[Novalug] Credentials

Roy Wilson roywilson1963@gmail.com
Tue May 12 08:00:52 EDT 2015


On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Bryan J Smith via Novalug <
novalug@firemountain.net> wrote:

>
> So ... explain to me again why _any_ degree is required for
> technology?  As I said, even my best friend -- in HR -- quickly
> learned to agree with me, and stop requiring any degree for any
> technology position.
>

  It's a filter to avoid lawsuits.  Having been sued twice by the same
person (once because she was black, the second time because she was
female), I quickly learned that even for clerical positions you *need* to
put qualifiers in your postings to fall back on in such cases.  Which is
why you'll see postings for janitors and the like that say "Bachelor's
degree required".  If you get dragged into court for not hiring someone,
and they don't have a BA/BS, you're covered, even if the person you
eventually ended up hiring doesn't have a degree either.

  We're living in an extremely litigious society, and have a tremendous
population of non-productive people who do little more than file suit
against anyone they can think of in hopes of winning the lottery.  You
*must* protect yourself against them or you'll end up spending more time in
court than in your office.

  On a slightly sideways note, after going through a pile of resumes for
non-tech positions, one of my final filterings was to to sort out all the
AA-only degree holders and see what the degrees were in.  Any along the
lines of "Medieval French Poetry", "Puppeteering" and such were immediately
circular filed.  When asked why, I simply replied "They make bad decisions".

 For the curious, the woman I mentioned applied for a secretarial position,
where not only was WordPerfect required, she couldn't even touch type, much
less at the 30wpm minimum the ad posted.



More information about the Novalug mailing list