Tag / learning and development

by Nathan Coumbe

On the frivolousness of educational requirements in job postings (Part 2 of “Same job, different pay”)

I anticipated some of the pushback I’d receive from yesterday’s post, and I wanted to address it here.

Some might argue that certain jobs require graduate or other advanced education to obtain them. And I agree some should: I’d much rather have a surgeon who went to medical school operate on me than one who learned from YouTube.

And we’re all better off with engineers who went to school for the subject than relying on amateurs to build our bridges.

But doctors, engineers, nurses, and other “professional” roles all require specialized education simply to learn and carry out the basics of their jobs.1

This isn’t the reality for many knowledge or service sector jobs, which comprise a significant portion of our modern workforce. However, you might point out that many of these jobs require a college or even graduate education, as indicated in their job postings. Isn’t that at odds with what I’m saying?

No—because these jobs don’t actually need you to have a degree. It’s a tool to keep you from applying for them.

Hiring managers simply use that to make their lives easier and weed out 90% of otherwise qualified applicants without ever having to look at their applications. It reduces their workload.

For the vast majority of us working in the knowledge sector, a college education neither prepares us for specific jobs, such as those professional jobs listed previously, nor does it actually equip us with most of the skills required for knowledge work. We learn on the job and through self-education.

You don’t need a master’s degree in computer science from MIT to work as a software developer. You simply need to know how to program (and be damn good at it). You can learn on Codecademy or attend a bootcamp, gaining enough knowledge to get a job. You’ll have to learn the specifics of the role when you start working, anyway.

I work in learning and development, so I’m somewhat biased in my thinking on this. The shift in L&D now is toward skills-based training and qualifications. Essentially, we’re trying to answer this question:

Leaving aside formal education, what specific skills does a person either need to possess—or need to learn—to be qualified for this specific job?

You don’t consider their past college education (or lack thereof); you only consider what they’re capable of. This approach doesn’t harm people who attend school for specific fields because, as long as they’re qualified by their skills, they can still get the job. However, it also doesn’t prevent those who didn’t attend a formal school, but who do possess the necessary skills, from securing work for which they’re qualified.

Again, why do we need someone who is applying for a job in marketing or customer success to have a college degree? If they have the skill, or can learn it outside of a university, shouldn’t that be enough?

For most knowledge work jobs, it’s simply ridiculous to require a college degree (and I have two of them, neither of which I’ve ever used in my knowledge work jobs).

So I suppose I’m arguing two things:

  1. Eliminate degree requirements for most jobs.
  2. Pay the same wages (and good ones) for the same work, regardless of educational background or years of experience.2

Only the quality and the results of the work should matter. Not how much education someone has.

And for God’s sake, not based on how good someone is at negotiating. Not everyone is comfortable negotiating salaries or demanding raises, especially when they think their boss will just fire them and hire someone cheaper if they try.

We are obsessed with meritocracy in this country, often to our detriment. And we obsess over it in such a way that it harms people who may be just as capable at a job as someone else, but who don’t have the courage or the skills to negotiate with someone in a position of power above them.

Does this mean that I think another L&D specialist at my company who hypothetically started today should make the same amount of money I make after nearly four years of raises?

Absolutely, I believe that. But I’ll save that rant for Part 3 tomorrow.

  1. I have a holdup about including lawyers in this list for one very specific reason: Until sometime in the 20th century, you did not have to go to law school to practice law. You simply needed to pass the bar exam for the state(s) in which you intended to practice.

    Walter Gordon, a native of my home state of Mississippi (who was one of the main characters in Band of Brothers), passed the bar exam after the war while still in law school and was allowed to practice even without his diploma.

    At some point, law schools realized they could make a lot more money if they collaborated with the American Bar Association to require would-be lawyers to attend their schools, thereby creating a somewhat arbitrary barrier to entry into the field.

    Are lawyers who attend law school objectively better off? I don’t know, nor do I feel qualified to say. However, it does seem similar to what we encounter in knowledge work job searches.

    Are all hiring managers part of some cabal to make it difficult to get jobs? No. It’s simply easier for them and also just “how things are done around here.” The status quo is the status quo for a reason. ↩︎
  2. What if someone in the same role as someone else is objectively better at the job than the other person? Personally, I believe this issue can be easily resolved with bonuses or commissions.

    I don’t mean paying people crappy wages and hoping that they’ll make it up in bonuses (looking at you, restaurants paying servers $2.13 an hour). I mean that if two people are doing the same job, but one of them has been outstanding for just one quarter or year or whatever, pay that person some sort of bonus to show your appreciation.

    But don’t punish the other person who is doing good work—to spec, doing what needs to be done and is asked of her—by paying her less for arbitrary reasons. ↩︎
by Nathan Coumbe

Self-education is great. Self-education is limiting.

When I was 18, I auditioned to become a jazz studies major in the percussion department at the University of Southern Mississippi.

I’d been a musician for most of my life, taking my first lessons at the age of seven and attending one of the state’s best arts schools for a significant portion of my education.

But… I’d studied violin, piano, and voice. I was a completely self-taught drummer. I’d learned everything I knew from playing along to my favorite CDs and watching videos of my favorite drummers, trying to emulate them.

The audition did not go well. Dr. Wooton, the head of the department, asked me to play a ratamacue; I had no idea what that was.1

He asked me to play a G Major scale on his marimba. I remember exactly what I said: “Is it laid out like a piano keyboard?” He chuckled. “Yes, just like a piano.” I picked up a marimba mallet (I’d never held one) and slowly, painfully, pecked out a G Major scale with one hand.

Finally, he asked to see my drum set skills. Dread gave way to excitement… Until he asked me to play a Songo. I had no clue what that was. He asked for a Samba, a 2nd-Line… I just shook my head.

Finally, he asked for a bossa nova. “THAT ONE I KNOW!” I shouted. And I proceeded to demolish his drums like a metalhead on PCP playing the worst bossa nova ever attempted by a drummer.

“NO!” He said. “It’s a light and airy dance music. You play it like this.” And he sat behind the drums and tapped out something a Brazilian native would have happily danced along with.

Dr. Wooton, eventually and probably grudgingly, told me that he would take me into his studio, but that I desperately needed lessons. I decided to delay my entrance to USM by a year while I studied snare drum, drum set, and xylophone with a local private teacher (Jeff Mills, drummer for the blues musician you see in “O, Brother Where Art Thou”).

My skills under Jeff’s tutelage, buoyed by my preexisting musical knowledge, grew exponentially in just a year. I was able to audition again and even pass an audition to join the lower-level jazz band at the university, where I eventually earned a degree.

Why does this story come up now?

Well, I realized a couple of days ago that I’m once again back in the exact same place, but this time in my corporate career.

I work in learning and development for a moderate-sized corporation. And I genuinely feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.

There’s even a term for people like me in the industry: “Accidental trainer.” It’s someone who was really good at teaching, who moved into the corporate world and began implementing those same skills as a trainer… With no formal training.

L&D is its own beast, its own field with tons of nuance. And you need skills ranging from business strategy and project management to adult learning theory, instructional design, and cognitive psychology… Not to mention a penchant for being able to cajole, persuade, and sell to people above you.

Everything I’ve learned has been through on-the-job self-education to accomplish a project or do a task assigned to me. However, I’ve reached a point, much like in my audition, where the cracks in my education (or lack thereof) are starting to show.

It’s getting harder and harder to do my work well because everything is more complex than ever before. More is expected of me, and I worry I’m not up to it where I am today.

So the solution is education: actual education by people who know what they’re doing… Not random readings and YouTube videos. I need a new Jeff Mills for my learning and development career (and don’t worry—I have found something.)

At some point, I think we all discover that self-education and learning on the job aren’t enough to accomplish what’s being asked of us. We need a teacher, a mentor, a master to show us the way. Something, or someone, that knows the ins and outs of the field of study and can help us master it.

If you’ve reached this point, I hope you’ll try to find someone like that to help you level up.

  1. I later found out it was one of his favorite rudiments (sort of a “word” in the language of drumming), and it quickly became mine. If you want to see a master using them, check out this video. ↩︎