Education vs The Job

Flyin' Miata has a job posting, and reading it, I actually did a very similar job right after high school with my local Honda Motorcycle Dealership.

Yet the Flyin' Miata job description requires a Bachelors degree in any field.

Now it goes on to list, what I would consider, the meat and potatoes of what is actually required.

So why are businesses saying you have to have spent $16k (if you are from North Dakota and went to Bismarck State College (cheapest 4 year school in US according to US News and World Report)) on a job that the $16k would have been better spent buying a $3k Miata and modifying it for racing would have been a better education?

Now I am not picking on Flyin' Miata. It is a great company with great products and services. They help those kindred spirits that just want to see our beloved Answer do a little more than Hiroshima ever dreamed it would. I can do nothing but heap praise on everyone I have ever had dealings with from there.

I am questioning the American business and hiring model.

This practice seems to be the norm in most situations. Although I have noticed a high percentage of Grey Collar jobs (not all manual labor, not all desk, which is where I would put a massive amount of jobs today in) would be better served by a two year degree and an internship.

So what say you GRM? Is the hiring practice requiring a 4 year degree there for a particular reason, done by rote, or just laziness.

ATTENTION EDIT: Due to responses I want to re-state the point of this post.

Apparently me stating this is just an example wasn't clear enough...

THIS POST IN NO WAY HAS ANYTHING TO DIRECTLY DO WITH FLYIN' MIATAS' AD OTHER THAN IT WAS USED AS AN EXAMPLE.

You can go to Monster, Career Builder, or BillyBobsJobBoard.com.org and find this exact same set up.

The question is why is it required that a person come to you with a useless degree and thousands of dollars in debt in order to get a job that in all likelihood won't pay for said degree or will be very difficult to repay with that job and have any quality of life.

I think it's because HR isn't really that smart. Easy way to determine if you'll see something through to the end and can be teachable? Make sure they have a college degree that is of a level which would require the candidate to take multiple classes that "aren't fun". An Associate's is pretty much all hands on. Math requirements are normally low. Not many gen-ed classes. Degrees are also verifiable.

I'm in a somewhat odd situation of having a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering in Technology. Lots of companies do not respect this degree at all and I'm denied jobs because... I didn't take Calc III and Differential Equations? Calc I & II, that's close but no cigar? I blame this on HR departments not bothering to understand the degree. So similar song, different verse.

TL/DR: I blame Human Resources departments and practices.

In fm's case, they did say or equivalent. I think what they're trying to do is weed out the goobers. Now- I've seen the inside of a college...... When bringing my wife her crap she forgot. She has the degree in this house. However- and both her and I agree to this, I'm the more educated of the two of us. It just so happens my education comes in practical form, hands on, in the field, on the job, trial and error, what have you. While not listing a degree on my resume can be detrimental in most cases, it actually works in my favor. If a prospective employer values paper over intelligence and will hire a degree over me, chances are good that I don't want anything to do with them anyhow. Now- there is practical application to schooling (welding certs, diesel mechanic, etc) but that can also be demonstrated via practical application, apprenticeship and so on. It's just a matter of an employer seeing past the bs for the person.

Blame the record high joblessness over the last 6 years. HR needs to thin the herd as much as possible from the overwhelming applicants coming in.

I'm currently employed as a software engineer and I do a lot of sorting through job applicants for my team. All of our positions require at least a bachelors and I'll tell you that the difference between a bachelors from Podunk Community College and a top-tier school is massive. Where does no-degree, self-taught fall in that spectrum?

The better candidates are like a professional chef: if you give them some ingredients, they know how to put them together into a tasty meal without resorting to measuring cups or recipe books. As a cook, you can memorize a book full of recipes and get really good at making those recipes. Yet when I hand you a bag of ingredients and ask you to come up with something delicious, you try to fit those ingredients into a recipe that you know rather than using the ingredients as building blocks to something novel.

A line cook can become a great chef if they're learning about the fundamentals as they're assembling dishes day-in and day-out. But that takes significant effort that's not related to sending those dishes out to customers, so it's far more likely that they're just learning how to make that handful of recipes faster or with less waste.

That's my take: a bachelor's degree from a decent school teaches fundamental concepts and gives you some experience tying them together to solve a problem. In theory, you walk out with the ability to step into any kitchen, grab some ingredients, and use the tools available to you to make a successful meal.

Candidates without a degree more often know only how to solve the discrete set of problems they've encountered before. You put them in a foreign kitchen and they spend 30 minutes looking for a specific type of knife or complaining that they can't make anything at all without ingredient X.

I can see how in an R&D position like the one advertised by Flyin' Miata, you're going to need that ability to solve problems with what's in front of you.

madmallard wrote: Blame the record high joblessness over the last 6 years. HR needs to thin the herd as much as possible from the overwhelming applicants coming in.

That would make sense IF there were an overwhelming number of applicants. But in my field, there's a shortage.

I think the original requirement is there to determine how much responsibility one can be trusted with. Yes, I know many here can be trusted with a considerable amount. But you are to decide that based on what a person did in the past, since few companies have the luxury to get to know people over a long period of time. And ones starting their career has all of their education to list, and not much else.

Finishing a college degree is tough. And some degrees are tougher than others- so the more responsibility, the tougher the requirements for the degree. And that nets jobs that have more responsibility as part of it.

It is a filter, there's not question about that. And while it's not perfect, outside of an unpaid intern position, it's the best we have right now.

The next filters are GPA and where you went to school. Then what you did in school.

Rather than go into a long rant about the current state of higher education in general and liberal arts education in particular, I'll sum it up in two words: critical thinking.

A good liberal arts education teaches people to analyze information and form logically-derived conclusions across a variety of disciplines. This is a skill set that requires training in order to be performed effectively and consistently. I spend at least an hour on the first day of every single one of my 100-level courses explaining this - it helps students to understand why they are being told they have to take courses in which they have no particular interest.

With the current fad of standardized testing holding sway in the K-12 world, it's rare to get see college freshmen who have the foggiest notion of this sort of process. Any liberal arts school should be teaching the same basic skill set; the difference in results is in large part due to the quality of the faculty and their success in imparting critical thinking skills to their students.

From an employer's point of view, a degree should (as distinct from does) give some assurance that the candidate in question is capable of basic critical thinking and is able to use information in a directed, useful, and logical fashion. In reality, grade inflation and lowered standards have made a mockery of most degrees to the point that they are functionally meaningless as a means of vetting candidates (excepting a very limited number of institutions who suffer from the same problem, but started high enough on the ladder that they haven't sunk below the waves yet.)

peter wrote: I can see how in an R&D position like the one advertised by Flyin' Miata, you're going to need that ability to solve problems with what's in front of you.

Keith Tanner wrote: Education - Bachelor degree in ANY field

(just posted this way for convince, again not calling them out, this was just the quickest look up)

Please reconcile your statement with the one below, say with a degree in Fine Arts.

alfadriver wrote: The next filters are GPA and where you went to school. Then what you did in school.

Agree or not, this is the truth. I recently left the Italian branch of the big 3. It was amazing to me that as an over 30 individual, one of the first questions asked in interviews (both my inital hire in 2010 and later internal ones) was what my GPA was.

I also learned the best career move you can make is to go to the same school as the manager or VP you want to work under. Obviously Michigan amd Michigan State were important. If not there it better have been Ferris, Southern Illinois or Michigan Tech. Birds of a feather and all that jive. I think I was the only Ohio University grad in the whole place.

I was late in getting my bachelor's because I stupidly dropped out of college in 2000 and didnt go back until 2008 to graduate in 2010. When I was a dealer tech, everybody I asked advice from that worked for an OEM said to get a bachelor's in something. Without that, you will never get taken seriously.

A college degree is a standard of measurement. It shows you can complete something, even if it is unpleasant.

While it is obviously a mediocre standard of measurement, it's still a hell of a lot better than getting a bunch of people with zero official qualifications alone in a room trying to convince you they know what they are doing.

Most job apps use wording like "or equivalent work experience". That is not a requirement, it is an option.

And many businesses would much rather hire someone with "equivalent work experience" if they have the choice.

Some jobs are more rigid than others. Good luck getting a job on a military base if you do not have the required qualifications.

It's easy to say you are qualified without the degree when you have no idea what the qualifications or requirements of the job actually are.

I have a degree. It's a pretty worthless degree. I would be in a much better position if I had gotten the relevant degree I should have. And my 39 years in the workforce can't make up for that.

BTW:

I have spent several hours discussing business face to face with Keith Tanner.

I seriously doubt they are looking for someone who could have learned everything they need to know by buying a $3K Miata and going racing. You are seriously under estimating the meat of their business.

I realize you were not singling them out.

But my point is, you don't know what you don't know. If you are young enough to do it, get a diploma. If you are smart, it will be in engineering, or industrial design, or business, or marketing, or some other relevant field (NOT Theatrical Design, like mine).

THEN go buy your $3k Miata and go racing. You will then be qualified for all kinds of stuff you never imagined.

A degree is an investment in yourself. Whether you like it or not.

they probably just want someone that is so loaded down with school debt that they can't quit the job once they realize that it sucks..

perfect example: my employer has been having a hard time finding welders and machinists. they honestly think that it's because the job market is tough, but in reality no one wants to work there because they've heard that it sucks and the pay is on the lower end of the scale. i personally work there because the pay is ok for what i do and my level of experience and it's a 7 mile drive with a 4 day work week... anyways, instead of making the place better and making people want to work there, the owner decided to team up with 14 other companies from the area that have the same problems and partner with a tech school to have 16 week long courses in welding and "cnc machinery operations" (their wording, not mine...) for people right out of high school with no job experience. the students can defer paying for the course ($8,000 for the welding course, don't know about the cnc one) if they work for one of the partner companies. after 6 months, the employer starts deducting money out of their paychecks to pay for the schooling, with my boss making a 2% profit on the financing.. if they quit the job, they are on the hook for the unpaid balance.

it all seems well and good until you realize that neither of these programs are accredited in any way- the "degree" that they get only means anything at any of the 15 partner companies and they can't apply any credits towards a real school if they decided to go that way instead... so what they are essentially doing is recruiting kids directly out of school that don't know that they are being screwed over because they don't have any real world experience.. yeah, this will work out well in the long term...

In reply to SVreX:

Apparently me stating this is just an example wasn't clear enough...

THIS POST IN NO WAY HAS ANYTHING TO DIRECTLY DO WITH FLYIN' MIATAS' AD OTHER THAN IT WAS USED AS AN EXAMPLE.

You can go to Monster, Career Builder, or BillyBobsJobBoardofNosePickingMouthBreathersAndSheepAficionados.com.org and find this exact same set up.

The question is why is it required that a person come to you with a useless degree and thousands of dollars in debt in order to get a job that in all likelihood won't pay for said degree or will be very difficult to repay with that job and have any quality of life.

Now to deal directly with your drift.

You are telling me taking a $3k Miata racing and meeting other Miata racers and everything else racing includes would not be more beneficial than a Fine Arts degree? I find that a stretch. A long, unobtainable stretch.

I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a degree in Psych. One of those is worth it's weight in gold, the other is a fun conversation starter at parties. The two together make an interesting job interview. Engineering is actually listed as one of the few degrees that is actually worth what is paid. It has an ROI that most don't, at least not in a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable employment rate.

Sorry to pop on you but you aren't the first person to post directly about FM.

In reply to Flight Service:

The thing is, I don't know if there's such a thing as a "useless degree", just degrees that are not as applicable as others to a specific job or task.

In reply to pres589:

I have met Masters of Electrical Engineering grads I wouldn't trust to change the batteries in their own calculator. Useless person with a degree from a ranked university in a field that is known to be worth something. There is something to be said about useless people gaming the system. That acknowledged...

It is true that most degrees have some merit, but like everything, there are useless degrees. Unless you count filling out a check box on an HR form taking it out of the useless category.

The amount of disdain, conjecture, and hyperbole in this thread regarding education............absolutely stinks of people with no college education.

/troll

In reply to Flight Service:

Can you name a "useless degree"? And the MS EE screwups are people, not a screwed up degree. That's a personal judgement. Just like I could say I've worked at NASA and leave out the part about being a screw up there and getting bounced out. Still worked at NASA!

note: I never worked at NASA, this is just an example, I've screwed up in other exciting locations instead.

pres589 wrote: In reply to Flight Service: Can you name a "useless degree"? And the MS EE screwups are people, not a screwed up degree. That's a personal judgement. Just like I could say I've worked at NASA and leave out the part about being a screw up there and getting bounced out. Still worked at NASA! note: I never worked at NASA, this is just an example, I've screwed up in other exciting locations instead.

Now NASA is a unique place... (kidding I just thought I would go along with some of the other posts ;) )

I would say a BA in Fine Arts or Liberal Arts are a good examples. Other than saying you graduated college it has no merit. It isn't high enough to teach (Masters) and really can't claim any application in the real world. English Lit and Philosophy both come to mind as almost useless but I can think of some practical applications of those.

z31maniac wrote: The amount of disdain, conjecture, and hyperbole in this thread regarding education............absolutely stinks of people with no college education. /troll

Define Education.... /Iliketotrolltoo

Flight Service wrote: In reply to pres589: I have met Masters of Electrical Engineering grads I wouldn't trust to change the batteries in their own calculator. Useless person with a degree from a ranked university in a field that is known to be worth something. There is something to be said about useless people gaming the system. That acknowledged... It is true that most degrees have some merit, but like everything, there are useless degrees. Unless you count filling out a check box on an HR form taking it out of the useless category.

Also, I'm not really sure your first example means anything.

We had a damn smart Masters of ME at my last job. Didn't know how to change his oil (from pakistan, didn't grow up with car culture, turning wrenches, etc). Could he design the E36 M3 out of some stuff that worked great? Take existing designs and design cost out AND reliability into them, you're damn right he could.

Flight Service wrote:

z31maniac wrote: The amount of disdain, conjecture, and hyperbole in this thread regarding education............absolutely stinks of people with no college education. /troll

Define Education.... /Iliketotrolltoo

I did, by prefacing it with college. A college education.

I'll wait for you to look up preface............

Flight Service wrote:

peter wrote: I can see how in an R&D position like the one advertised by Flyin' Miata, you're going to need that ability to solve problems with what's in front of you.

Keith Tanner wrote: Education - Bachelor degree in ANY field

(just posted this way for convince, again not calling them out, this was just the quickest look up) Please reconcile your statement with the one below, say with a degree in Fine Arts.

I'm a no-E36 M3 fine-arts major.

What 02Pilot says about liberal arts education is spot on. I would much rather hire a fine-arts major from a liberal arts college than a lot of the folks I interview who have never had to do any critical thinking, despite their diploma.

Last summer, I interviewed and hired a philosophy major as my summer intern. When it came to solving our interview problems, she ran circles around the kids who did only programming coursework. She also demonstrated the ability to express her thoughts clearly and succinctly. The decision was a no-brainer.

Going back to the original point, there are actually two questions here:

Is experience equivalent to a degree? It depends 100% on the person and the amount, kind, and quality of work they did outside of the rote.

Are all degrees comparable? Not at all.

Both are very difficult to answer by reading a resume. Eliminating the first question may take some fine applicants out of the pool, but also removes a huge number of unqualified candidates. I spend up to 30 minutes in the initial phone screen with a candidate. I'd roughly estimate that 10% make it to the next round. Diluting the applicant pool just doesn't make sense.

z31maniac wrote:

Flight Service wrote:

z31maniac wrote: The amount of disdain, conjecture, and hyperbole in this thread regarding education............absolutely stinks of people with no college education. /troll

Define Education.... /Iliketotrolltoo

I did, by prefacing it with college. A college education. I'll wait for you to look up preface............

I understood you were talking about 13-16 grades, I just meant define "education" I understood your preface, you didn't understand my subject.

peter wrote:

Flight Service wrote:

peter wrote: I can see how in an R&D position like the one advertised by Flyin' Miata, you're going to need that ability to solve problems with what's in front of you.

Keith Tanner wrote: Education - Bachelor degree in ANY field

(just posted this way for convince, again not calling them out, this was just the quickest look up) Please reconcile your statement with the one below, say with a degree in Fine Arts.

I'm a no-E36 M3 fine-arts major. What 02Pilot says about liberal arts education is spot on. I would much rather hire a fine-arts major from a liberal arts college than a lot of the folks I interview who have never had to do any critical thinking, despite their diploma. Last summer, I interviewed and hired a philosophy major as my summer intern. When it came to solving our interview problems, she ran circles around the kids who did only programming coursework. She also demonstrated the ability to express her thoughts clearly and succinctly. The decision was a no-brainer. Going back to the original point, there are actually two questions here: Is experience equivalent to a degree? It depends 100% on the person and the amount, kind, and quality of work they did outside of the rote. Are all degrees comparable? Not at all. Both are very difficult to answer by reading a resume. Eliminating the first question may take some fine applicants out of the pool, but also removes a huge number of unqualified candidates. I spend up to 30 minutes in the initial phone screen with a candidate. I'd roughly estimate that 10% make it to the next round. Diluting the applicant pool just doesn't make sense.

yeah the Philosophy guys always helped us out with the human factors questions and tests we did. Philosophy has it's place.

That is why I wouldn't put them in the same boat.

I guess to be succinct about my question is this: Why do companies require a generic bachelors degree for people to be qualified for a job?

"I would say a BA in Fine Arts or Liberal Arts are a good examples. Other than saying you graduated college it has no merit."

Yeah...... never mind. Just keep berking that chicken.