Re: ANNOUNCE: Vacant Job Positions

i offer this:

1. if your motivated, and a little intelligent, you will find a way to do what you want to do.
2. if your motivated, and you also go to college, youll be able to do what you want to do, and you will be able to impress both camps, those that need to see the degree, and those that do not, that you can and want to do it.
3. there are examples of duds, degreed and non-degreed.
4. there are examples of stars, degreed and non-degreed.
5. an incompetent interviewer will hire an incompetent candidate readily, regardless of the crutch signpost they want to see, like a degree (by the way, the best example of this is the fact that HR, the most incompetent group in a company to assess candidates, routinely put degree as a minimum on job desc., the irony is, that same group is paid to be just the opposite)
6. a competent interviewer can assess a candidate without regard to a degree, often finding a gem among the rejected.

6.5 a competent interviewer can also hire a dud, with an impressive background, degreed,
and experienced, but hiding the fact that they are hardcore anti-social, or have problems
with drugs.

7. a degree is an accomplishment one should achieve for the sake of it, those that do
it for show, or because they went for the myth that a degree will get them a dream job,
likely end up in sales anyway.

8. wozniak reputedly went on sabbatical at apple to get a degree, under an assumed name,
at berkely in EE. this, after he had already achieved far beyond degreed engineers years his
senior. he obviously did it for personal reasons, while in school he was already in a position
to never need a paid job for the rest of his life. nor would he be putting it on a resume.

9. likewise, some use not only the degree as an entry ticket, but will discriminate on the
school as well, i once worked for a VP stanford alumni who couldnt abide promoting anyone
who was not also a stanford alumni. people do make choices, most often on politically poor basis.

1. i hire people all the time, i am impressed by the degree, but most often i am shocked by the number of over degreed people applying for realitively meanial jobs. i have a guy working for me with a physics degree from MIT, and a columbia MBA combined who does Unix admin. he says it interests him, he has an IQ probably in the 170+ range, does not work in either field he has degrees in, and is an example more often the norm than the exception.
2. be careful that if you criticise the degreed, and you dont have a degree yourself, that it isnt based in sour grapes. likewise, be careful that if your degreed, and hiring people, that you dont pass over a non-degreed talent that could potentially blow your shop wide open with energy and ideas.