The irony of the US economy: no jobs and no one to hire

Re:The irony of the US economy: no jobs and no one to hire by Multiplayer on Sunday November 14, 2010 @11:39AM (#1903513)

I never understand the hiring requirement of a degree for a startup - that is a silly way to hold your company back. The best coders and designers I have worked with have either had no degree or have an irrelevant degree. Skilled people with sharp minds will train themselves to do the things that interest them.

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Re:The irony of the US economy: no jobs and no one to hire by davidamcclain on Sunday November 14, 2010 @11:57AM (#1903555)

I'm a self taught designer/developer, not a genius but pretty competent with some useful skills. No CS or Art/Design degree so a lot of companies (start-ups included) will dismiss me out of hand rather than for my own merits and failings. And as the saying goes, I know some really dumb people with some pretty great degrees.

I agree there's value to a degree (any and all degrees I mean) and there's certainly some painful ineptitudes in my self-taught skills which I might not have if I did a CS or Art/Design degree. My point is that just requiring a degree seems somewhat arbitrary. It doesn't tell you if I scraped through and don't really understand the subject or if I'm the next Woz. It doesn't tell you if I know how to ship or if I'll need constant hand-holding for the next few years.

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Re:The irony of the US economy: no jobs and no one to hire by aphexairlines on Sunday November 14, 2010 @06:12PM (#1904512)

300 resumes arrive in your inbox and you need to narrow those down to a few, since you don't want to spend all your time interviewing. Are you more likely to prefer the ones who have been vetted already? Probably.

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