Uhm What Just Happened?

[jackfaire]

As I write this the title is blank by the time you read this of course it will be filled in but I really have no clue what to call this topic other than "Uhm what just happened" screw it that's the title. There we go.

So recently I put my resume back out in the world because while I am trying my hand at writing a novel I do still need a day job. After I put my resume out which includes 10 years of working call centers as a CSR where I also had to put up sales numbers depending on the company and manage customer accounts.

I was approached by a recruiter who was so excited by my resume that she called back a second time and left a voice mail because I mistook the beginning of her pitch as a telemarketer calling me. We spoke and she gave me the hard sell about applying to her company like badly wanted me to the point where applying was "a formality"

Tells me all about the job it's the exact same work I have been doing since 10 years ago. I have the skills and abilities to do the job.

I applied.

I was rejected because "you do not currently have the qualifications to do this job should that change let us know."

The qualification that I do not have is that I do not have a college degree. This is highly frustrating as it's not the first time i have been told "Sorry you know that job you do okay so you're not qualified to do it because you don't have a degree.

The truly odd thing is that in the past when being told this I asked "Well what should I get a degree in" I have been told that it literally doesn't matter what degree I get so long as I have one.

So let me see if I get this I could go get a Bachelor's Degree in Animal Husbandry and that plus my experience would then qualify me to do the job I have been doing for a decade even though the degree would literally add nothing to my knowledge of how to do my job.

Can someone explain this to me?

I was hired at a company with a fellow co-worker. He has a Bachelor's in Psychology this is a useful degree in being on the phones and is why I have done so well at the phones. I don't have said degree I just studied the subject along with many other college courses but when you aren't paying a school to study them no one gives you a degree.

Anyway this coworker was promoted to supervisor and is being groomed for management. I started getting curious and asked around everyone that would tell me assured me that while I could get a promotion to Supervisor I myself would never see management because of my lack of degree. But and this is key not a single person in management had any sort of degrees that would actually apply to the jobs they were doing the only qualifications they had were they had worked up through the company.

I have asked around further and this is a common theme people get hired for jobs that tell me no where I have the experience to do the job and they do not. But they have an unrelated degree that means they have to be trained in the job.

The thing is how do I fix this? it feels like a rigged system. I can't afford to go back to college but I can't get a job paying a living wage without it. I can't even afford to go to a trade school.

Literally the only thing I can do that doesn't require a degree is work on my book and hope I can find an agent that likes my work well enough to represent me.

2000 words a night. If it gets published if I get exposure I am going to draw attention to this because it's fucking ridiculous. There shouldn't be a whole segment of the population that is too rich to be helped but too poor to help themselves that are basically making just enough money to rent a spare bedroom while they don't die.

The system is messed up.

[TheHuckster]

I never understood this, either.

I could understand it for entry-level people who have nothing to show but a piece of paper, but if you have real-world experience, that often trumps any academic experience, at least for CSR.

What's funny is I'm in software engineering, which I consider a field that really needs some academic training, but there are a lot of people here whose sole qualifications are purely in experience since they were 16. Many have either dropped out or never went to college. I even know of one who dropped out of high school who has a secure job in software engineering.

Some are still good at what they do; some even better than those who graduated.

Now, chances are more likely that you'll find a job with a startup or a small business, and you'll possibly not make as much as your college educated colleagues. From my observations, the more corporate and large your employer is, the more likely they'll want more than just your career experience to qualify.

[jackfaire]

I
Now, chances are more likely that you'll find a job with a startup or a small business, and you'll possibly not make as much as your college educated colleagues. From my observations, the more corporate and large your employer is, the more likely they'll want more than just your career experience to qualify.

I appreciate it the thing that truly infuriates that when I asked "well what should I get a degree in" they answered the same answer I always hear "Oh it doesn't matter what degree you get just that you have one"

I mean if they were all "we need you to have (specialized training)" cool I get that but a degree for the sake of a degree? What does that do?

[TheHuckster]

I appreciate it the thing that truly infuriates that when I asked "well what should I get a degree in" they answered the same answer I always hear "Oh it doesn't matter what degree you get just that you have one"

Yeah, at least in software engineering, if they do require a degree, it's usually in a related field.

I mean if they were all "we need you to have (specialized training)" cool I get that but a degree for the sake of a degree? What does that do?

I mean, I could see certain gen-eds being useful, even if it's for well-rounded knowledge in stuff. Some of it overlaps what high school already taught you, though.

But, yeah, CSR is one of those fields that is very heavy on just good on-the-field knowledge. College isn't going to prepare you for the CS.com kind of stuff where someone's screaming at you over the phone because they think because your company manufactured their hard drive, it's why they aren't able to get online. I mean, maybe a communications degree, but that's more of a plus than an absolute qualification.

[jackfaire]

The being screamed is why companies get pants pissingly excited when they see my resume.

I have done 10 years in a job where someone has literally called me the devil. And I still like my job. In my field that's nearly unheard of. If I was getting a living wage for my job I have 0 issues doing it as a career unless the writing takes off. So when companies see my resume with that much experience when most people after maybe one or two years if not less are very much "I am so done"

And I haven't just done this for 10 years I have done it without a bloody raise. In all of that time I was only working for one company long enough to get one raise and that was only because my boss went "wait how are you living on that" and then gave me a raise to an amount I still couldn't live on. So yeah I would put myself toe to toe with a psychologist and a communications major at talking people down and soothing bad situations.

[s_stabeler]

it's partly companies misunderstanding what a degree means. It is supposed to be proof that you have a certain level of knowledge- so it can, and should, be able to be substituted by experience, since the experience also proves a certain level of knowledge.

[BlaqueKatt]

a degree for the sake of a degree? What does that do?

it's partly companies misunderstanding what a degree means.

I've been informed by recruiters that the "degree requirement" for certain jobs is nothing more than a couple things:

"Look at how many educated people work for us"-bragging rights
"look this person was able to have the fortitude to last 2-8 extra years in school" as a measuring device that measures the wrong thing(some actually think a degree=level of maturity, responsibility, got-it-togetherness).
"look at the hoops this person will jump through to earn a pittance" we can overwork them and they won't complain.

[jackfaire]

Blaquekatt I discovered that when a temp agency hired me for a job because of my customer service skills and my partner on the project for his computer science degree.

I had to teach him both how to speak to our clients and then how to properly use a computer. I knew people with that degree who know computers. He was not one of them.

It was the first time I realized that what I experienced in my six months of college with people that didn't learn anything but would memorize the stuff they were told was on the test learn nothing and regurgitate the answers forgetting later. These people were employing the same methods to get all of the way through school. They came out with a degree and no education.

I think schools should make it against the rules to tell students what's on the test so that the students have to actually learn what they are being taught. Then at least we get graduates who are educated.

It legitimately scares me that my doctor might have gone through school like that.

and I am not saying all graduates do but when I whom have had nothing but independent study since dropping out and have to school my college graduate coworkers on their degree field that's frustrating.

[protege]

It is supposed to be proof that you have a certain level of knowledge- so it can, and should, be able to be substituted by experience, since the experience also proves a certain level of knowledge.

That's exactly it.

Most of you know that I work in the financial industry. A lot of what we do is trading securities. I'm not a trader--I handle their back-end services and maintain the equipment. But, whenever we hire another trader, the first thing we look for is some sort of education. While you probably could pick it up as you went along, the company wants quick results. They'll show you how the system works, and you'll occasionally meet with the rest of the traders to discuss strategies, they really want someone that can start trading with a minimum of training.