As a hiring manager, what matters to me are basic knowledge and an appreciation of deadlines that one can acquire while obtaining a degree, earning a degree also demonstrates the ability to set and achieve long term goals, the ability to work effectively within a team, the ability to lead, the ability to deliver results, and a level of internal fire.

For those interviewees who do not have college degrees, impress me with how you will rapidly prove that you support my initiatives, the headaches you will take away from me, and how you will make us both, and my boss, look good. I promise I’ll pay attention.

I pursued an MBA to add to my engineering degree only for the reason to put more tools into my professional toolbox. The payoff was the string of salary increases and promotions that followed after putting these tools to use to yield results. The clouds did not part, trumpets did not sound, and money did not rain on me as rewards for completing the MBA.

Gates and Jobs are poor examples for a number of reasons. Foremost is that as company founders, HR never screened them, they did not need to write resumes, and they sat through no interviews for the roles they filled.

Wow, Carl! This seems a little harsh. I’ve worked in HR for 5 years and always expected the hiring manager to make the final choice of whom to hire. I have seen many male supervisors skip over the most obvious choice (experience, attitude, skills, etc.) in favor of someone who looks and acts just like him. There have been many times when that person didn’t work out for just those reasons. Hiring is never easy and not everyone gets it right the first time. It seems your experience with HR has not been pleasant, but to label us all as “mean girls” is in poor taste. Until you have actually worked in HR maybe you shouldn’t blast it. Or maybe try to change things in your own job where hiring supervisors take more of a role in hiring.

I believe I said the firing was justified. But, the bigger problem is that he clearly didn’t need to the degree in order to be able to do the job, but there was no way he could ever get the job without the degree.

And why would I recommend hiring him? Because he can do the job, and I also believe in forgiveness. Unless he shows a pattern of lying, one lie, which was necessary to get a job he was excellent at, is not an offense worthy of eternal banishment.

Agreed. He is NOT a good catch precisely because, as you say, he outright lied for personal gain. What else would he be willing to cheat at for personal gain?

I also take issue with the video in the one link in which they call it “padding the resume.” No, it isn’t padding the resume – it is lying. period. And, not everyone “pads their resume.” Does that put me at a disadvantage when I apply for jobs? Because if everyone pads their resume, do employers think that my resume is also padded, when it isn’t?

However, I do agree that a lack of a degree doesn’t mean someone can’t do the job; or wouldn’t excel at it. But, let that person demonstrate their abilities without lying.

Having said this, “overqualified” is more often a meaningless reason for not being hired. It is the equivalent of being called a “nice guy” when turned down by women. The real reason is “she (HR is almost always ‘she’) just isn’t into you” — you wore the wrong shoes, weren’t confident or sexy enough, aren’t white enough, did not meet the 27 point checklist, they didn’t “feel” you (get a magical tingly feeling when they met you), or simply weren’t culturally identical to the existing employees.

I’d kill to work in HR. They are the “mean girls” in high school getting paid to be mean, lying through their teeth, and generally living out their dreams of disqualifying everyone who comes by.

HR should go back to payroll and benefits. Leaving the hiring to sector experts. Period.

Many HR types look for a degree as the most important qualifier in a candidate (sometimes the sole qualifier), and thus pass on the most able or qualified people to the detriment of the company.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn’t have degrees.

However, the hiring process is, and always has been, about speed of getting it off HR’s plate not about getting the best talent….downloading resumes from a “career” site has little to do with talent other than a broken watch is right twice a day and sometimes its better to be lucky than good….

You simply don’t find actual, aligned, talent that way….

But, the almighty buck reigns….ignorantly. Dear Companies, what is your most important asset? Your people….so, simply logic, do you not want the best talent or do butts in seats suffice?

Smart companies? Always on the hunt for talent….smarter companies, always on the hunt for talent regardless of degree instead focusing on talent, skill, accomplishments, thinking and a bunch of stuff that that is not the exclusive domain of academia.

Don’t get me wrong….education is great and should be pursued until the day you die….its a smart thing…..it just isn’t the only thing….except to the myopic………

Me? University of Chicago MBA