certainly capable of the latter in the list above, it didn't matter because the real world needed somebody will much lower skills. Additionally the real world was not willing to give a 23 year old kid any kind of responsibility even though he was more than capable of handling it. And so I got to live in reality and not what I was trained to do. Alas this is the Credentialism Gap.
The Credentialism Gap is nothing more than the difference between what a credentialed person is capable of and what he or she inevitably ends up doing. But an additional and REQUIRED part of the Credentialism Gap is that in order for that person to do that job the employer requires them to be unnecessarily credentialed. For example my first post-college job I could have done as a 6th grader (data entry and faxing), but they STILL demanded I had college degree. Most college graduates (bar liberal arts majors who have no real skills) are also in the same boat. I believe the vast majority of graduates end up working a job they were fully capable of doing after they graduated from high school or completed their first year of college, but how much you want to bet they had some HR bureaucrat write up "must have 4 year degree, masters preferred" in the job description?
The Credentialism Gap is, of course, nothing more than a side effect of a market flooded with too many college graduates and not enough economic growth. But much like a...ahem..."lady of the evening" in the Bakken oil fields only needs to clear $100 a night, she has her pick of the litter. She can make outlandish demands and clear well above $100 an evening. And so it is the same in the labor market - employers don't NEED an MBA with 10 years experience, they can easily get by with the ambitious kid with an associates and a 2 week training session. But they CAN get that MBA with 10 years experience.
This gives rise to people looking for jobs, especially you younger folk, to ask a question:
"If the credentials employers are requiring are so far above and beyond the actual required skill level required of the job, why not just fake or fib about your credentials?"
What made me think about this was the recent article of the man who, upon his demise, confessed that instead of having a PhD in engineering, only had 3 years of schooling. Because of a filing snafu on the part of his school, he was awarded a PhD. What gets me is NOT that the school screwed up, but that he made an entire life career in a technical field on false credentials. And not just that, but that the actual required skill set for jobs that required a "PhD" could be done by somebody with not even a bachelors. This piqued my interest (and I presume others) about the feasibility of doing the same - lying about your credentials for jobs you're certainly qualified for in terms of skills, but require some outlandish certification.
Regardless, this divergence from "demanded credentials" to "skills required" only adds more proof as to how an education is becoming less and less worthwhile and how employers are becoming more and more arrogant in their assumptions of what kind of employees they can recruit. Yes, I know people are desperate for employment. Yes, I know you want qualified individuals. But why pay the premium for somebody with a masters when you only need somebody with an associates? Why force somebody to go through and pay for extra schooling, when you should just say, "we need an associates, nothing more?" And with companies being special and unique as they are, why not re-institute training programs and spare them the pain of going to college anyway.
ie-What is compelling employers to contribute to progressive credentialism aside (from as far as I can tell) laziness, arrogance, stupidity and a power trip?
I frankly stopped caring a long time ago. When I see "MBA preferred" or "CFA preferred" or "FMG preferred" or "SIGMA Six" or any other certification acronym that some faux educational/certification/professional association came up with just to milk more money out of its member workers, I don't bother applying. The reason why is not only am I unlikely to get the job, but when does it stop? When does the blasted and worthless CPE or "continuing education" end? When do I get to work and excel and push the boundaries of my field and my job? When does the bleeping training end and the production finally start?
Presumably never on account credentials are obviously more important actual skills.
Enjoy the decline!
37 comments:
Yeah, same here. Even happens with STEM degrees. Putting aside the required liberal arts electives, I was forced to take certain STEM classes outside of my field of interest and have never used the knowledge since (essentially forgotten the second I turned in the final). Four years could have easily been condensed into two.
And I hear you about the morale drop. After working my butt off to climb the ladder and being dumped and having a hard time to finally land another job, corporate America can stick their "career paths".
What it comes down to is that we are harnessing young men and holding them back at the time when they are ready to shoot out of the starting gate. And all to feed a parasitic university crowd. Imagine if these young men started responsible jobs out of high school or 1 or 2 years of job training school - they'd quickly be earning enough money to support a wife at home with children. Instead, our society scream "Whoa" and pulls back on that harness. "You're not ready yet! Get back behind the gate!"
I read some blog post not too long ago (was it here?) about some 18th century British naval hero's career - he was commanding a ship in his late teens and steadily got more and more responsibility. They couldn't wait until he was 40 because people didn't live as long. And yet, he was more than capable.
There is a severe shortage of workers in the "trades" (construction trades) right now. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, masons etc.
The problem the industry is having is the younger generation has never learned how to Work. It is a skill that has been lost. It used to be taught at home - much of it on the farm doing chores.
If college could teach people how to "work" - it would be a valuable business. Instead degrees are "worthless", as some brilliant author wrote...
The biggest mistake I did was going and wasting time in college. I could have learned most of that knowledge myself as I am largely self taught. I could have even started a small business at the time when credit was easy. I thought of going back to school to get PhD in Math or Physics but with the tite IX being extended to STEM,it is best avoided as the quality of the degrees will begin to decline. In addition to that all the scholarships and assistantships will now be diverted to the women. I get the feeling that the males will be made unwelcome in these programs across the nation in the most blatant possible manner. Why go waste time in these mind numbing places which do not encourage nor foster thinking outside the box? Furthermore. PhD's these days are political degrees. Lots of sucking a** and playing the politics right.
I read the same article about the guy with the erroneous PHD, I instantly wondered what you would have thought about it. I know all too well the kind of career path you speak of. This continuing credentialism is an absolute crime.
I've worked in a federal government job for 30 years. I see many jobs being done by college grads that used to be done by non college grads. It's creeping credentialism. Now I'll admit that someone with a college degree does them a little better but what I'm seeing is someone with a college degree doing a job maybe fifteen percent better but getting paid thirty percent more. So, for the amount of money being spent, a college grad isn't more valuable than a non college grad in a lot of jobs.
For example my first post-college job I could have done as a 6th grader (data entry and faxing), but they STILL demanded I had college degree. Most college graduates (bar liberal arts majors who have no real skills) are also in the same boat.
Captain, I can only speak for computer programming but there is a reason for that behavior in programming:
You need to unlearn a bunch of stuff from college and/or learn key skills college never teaches.
The fact of the matter is most CS programs prepare you to be a CS graduate student, not to be a working programmer. Sure, you learn to write cool stuff but you dodge the 80/20 rule: you do the fun 80% and never engage the rest.
Most CS BS graduates I've worked with (including me) didn't understand:
1. The need to scrub and validate inputs.
2. The need for error handling.
3. Working with source code control.
4. Strong testing including boundary, edge, and just plain wrong cases.
5. Meeting programming agreements in a multiple programmer environment.
6. How to estimate time to build working (not just functional but working) code.
7. Test Drive Design
In fact, I'd much rather hire the kid out of HS or, even better, a guy about 21-22 on the Geek Squad who got a cert or two on his own initiative. I'd bring him in as an apprentice, do a lot of pairs programming, and after a couple of years, if he learns and sticks to it, send him to school part time as part of his job. At that point he's learned to be a working programmer and could actually apply a lot of the theory and concepts he would learn in college and understand them better when he first learned them.
Maybe in a few years if the US turns it around I'll start a programming consulting company that does just that. I would love to start such a company because I'd train better programmers. However, right now it's not worth the fight.
Not to mention how you missed the whole Aspiring Rap Artist gig. Don't be sad. Send me money and I will teach you how to be an Aspiring Rap Artist.
We can rap our way thru the decline! (Once your check clears)
Hip hop, hippy to hippity hip, hip, hop.....
Just an aside: to the game community: would Mr. Patterson qualify as an "alpha."
I have an MFA (1976) in Studio Art (painter): I have no illusions about its value; especially, given the nature of those I competed against in grad school; furthermore, the degree only has value as a credential if you want to teach - and if you're connected. My BA credentials enabled me to be offered a job mowing a cemetery lawn without supervision. However, attending college did enable me to study under master artists: the first leading directly but unknowingly to the second; furthermore, the undergraduate opportunity provided me with the deliberate inoculation by my mentor of methodologies to learn what I needed to learn on my own: the ability to identify and analyze a needed skillet, then develop that skill; this is one of my main advantages over my peers. I approached my grad school enrollment as a means of acquiring a cheap studio space and endured incompetent "professors" until I found my second mentor.
A sound Humanities education is valuable: the humanities are a way of knowing: wisdom and understanding do not derive from a STEM degree: the source of the arrogant "expert" now plaguing this society.
I switched into accounting from finance on your recommendation, and you know what conclusion I've come to? God bless the AICPA. Not much work? Change the rules to make more work. Possible excess of CPAs? Change the rules to make fewer CPAs. Do I feel bad about the fact that my profession is full of rent-seekers? No more than I felt bad about all the rejections I received as a finance major because I wasn't a sufficiently good frat boy networker with an MBA. I'm coming over to your line of thinking, I think: I didn't build this stupid and corrupt system, and if it won't reward people like me that want to work hard and kick ass, then I'm going to reap the benefits of exploiting the system and working as little as possible to get by.
If this is a repeat post, then you need to put a statement up that says the original post went through and is awaiting moderation.
Just an aside: to the game community: would Mr. Patterson qualify as an "alpha."
I have an MFA (1976) in Studio Art (painter): I have no illusions about its value; especially, given the nature of those I competed against in grad school; furthermore, the degree only has value as a credential if you want to teach - and if you're connected. My BA credentials enabled me to be offered a job mowing a cemetery lawn without supervision. However, attending college did enable me to study under master artists: the first leading directly but unknowingly to the second; furthermore, the undergraduate opportunity provided me with the deliberate inoculation by my mentor of methodologies to learn what I needed to learn on my own: the ability to identify and analyze a needed skillet, then develop that skill; this is one of my main advantages over my peers. I approached my grad school enrollment as a means of acquiring a cheap studio space and endured incompetent "professors" until I found my second mentor.
A sound Humanities education is valuable: the humanities are a way of knowing: wisdom and understanding do not derive from a STEM degree: the source of the arrogant "expert" now plaguing this society.
I'm in a STEM field and can't decide which I'm more afraid of: the situation described in your post, or the flip side, which is to be declined in favor of a less-qualifed candidate to whom they don't have to pay PhD wages.
As an added "bonus", my field is necessary and has the potential to produce something of serious value (I'm in infectious disease research), but most of the potential employers are government agencies (NIH, CDC, DOD, etc), or contractors paid by the gov't, or are other academic research institutes supported largely by... you guessed it... the gov't. We are actively taught that the measure of our worth as scientists is not only in our publications, but in how much grant money we can bring in to our institutions. Which, again, means taxpayer dollars.
We won't even talk about the drug development process... pharma co's make a lot more money from "lifestyle" drugs used to treat (largely) self-induced ailments, than they do from antibiotics. Because, you know, antibiotics are something we NEED; therefore they should be free!!! The outrage!!! (/snark). Which means that any money to develop, market, or sell them comes right back to... you guessed it again... taxpayer dollars.
At least I'm doing something useful with them, but seriously, I would like to find some way to be productive with my degree that is A)ethical, and B) not taking more $ out of my fellow citizens' pockets other than what they've already spent on my education. :(
Any job I've had, even teaching high school (honestly, it isn't hard) I could have done with my average K-12 education, where I was an honors student until 9th grade when I just gave up, for reasons I'm still trying to understand. There was no need for me to give up, I just did. Boredom, maybe, or lack of will to play the game and follow the narrative, and lack of knowledge as to how to combat the narrative and still kick academic ass. I just checked out instead.
My first job in college (I stopped full-time study and got a FT job instead, and went to school at night) was doing analysis on subscription and attrition for a magazine. Not very hard, since it utilized simple 5th and 6th grade math to do the calculations. Next I moved on to being a secretary (admin asst. was the glorified term) and rose to project management, but only AFTER I got my degree. Any promotion for which I applied was rejected because I had not yet graduated college. I could not see how the sudden appearance of a diploma in my hands would mean I would be any more qualified to be a fragrance development manager (not the one making the chemical; the one deciding which one to send to the customer for PD and sales). My "nose" was spot on, and my management skills were well developed after years of being an admin and sales PM.
There were other things going on in the company, though: female bosses became the norm (I hate working with and for other women), and your fashion sense was used (privately) as criteria as much as your education and ability, when considering promotion. It's a rigged game all around, and either you have what a company wants, or don't. Truthfully, I don't blame private entities for this attitude, as it is their right to hire and fire whom they choose. But it would be nice if so much smoke wasn't blown up your ass when you think advancement is in your cards when it never, ever is going to happen.
"Why force somebody to go through and pay for extra schooling...?"
Just a thought: Extra schooling = extra debt = needs a job = company loyalty (in this job market anyway).
We've moved from independence, through inter-dependence, to dependence. So, the emphasis is on jobs, and by jobs I mean jobs which are subject to approval and control of some sort of collective, whether it be a union, or a professional organization, or trade or professional licensing, or some sort of certification procedure.
A job becomes some sort of property right, a thing which can be owned, with the ownership subject to legal protections.
Whether or not the work done is useful is a secondary concern. So, the job is more important than the utility -- the government must provide jobs!
Contemplate this. What happens to all the teachers and principals, and attendance officers, and diversity officers, and counselors and school nurses, and curriculum planners and textbook publishers, and personnel managers, if we don't require sixteen years of education, plus a terminal brochure or dissertation, in order to be sufficiently credentialed to take sales orders over the phone all day? Why, they would suffer the disillusion that comes from a recognition that they don't matter. And those who truly do matter would be left shaking their heads in wonder as to why this class of people was supported as long as they were, with such little pay-off.
And it's thinking such thoughts that has led to my remaining ambition to be laid off at about the same time I plan to go on Social Security. Why, I could be retired and unemployed at the same time! On your money.
Hey Captain,
just what is it that you actually work in from 8 to 4? You've told us that you worked in banking for awhile. What is your job right now?
Collections, took a job in a small SD town and just making enough bank so my house isn't underwater anymore.
I now make phone calls and talk. Sometimes I fax. I even mail every once in a while.
All would be impossible if I didn't have a college degree.
@Herb
As someone who does scripting for a living and is trying to move to more substantive things, can you recommend some books or websites to help teach these practices? I realize that there is no substitute for experience, but you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. I would really like to become better at programming. It makes doing my job as a Data Analyst so much easier.
Sounds weak to me. Buck up and wear a cup. I am shifting down by moving to technologists for entry level work because the new engineers are demanding too much money lately. The work still gets done on time. Also, some of the techs have trades backgrounds which makes them more practical.
Sadly, the day that you could put out an ad and attract twenty or thirty farm-boys with engineering degrees are over. But there are still plenty of hard-working capable people out there.
The companies that insist on over-credentialing their employees will get eaten. The market works.
Very true. I have a BS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Chemistry.
Yet, I could do my job with my high school education (to be fair, that included some AP science classes), plus my native intelligence, my self-taught knowledge, and my industrial experience.
But they'd never have allowed me to GET the experience, or even get an interview, without the damned credentials.
Cappy, this is easily one of your best articles! Well done, man!
For years and years, I thought there was something wrong; that the game was rigged. And you've done an excellent job throwing a light on that corner of darkness.
Things are dramatically different now than they were in our parents' time. F'rinstance, there is absolutely no way in hell that my father ever would have ascended to his rank in the educracy in today's environment. He would never even get past substitute teacher.
And I just wanted to briefly address Anon @6:04AM:
Valid point, my friend. However, while lack of work ethic is a definite factor, the equation is far more complex. We're living in a disposable society. Disposable employees, disposable marriages, etc. Employers are simply not willing to invest in employees any more - they want individuals who will "hit the ground running" (shudders). Essentially, they're saying they want someone to show up and do the job like they've been doing it every day of their lives for the past 30 years. And with regards to the trades, the old axiom holds true: It's not what you know, but WHO you know.
It has to be said -- someone who was working on teaching himself calculus post-college, and who has NEVER had linear algebra -- cannot possibly be speaking truthfully when he says he used to be able to use Black-Scholes in any quantitative way. You can't have been an ec major. C'mon.
Never said I was an econ major. I was an economist, and I was an economics instructor. Only minored in econ. The rest was finance.
And I should have said I was "re-teaching" myself calculus. Just like Black Scholes, efficient frontier theory, Tobin's quotient, I have forgotten how to do all of them and would have to re-teach myself those techniques.
Or, as they did in business school, say, "Just have the computer do it."
Ummmmm...reminds me of when I was instructing in the Airforce.Fought tooth and nail to let techs graduate who had "failed" all the "courses",but could outwork every one who had failed them.I would sooner have somebody working for me who can turn a screwdriver,and fix a problem,then one who sits there and pretends to think of the best solution.Be very careful of allowing so-called intelligence to rate over actual common dog.
I completely avoided post secondary education and I passed those savings on to my customers for many years.
Signed: Comfortably, retired business owner, former professional musician and high school drop out.
I'm so jealous! I've always wanted to swing dance!
-Sorry, off topic. My job isn't really in a field where there are required paper credentials (industrial electrician/ power plant operator), but I suppose that would be one more reason why I never felt the urge to live in the white collar world.
@Herb: you've made a common mistake, which is that assuming a computer science program teaches software engineering. It doesn't and isn't intended to, any more than a B.Sc in chemistry will teach you how to design a hydrocarbon fractionation column.
Unfortunately, most universities and undergraduates make the same mistake, which is why the IT field is rife with institutional incompetence.
Also, you stole my thesis on how the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis applies to RPG rules.
@beta_plus: What you want to do is look up texts on software engineering, not programming or computer science. Unfortunately this branch of engineering is still in its infancy and as prone to fads and foolish notions as women's fashion (if anyone says "Agile" or "XP", run. Run away.)
If you're a scripter, I can recommend no better book than Tim Hill's Windows Script Host. It's more than ten years old and about an obsolete language, but it is still the only scripting book I've seen that handles real-world programming advice, like sanitizing inputs, proper error trapping, and generally not making idealistic assumptions about your code. You will learn a lot about robust programming style from this book, even if you never write a line of VBscript.
A university instructor of mine once said "You need to go to University to get a good high school education nowadays".
The problem is that most schools have a 'no fail' policy which pushes all the retards through school without actually getting educated. I have my own small business and I'm shocked at the useless toads I'm stuck hiring who are demanding full wages. I'm not disagreeing with you Cappy, just saying that not only can someone hire an MBA for a grade 12 job, but you need to hire someone with a degree just to mak sur there litterait. (make sure they're literate). What I would really like to see is a 'Common Sense Test' and a 'Work Ethic Test'. I'll hire anyone that can pass those!
-Redneck in Cowtown
I would also like to address Izanpo's comments about employers wanting employees that can 'hit the ground running'. Loyalty works both ways - yes employees are disposable, but workers are treating employers as disposable too. I can't even begin to count the number of employees I've hired and trained and then had leave for literally $.25 / hr more, or get fired for stealing. I pay well and treat my guys really well, but I'm just sick and tired of hiring and training ppl who are going to leave within 2 months.
-Redneck in Cowtown
Counter Question: Is this not the technological acceleration of Adam Smith's Division of Labour principle?
Credentials typically are about how well you can take a test. In the technology industry, the boot-camp methodology churns out credential after credential, but with no knowledge retention. It's all a big scam so the Govt. Contractors can bill the Govt. more money, but give you none.
There have been a very very few people with these types of credentials that I've interviewed that actually knew what they were supposed to have known based on their credentials.
Credentialism is to some extent the result our politically correct government. Since employees cannot be tested for aptitude, that being deemed racist, the degree proxies for both aptitude and work ethic.
No problem my friends. Start a business. Work for yourself. Get paid what you're worth.
Of course the system is rigged. It is rigged to get the sheep to be indebted to the system and to be subservient tax payers.
Sure the koolaid drinkers will look down upon you with condescension. And we will smile and feel sorry for them when their pension money is gone and they work until they die.
Embace the unlimited abundance and opportunity on our planet. We limit ourselves. Don't let others limit you.
It's great to be a GenX. Poor boomers. It's a fine mess they got themselves into this time. Milleneals rising. You can take that to the bank.
Good luck. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.
Hi Cap. Nice encapsulation of the credentialism crisis. I have a similar experience to yours, the sheer dismay of seeing literally life or death decisions made by persons selected for their winning smile and fashion sense. Also the recurring theme of very expensive training with rigorous testing regimes... which have -nothing- to do with the actual work. Been through it three times, university, cabinet making and physical therapy.
I think what offends me most is the gigantic snow job that keeps it in place. I hate liars, and the sons of bitches run the whole show. Only thing to do is be self employed at something you can overcharge the hell out of gullible middle management for. Like concrete cutting or spray painting.
The Phantom
"Credentialism" as Cap defines it is just the College Industrial Complex applying what it learned in hosting useless Lib Arts classes to STEM course design.
The hilarious part is that we all know what the solution is moving forward for future generations.
As for those of us holding these "worthless" degrees, we haven't got a clue what to do with ourselves.
Maybe I'll enroll at the local CC and get CERTIFIED in Welding or Aircraft Maintenance. Will that piece of paper be "worth" something?
Here is another view.
1. A quick look at salary and employment tables tells the story. A graduate or professional degree earns more and has less unemployment than a college degree holder, who does better than someone with an associates degree, who does better than someone with a high school degree. Choosing to avoid education is a costly mistake.
2. If you are motivated, distance ed schooling is cheap. UNISA cost for four year, quality B.S, in STEM is $5,000
3. No one is preventing you from a second job writing and doing research on the Internet as a consultant. Quit whining, get out your old textbooks and do some problem sets. And put the tv remote and video controller away, dude.
Credentialism is largely driven by HR people covering their ass. Just like IT people used to say in the 80's "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", HR people cover their asses by demanding credentials. Verifying those is like speeding enforcement: far easier to enforce/verify, easier for filling quota, and requiring a lot less dangerous "judgment".
"Don't blame me, he had the creds, if he's good enough for U of Whatever, he's good enough for me."
I despise HR. It's one of the reasons I'm looking at starting a business instead of trying for another job. My industry (visual effects) used to stick to esoteric interviewing procedures, such as checking to see if I could do the job (as opposed to asking stupid mindfuck questions where the manner of answer is more important that the actual response). Unfortunately, it's "maturing" and starting to sclerose into credentialism -- though the "creds" are still less about sheepskin and more about very narrow skills requirements with high experience requirements. There have been job postings asking for more years of experience with skill X than X has been on the market.
This is not strictly relevant to this post but it is to much that has appeared on "Captain Capitalism."
Amazon has announced a new program,"the Amazon Career Choice Program", "unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, we exclusively fund education only in areas that are well-paying and in high demand according to sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we fund those areas regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon."
Looks like people at Amazon have been reading "Worthless!"
Congrats!
"When I see ... I don't bother applying."
Naw just keep applying and make a case for yourself, unless a degree is legally required. You can still get the job if you know how to talk well and so on.
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