Would you hire someone who spent $125K on an umimpressive bachelor's degree?

For complete disclosure:
1. 5 years in the music industry as a performance artist.
2. 2 years in the law enforcement industry as a bail enforcement/repo guy.
3. 4 years as a contract IT trainer
4. 15 years in IT Service Delivery and general consulting. (both as a FTE and entrepreneur)
5. Currently looking to get into academia.

So while your statement is accurate I've gotten enough dirt under my nails to have a wider view of the world than your statement suggests. (and please don't take that the wrong way, I've just been here long enough and seen the same questions enough to be able to understand the reason the questions are asked.)

 

The only reason I asked you the question was because I was curious, again not to attack. It's usually HR people in those fields that are most stolidly against online degrees. I was wondering if there was a correlation. If the people from those schools have turned out to be less than you expect, I don't blame you for your opinion.

 

No worries then, and thank you for the explanation. Obviously I've been visited by the aggression fairy today.

 

Perhaps I'm "old school", but I judge people on their character & performance, not their pedigree.

I've met Harvard Law graduates who I wouldn't trust with sharp scissors, and I've worked with some police officers that barely graduated high school who were some of the wisest men I've ever encountered in my life.

 

.. and within the context of actually having the ability to know what a person's performance actually is, I agree with you. However, to keep things in context, an interview presumes you don't know the person you're interviewing and can't necessarily be privy to their real performance over time.

Now if you want to talk about hiring outcomes, yes I agree with your anecdote. But like anything else, quality ingredients more often lead to quality outcomes. It's never a guarantee though.

Off topic: What I love most about this community is that we have such a wide array of educated and intelligent people that can't seem to add to a discussion without the focus of the original point made being lost. If we all agreed to stay on point, half of the discussion would disappear.

 

and half of the fun

 

As I said, I don't and probably never will interview people for employment, but in my current world (police officer), we have a thing called "probation" where a n00b can be fired for anything and everything, with no right of appeal. Pack your stuff for the duffel bag drag out the door.

The main problem I see with employment interviews is relying on the recommendations of their current employer. How many times has a glowing recommendation been given because the current employer can't wait to get rid of the employee and foist them on someone else?

 

I do a whole lot of interviewing and the person's educational background is the least important bit of information on the resume for us.
Now that I am more degree focused, I do look at it, but most of the resumes I get have so many spelling, grammar, punctuation and layout errors that even though the candidate has a masters degree in computer science from a brick and mortar school, I don't hold that degree in such high regard.
Then comes the technical interview. Most of the time the candidate has a technology on his resume that he actually never used. When asked by HR, he says he has experience with JSF, for example. Then when I come in to tech interview him, JSF was suddenly a technology that other people used at his former job and he cannot answer any questions about it.

So I know that certain schools like UOP stand out and annoy some managers, most of the degrees I see come from other countries and I have no idea of the academic rigor or cost of those schools.

So I don't think the degree matters so much in my field.

 

Most places have a probationary period. My understanding of the law enforcement system is that new employees to police forces have already gone through academy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that in your system, if a noob screws up and gets fired during probation, you'd just be able to dial up another academy grad with high marks on his civil service exam.

In the corporate world if I screw up on a hire based on the interview process.
1. They usually get trained on the clock for at least a couple months.
2. They usually get entrenched into a project that I needed them for in the first place.
3. If I gong them my project gets hosed until I hire a replacement.
4. Hiring that replacement takes time out of my schedule.
5. If I don't cross all my Ts and dot all my Is I could find it very hard to get rid of someone even if they're on probation because of Mass employment law. "Employment At-Will" doesn't count for much.

So probation isn't the solution in my case. The solution is not hiring someone if there's any doubt of their ability and when trying to assess ability, the ability to learn, adapt and jump through hoops matters. (amongst a bunch of other things.)

The main problem I see with recommendations is qualifying the recommender. Most companies will only provide a reference that confirms the person has worked there, for how long and their operating title. Because of this any real recommendation gotten from a person is already operating against company policy and you have to confirm that the person you're getting the recommendation from actually was the applicant's super.

The best interviews are technical ones. Sit a coder down with your best programmer for an hour to work through a problem with him. You'll end up with a much more certain decision on the candidate.

Two cents.

 

I find it hard to determine if someone is a good developer by interview alone. You often have to hire them and then let them go a little later on if they don't cut it. There is just not enough time during the interview process and in my field, where English is a second language for 90% of the applicants, you get very little high quality communication in a one hour interview. So you end up hiring someone who you think may be able to do the job but you really don't know until two months into it.

 

I agree with Steve on this one. Take me for example. I graduated from a small, private, Catholic, University in Miami, FL. The cost for attending this particular school was, at least at the time when I went, $27,000 a year, this figure includes tuition and room & board. However, I did not pay full price, why? Because of grants, and scholarship money. I had $4500 grant money every year from the federal government and the state of Florida as well, then the school gave me a 75% scholarship, plus a few more scholarships here in there (Believe me every little bit helps). My total out-of-pocket expense for my undergrad education, $5600 and change. Which has been paid btw, thus, allowing me to graduate with no loans and no debt whatsoever. With regards to my graduate degree, well, Uncle Sam is paying for that one. Again, no loan and no debt. So you see, in paper, I have two degrees that when you add them together equals $150,000 in education investment. However, my out-of-pocket was nowhere near this amount.

 

Great job not racking up debt.

But if everyone received $100K in public grants for their education paid for by others, this country would be in terrible shape financially. Lets hope that not everyone qualifies for grants like these.
I know I did not qualify for a single grant due to my sex, ethnicity and the fact that my parents both had middle class jobs.

 

I never said that I received $100K in grant money, please read carefully before you make any judgement. I stated that I received $4500 in grant money per year for 4 years, so that is $18K in grant money, not the $100K you stated. The other amount came from the school directly, not one more penny came from the government. The school gave me the money due to my grades. Again, a private school giving scholarship money based on grades, not sex, age, ethnicity or anything else. By the way my parents had their own business, so they could have paid for the school, however, I got the money due to my academic records, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Good job. You are the polar opposite of those who go into heavy debt for a questionable degree.

 

Thank you SurfDoctor, I had to work my butt off for those scholarships. I had to maintain an overall 3.5 GPA in order to continue to receive those funds. I was accepted and had the opportunity to go to more expensive schools, however, their financial aid package was nowhere near what Barry was giving me. So I had to chose, either go to a more expensive school and graduate with a butt load of loans and debt? Or go to Barry for next to nothing, well to me the choice was clear. For those of you that have kids that are ready to go to college, and they will take the traditional route, shop around. If you have the grades, have the schools come to you, and chose one that gives you the best financial package. Also, apply for scholarships, hell, I applied to well over 50 scholarships, did I get them all? Of course not, however, the ones I did took a huge chunk of my debt. You will be surprised how many people are lazy, and do not file for those scholarships. The money is there, you just have to work for it, it will not come to you.

For graduate school I'm using my Post 9/11 GI-Bill to pay for it. I should be done with my masters degree in May 2012. And if there is money left over in the GI-Bill I will pursue a second masters degree.

 

Very impressive. What sort of GPA does a young person need to qualify for those scholarships? My daughter and some of her friends are looking into that sort of thing.

 

Hi SurfDoctor, and thank you. My high school GPA was 4.25 weighted, I don't know how they came up with the number. I took several AP and honor classes while in high school as well. This helped tremendously, as some of them gave me college credit. After my first year in college, I had to keep a 3.5 GPA to continue to receive 75% of my scholarship. A 3.0 GPA would have netted me 50% and anything below 3.0 zip, nada. Check with the school and find out what the original requirements are, and the continuation requirements as well. Many schools will initially, give you tons of cash, however, in order to keep the money you have to meet their GPA criteria. Also with regards to grants, check your state. Take Florida for example, Florida has a grant called FRAG (Florida Resident's Access Grant). This grant is given to Florida residents if they attend a private college in the state of Florida. The grant varies each year, when I went to school the grant was $3,000 a year, not sure what it is right now. The point is, have your daughter find out if your state has such grants. Also, check scholarships with the school's financial aid office, they should have a list of all available scholarships. Also, what degree does your daughter want to pursue? There is a buck load of money available if she wants to go into science, math, or engineering, schools are pretty much paying girls to go into the STEM fields.

Also, there are scholarships for female, for minorities, basically pretty much for anything, the key is looking for them and applying.

 

Here is another gem - my wife went to a community college, now Florida State College, and was a member of PTK. There are scholorships available for graduates when they more on to a 4 year school. Some are fully paid scholorships. Here is another link - http://www.ptk.org/benefits/scholarships

When you become a member of PTK you get an id number and you can see exactly what each school offers.

 

Good point. It could get worse though. There are far too many sitting on the sidelines waiting for a handout from the rest who are in the game.