What’s your value-add to me – your employer? This is what most employers think? Tough thinking. Well, that’s the basis of a free market economy.
My doc’s brother went to Harvard and got a history degree. The world doesn’t employ too many historians. What to do? Later in life the Harvard grad reinvented himself as an elite coder. The problem is he makes as much money as a community college trained coder in the same company. What do these VUCANs have in common? They can do the same value-adding task (coding) pretty much the same way. They’re also quick and adaptable lifelong learners.
Many companies in 2019 announced they will stop requiring college degrees. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said that half of Apple’s workers did not have a 4-year college degree.[i] These companies evaluate a person’s capabilities through online or on-site testing. Why? They found “there’s little or no correlation between success at university and success in careers.”[ii]
Over the last 6 years, there have been weekly articles on the value of college, specifically of a liberal arts degree. College is very expensive in the West. The cost of a college education indentures parents and the student with unforgiveable loans paying for the unmarketable degree over many years. Millennial results are pretty known. Millennials are delaying families, not purchasing a home, and are even living with their parents into their mid-30s.
This comes down to a lack of RBPS and RBDM by college graduates and their parents. Parents co-signed their kid’s loans out of filial respect, extended parenting, not understanding the ROI of a particular degree, lifetime salary earnings, skills training, requirements of the student loan debt, graduate employability, and Future of Work.
Work Lesson Earned: So, do you need a prestige college pedigree to demonstrate your value? Value can be knowledge, wisdom, abilities, skills, and other marketable attributes. The irony is employers are saying: ‘no college degree – no problem’.
[i] ‘No Need For a Degree to Succeed’, LinkedIn, April 19, 2019
[ii] ‘Ernst & Young Stops Requiring Degrees: Should You?’, Inc Magazine, September 22, 2015.