Credentialism is good because the limiting factor on employment is trust, not talent for most credential requiring positions (white collar, buisness and engineering work).
Universities are bad at teaching skills, but generate trust and social capital.
Trust that allows the system to underwrite new white collar workers to do things that might lose buisnesses lots of money is important and expensive.
Consequently you get credential requirements, because there is no test other than years of being in social systems that can tell you that a person has the ability to go 4 years without crashing out (which is the key skill).
Additionally, going to university has become a class signifier, and all classes wish they were bigger and more prominent.
The alternative to credentialism is selection, or real meritocracy.
The alternative to credentialism is not selection, it is hiring your buddies, hiring by visible factors, and hiring randomly. Most business are not that guy that they can run a competitive selective process (THOSE ARE REALLY EXPENSIVE).
“universities provide to employers is the ability to confirm you are clever, driven, and have relevant skills” is false. They provide that you are a member of the professional class that is not going to do stupid things that lose money/generate risk.
Fundamentally, this misunderstands the purpose of the degree to the hiring bureaucracy, and the political economy behind it.
And how exactly are universities a good signifier of that? Note I took an external degree from the university of London, which even if universities were a good signifier of that, this one definitely wasn’t, and it did not in any way impact my ability to get a job. Noone cared.
You don’t know what questions they did not ask you, and the assumptions of shared cultural background that they made because they saw that. They would not tell you. (unless you have comparisons to job searching before getting the degree).
Fundamentally, this is the expected phenomenology, since people do not tend to notice sources of your own status.
Credentialism is good because the limiting factor on employment is trust, not talent for most credential requiring positions (white collar, buisness and engineering work).
Universities are bad at teaching skills, but generate trust and social capital.
Trust that allows the system to underwrite new white collar workers to do things that might lose buisnesses lots of money is important and expensive.
Consequently you get credential requirements, because there is no test other than years of being in social systems that can tell you that a person has the ability to go 4 years without crashing out (which is the key skill).
Additionally, going to university has become a class signifier, and all classes wish they were bigger and more prominent.
The alternative to credentialism is selection, or real meritocracy.
The alternative to credentialism is not selection, it is hiring your buddies, hiring by visible factors, and hiring randomly. Most business are not that guy that they can run a competitive selective process (THOSE ARE REALLY EXPENSIVE).
“universities provide to employers is the ability to confirm you are clever, driven, and have relevant skills” is false. They provide that you are a member of the professional class that is not going to do stupid things that lose money/generate risk.
Fundamentally, this misunderstands the purpose of the degree to the hiring bureaucracy, and the political economy behind it.
And how exactly are universities a good signifier of that? Note I took an external degree from the university of London, which even if universities were a good signifier of that, this one definitely wasn’t, and it did not in any way impact my ability to get a job. Noone cared.
Noone cared.
You don’t know what questions they did not ask you, and the assumptions of shared cultural background that they made because they saw that. They would not tell you. (unless you have comparisons to job searching before getting the degree).
Fundamentally, this is the expected phenomenology, since people do not tend to notice sources of your own status.