Tied into this thread, we've all been fed a convenient mythology about credentialism - that you need a specific string of letters after your name in order to cross the threshold of employability....
Tied into this thread, we've all been fed a convenient mythology about credentialism - that you need a specific string of letters after your name in order to cross the threshold of employability.
When a large pool of unemployed workers is competing for a smaller pool of jobs, it's easy to select arbitrary criteria just to keep the applicant pool manageable, and hopefully improve the quality of your workforce without paying for training - for example, do you really need a CIS degree and multiple years of experience for a level-1 developer job? When there is a better balance between jobs and workers, some of those arbitrary criteria mysteriously vanish.
I've had mixed experiences, both with highly credentialed people and people with few formal qualifications. The most important indicators of successful performance have been intangible psychological factors - things like curiosity, tenacity, internal locus of control, equanimity, craftsmanship, collegiality, diligence, passion for meaning through service to others.
People who've cultivated these qualities can usually master anything thrown at them, but they're not on academic curricula, nor are they things you can get certificates for, and they're generally not part of official corporate hiring criteria (unless you're Google, and then you still need the credentials).
Unfortunately, these are the same qualities blunted by long-term underemployment and burnout.
Tied into this thread, we've all been fed a convenient mythology about credentialism - that you need a specific string of letters after your name in order to cross the threshold of employability.
When a large pool of unemployed workers is competing for a smaller pool of jobs, it's easy to select arbitrary criteria just to keep the applicant pool manageable, and hopefully improve the quality of your workforce without paying for training - for example, do you really need a CIS degree and multiple years of experience for a level-1 developer job? When there is a better balance between jobs and workers, some of those arbitrary criteria mysteriously vanish.
I've had mixed experiences, both with highly credentialed people and people with few formal qualifications. The most important indicators of successful performance have been intangible psychological factors - things like curiosity, tenacity, internal locus of control, equanimity, craftsmanship, collegiality, diligence, passion for meaning through service to others.
People who've cultivated these qualities can usually master anything thrown at them, but they're not on academic curricula, nor are they things you can get certificates for, and they're generally not part of official corporate hiring criteria (unless you're Google, and then you still need the credentials).
Unfortunately, these are the same qualities blunted by long-term underemployment and burnout.