When I've worked with non-PhDs in a science environment, it's the rigorous breakdown of experimental approach that's often missing. Unless the individual had a really strong track record demonstrating this skill, I'd heavily favor PhDs for biotech/science positions on a leadership track.
That said, I'm quite biased, have to justify the years I lost somehow :)
Moreover, I only have a bachelor's, but I had 6 years of training and humiliating embarrassments from those 30% of people, which I believe strongly contributed to my experimental rigor. I dont know that every person with a PhD has dealt with that kind of pain and would be biased against people that haven't dealt with that pain.
I’d also say that 30% is still not a bad ratio and better than most training sources on average.
Still it’s not a perfect screen by any means.
I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of fuckyou money. Its a different number for different people.
Say that number is 5. I will give you many examples below. Every example is a real living person. I personally know every one of these people.
(enterprise programmer in stodgy bank in usa) 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5
(enterprise programmer in stodgy bank in poor country) 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + ... + 0.5 = 5
( steady progress in startup until faang acquired it) 0.5 + 0.8 + 1.2 + 1.2 + 1.3 + 6 > 5
( many failed startups in valley until 1 success) 0.5 + 0.8 + -2 + 0.5 + 0.7 + -2 + 0.5 + 20 >> 5
( phd student whose invention was purchased by salesforce ) 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 15 >> 5
( phd student who ended up in fang ) 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 2 + 3 > 5
etc.
I suppose it might not work out in such a way for all research though. I was lucky enough that my coursework left me with enough math and statistical skills to either learn or fake my way through most relevant math intensive computing stuff while my actual work was things like parallel optimization schemes for neural network training (and lots of programming in the big frameworks)
- I made more on my first day of work than almost any of my professors will make on their last day work.
- I also personally know 3 PhDs at tech companies in the Bay that make substantially less than me despite being 4-6 years older than me.
- I am also acquainted with two people that made an obscene amount of money from their tech skills; one maxed out at a high diploma and the other a PhD.
- The other 20 or so PhDs I know don't make substantially more than I do.
- I've also seen a few PhDs at my last company end up as systems engineers which is incredibly depressing because they could have been employed in that same role if they stopped at a bachelors.
It’s only depressing if they feel like they didn’t get anything out of their PhD :)
I dare you to write a study to excavate and delineate the potential effects of this bias on hiring.
I had never thought about degrees in those terms, but that feels like a surprisingly terse and accurate description. Thanks!
In undergrad I had a really nice meta course called GEOG 100: On Becoming a Geographer. Loved it. One slide I remember was that a bachelor's was becoming acquainted with the discipline. A master's is to become an expert in a domain. And a PhD is to drill deep into a domain and uncover something new.
Breadth vs. depth basically.
Of course you can learn things without this structure, but having a phd is a reasonable short hand for ability in independent innovation, perhaps companies lean on it a bit much, but that is not unique to phds.
The main problem I've had bridging phd's to commercial work is hitting the right focus on skill development in areas that were deficient/missing in their course of study. A classic example, a lot of technical phds who have programmed every day for many years ... are not skilled programmers. They can become so, but have to want to learn (and not dismiss it as "trivial")