in reply to Suit-ism, youth-ism

The manager (~40, former big name firm employee) refused to interview her, saying she's just a young college grad. He preferred someone more "experiened."

Although I would frown upon the manager's decision and his reason, it brings up a fairly good point. It is becoming less and less important for places of employment to judge someone based on their college degrees, (including certifications, to a point). As someone who didn't go to college, I've found myself on the other end of that once or twice. But it was only by the stuffy, self-important interviewer in the HR department who knew nothing about the job therefor nothing about how my skills would be beneficial to the position. Whenever I talk to the actual people who are doing the job, I have no trouble at all. We geekspeak for a bit and they can tell I'm the real deal.

(On the hr interviewer... I was eventually recruited directly by the manager of the department in question. The hr person was let go in less than a year after that. I don't normally take pleasure in someone else's plight, but when someone looks down their nose at you like a disdainful waste of time, well, it rubs some folks the wrong way.)

Word of mouth seems to be a great way to get noticed in this industry. Has that been anyone else's experience as well?

~~
naChoZ

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Re: Re: Suit-ism, youth-ism
by kutsu (Priest) on Jul 25, 2003 at 15:17 UTC

    I find it hard to even get to an interview with anyone without a degree (which I'm earning at the moment), as I suspect that most applications without a degree on them are tossed, which I don't disapprove of since there proably were may applicates and little time to fill the slot so selection must be hurried in some way. I just sent an email and real letter to my current boss, and the letter impressed him just enough to interview/hire me. By the way I was 19 then will be 20 soon :).

    "Pain is weakness leaving the body, I find myself in pain everyday" -me

[reply]
      I suspect that most applications without a degree on them are tossed

      It's applications without any proof of experience that get tossed. A degree will help - but so will a few years in the industry :-)

[reply]
      kutsu my post is off topic, but I didn't want you to worry too much. I live in the UK and my mother spent 2 years telling me I'd never get anywhere without a degree.

      I failed my first attempt, and quit after a week on my second. Three years later, Im leaving 3rd level tech support for a hardware giant to work for a major london finance house, supporting in-house software, where the big money is.

      For both positions, I was interviewed by a technical person, and the impresion that I get, is that no one in the technical side of things gives a monkeys about degrees, just your abilities. If you can prove those, and the guy with 3 degrees can't, the job is yours.


      Smitz

[reply]
        I was interviewed by a technical person, and the impresion that I get, is that no one in the technical side of things gives a monkeys about degrees, just your abilities.

        I do agree with smitz that abilities are more important than degrees - but saying that employers don't care about degrees is a bit strong in my experience.

        It does depend on the position of course, but sometimes having a degree is a very good indicator that you have the skills. It's also an indicator that the person involved can do something solid for three years (not saying that those without degrees can't - but having the degree acts as some supporting evidence).

        If I'm looking at the resume of somebody with no commercial experience I'm going to give more weight to it if they have a decent CS degree. Since you only have finite resources when hiring and can see only so many people, not having a degree may mean you don't get on that vital interview list.

        Also, in a tight job market, some employers use them as simple filters. No degree and your resume doesn't get past HR. Three years ago the job market was a lot better than it is now.

[reply]
Re: Re: Suit-ism, youth-ism
by dga (Hermit) on Jul 25, 2003 at 16:28 UTC

    Word of mouth seems to be a great way to get noticed in this industry. Has that been anyone else's experience as well?

    My experience with being hired is that I don't even see HR until my first week of work to fill out paperwork, so I would say in my case word of mouth is everything.

    Also note that I was stably employed before the downturn and am still with the same employer so YMMV in the current situation.

[reply]

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