The Master's Degree As The New Bachelor's Degree?
Laura Pappano writes in The New York Times:
William Klein'a story may sound familiar to his fellow graduates. After earning his bachelor's in history from the College at Brockport, he found himself living in his parents' Buffalo home, working the same $7.25-an-hour waiter job he had in high school.It wasn't that there weren't other jobs out there. It's that they all seemed to want more education. Even tutoring at a for-profit learning center or leading tours at a historic site required a master's. "It's pretty apparent that with the degree I have right now, there are not too many jobs I would want to commit to," Mr. Klein says.
So this fall, he will sharpen his marketability at Rutgers' new master's program in Jewish studies (think teaching, museums and fund-raising in the Jewish community). Jewish studies may not be the first thing that comes to mind as being the road to career advancement, and Mr. Klein is not sure exactly where the degree will lead him (he'd like to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East). But he is sure of this: he needs a master's. Browse professional job listings and it's "bachelor's required, master's preferred."
Call it credentials inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master's is now the fastest-growing degree.
A guy quoted in the piece said he sees the Master's as "the first cut" in hiring. What this sounds like to me is laziness and stupidity. Matt Welch, editor of reason magazine, former assistant editorial page editor of the LA Times, and author of two books, including The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America, never finished school. He instead started a successful newspaper in Prague. With these standards, Welch wouldn't even make the first cut.
via Instapundit
A guy quoted in the piece said he sees the Master's as "the first cut" in hiring.
This may be a sign that he isn't competent to evaluate for his hiring criteria. Why would you turn away experienced people in favor of someone with little experience but a masters?
What's especially nasty about this trend is that it's socially regressive and damaging to the careers of older adults in the workforce. It's one thing for a 25 year old to drop everything and go to grad school, but quite another for a 45 year old mother or father to do so. So a lot of middle aged professionals find their careers destroyed midway because they focused on their performance rather than taking an extra degree or two.
paulo at July 23, 2011 6:10 AM
For hiring college professors, a Master's degree has pretty much been the "first cut" since forever.
Patrick at July 23, 2011 6:19 AM
but he's hiring technical writers.
paulo at July 23, 2011 6:28 AM
..and damaging to the careers of older adults in the workforce
It's also a great way to get rid of older adults without triggering a discrimination suit.
jj at July 23, 2011 6:42 AM
I had a manager once who had just received his MBA. He decreed that "only people with an MBA are serious about their careers", and from then on would only interview candidates with an MBA.
We ran through a week's worth of the dumbest, most arrogant, ignorant, insulting, socially-inept, ill-informed jackasses I've met outside of a country-western bar.
The team finally complained to management and they bitch-slapped him back to reality and took away his management role.
MBA? Must Be an Asshole.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 23, 2011 7:12 AM
Moronic.
There was someone who suggested once that credentialism like this was a market response by companies to the ever more restrictive and intrusive government mandates in hiring practices.
I'm looking forward to the day when my business is successful enough to need to hire a few local workers. But I'm not looking forward to the hiring process.
Robert at July 23, 2011 7:27 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/07/23/the_masters_deg.html#comment-2379064">comment from paulobut he's hiring technical writers.
Perhaps you, like me, know brilliant geeks who don't need school assignments to spend their days working on some geekery. You can be told writing rules in an afternoon.
This reminds me of a certain alt paper company I respect. They'd hire the janitor to write for them if he/she were good.
Amy Alkon at July 23, 2011 8:00 AM
Well, there are bad examples everywhere. I've met Professor Bollinger, PhD (Journalism), and she's a delight, but her book, Women in media careers: success despite the odds is a mess - an unreadable collection of randomly selected statements mixed with anecdotes meant to serve as examples.
And that's after you get over the "glass ceiling" inferences every couple of pages.
"Amateur" does not automatically have an inferior position to "professional", and credentials come in different flavors than "sheepskin".
Radwaste at July 23, 2011 8:24 AM
The MBA is the single most destructive educational product ever created. It is responsible for a great deal of our economic troubles.
The MBA focuses on the current quarter at most. Hence companies going bust left and right for not having long term plans in place.
I consider an MBA to be a disqualifying factor when I interview people.
brian at July 23, 2011 8:50 AM
Of course, if people like William Klein got useful degrees, or otherwise learned useful skills, they'd have decent paying jobs. A liberal arts Master's degree is a useless instrument in most cases (an exception is for people who need a MFA to teach at an art school).
The hiring guy who calls the master's degree the "first cut" in the hiring process is doing his job wrong. Credential-based hiring is not very effective. There a lot of highly educated incompetent people.
I am a big believer in performance-based hiring. For writers, you want to see how they write. For programmers, you want to see their code (or solve logic problems). This way you actually know they can do the work before they are hired. We usually use a combination of interviews and tests as the first pass in evaluating someone; then we ask them to come in and work for a day or two (paid) to make sure the potential hire looks to be effective and a good fit with the team. I don't think this approach has led to a bad hire yet.
For hiring college professors, a Master's degree has pretty much been the "first cut" since forever.
For hiring college professors, a Ph.D. is pretty much the "first cut". A 2-year post-doc (at least) is now becoming standard.
The MBA is the single most destructive educational product ever created. It is responsible for a great deal of our economic troubles.
The MBA focuses on the current quarter at most. Hence companies going bust left and right for not having long term plans in place.
Yep.
Christopher at July 23, 2011 10:10 AM
We've watered down our educational system so much that a Bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma.
====================
How many local teachers colleges have gone from XXX College to XXX University almost overnight?
How many "universities" are offering classes in The Simpsons or "leisure studies?" Or degrees in less-than-rigorous fields like "Women's Studies" or "Human Resource Management?"
Too many colleges and universities are awarding Bachelor's degrees to students who can barely write a coherent sentence, read and comprehend a complex text, or add two numbers together.
When this happens, hiring agents move up the ladder to the next level for competence. It's not their job to reform the education system, merely to cherry pick it for good candidates.
====================
And, thanks to even more government interference, hiring managers are no longer able to "take a chance" on someone who doesn't have credentials.
They must be able to document the qualifications that led to one candidate being hired over another in order to avoid charges of discrimination.
Using credentials is an easy way to do that.
====================
And what about these "overqualified" Master's students?
How many of those applicants with a Master's degrees went straight from a getting a Bachelor's to a Master's without gathering a little experience in between?
Too many Master's degree holders are only qualified for entry-level jobs.
====================
That's a pretty heavy burden to place on one degree ... especially when it's competing with the Education Doctorate (EdD) or the social engineering degrees in cultural or gender studies (i.e., Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies).
And you know this because of all the MBA classes you've sat through? MBAs are taught long-term planning.
I've known plenty of non-MBA executives who can't see beyond their quarterly results.
And I've known plenty of MBA executives who have put into place long-term plans.
Short-term focus is less an MBA thing and more a person or company culture thing.
The MBA is viewed by too many incompetent and lazy people as a short-cut to riches. And so, too many MBA graduates were students who did what they needed to do to graduate but didn't actually learn anything. That's not a problem exclusive to or endemic to the MBA.
In the past, too many Master's degree students had no real-world experience. That's why most MBA schools these days require at least 2 years of experience before admission to the program. Although, in my experience, even two years may not be enough.
=========================
The US corporate short-term focus problem has been exacerbated by the proliferation of hiring former consultants as mid- or high-level managers.
Consultants are rarely trained to look at a company's performance beyond the implementation of their project. They bring that short-term focus to their new management positions.
Most consultants are hired by big consulting companies straight out of school with little or no experience. Most consulting companies disdain "experienced" hires because they are more difficult to indoctrinate into the consulting company's mindset and methodology.
Too many C-level executives these days are McKinsey alums.
Conan the Grammarian at July 23, 2011 10:33 AM
They must be able to document the qualifications that led to one candidate being hired over another in order to avoid charges of discrimination.
Using credentials is an easy way to do that.
Maybe it's because we'are a small company, but we just hire who we think is best. And don't pay much attention at all to credentials Though, if pressed to produce a non-discriminatory reason, "performed poorly on a test of job-related skills" is pretty unassailable.
Christopher at July 23, 2011 11:04 AM
I have 32 years of IT experience and have held jobs from programmer to mgr. Yet I have no degree. It amazes me how hiring folks will not even look at me when I apply to jobs that state a degree is required. Seriously, you do not think I am qualified when I have proven abilities in the profession?
ronc at July 23, 2011 11:26 AM
Perhaps you, like me, know brilliant geeks who don't need school assignments to spend their days working on some geekery. You can be told writing rules in an afternoon.
Yes but the guy who needed several years of formal education to achieve the same doesn't want to believe that. Most people can't educate themselves in difficult subjects.
In a way, I think that credentialism inspires something akin to the peter principle. Grad programs are increasingly vocational programs, as the article acknowledges. They often address skills that a competent practitioner should be able to teach themselves, or which could be acquired through experience. And the competent practitioners do just this, they develop their skill set through personal initiative. But the incompetent practitioners aren't capable to doing this, they need multiple years of formal education to achieve the same. So you end up with an upside down hierarchy of competency where the credentialed practitioners are often less competent than the uncredentialed ones. Unfortunately because these incompetent practitioners still don't have a native aptitude for the subject, they are often side tracked into managerial and administrative roles where they make decisions regarding hiring and promotions. Not surprisingly, they assume that everyone else needs multiple years of formal education, and explicit credentialing to be competent as well.
paulo at July 23, 2011 11:43 AM
"What's especially nasty about this trend is that it's socially regressive and damaging to the careers of older adults in the workforce. "
Yep. There are a lot of people like me who didn't have sugar daddies paying for our education. We barely made it through our bachelor's programs and then we needed to go to work. And besides, in my industry, on nearly every program you are dealing with something that's very specific that isn't taught in any university. There is no class you can take (welll, very few) to learn about spacecraft life support or echelon-level battle management systems.
"It's one thing for a 25 year old to drop everything and go to grad school, but quite another for a 45 year old mother or father to do so. "
In aerospace they just expect you to get the degree while you're working. Not that you ever planned to have a life or anything. And besides, how are you going to keep up with your coursework when you have to go spend the next three weeks in New Mexico chasing a UAV around the desert? (This is one area where the online schools are winning... they'll win a lot bigger as soon as they can divorce themselves from the idea of fixed semesters.)
Related to the credentialism issue, though: I had an interview this week for a position that I applied for about two months ago. This is the second interview I've had with this company, and in both cases I got the call long after the listing closed and I figured they had selected someone else. I asked a friend who knows a a bit about this company why they move so slowly on hiring. He said, "They actually have people looking at your resume." Oh. For that, I'll wait.
Cousin Dave at July 23, 2011 11:54 AM
He said, "They actually have people looking at your resume." Oh. For that, I'll wait.
Hope things work out with them.
Christopher at July 23, 2011 12:14 PM
In a time when every open position results in a flood of resumes, it's tempting for companies to establish long checklists of requirements, of which advanced degrees are only one category...It is similar thinking to the attractive woman who establishes a checklist of 400 requirements for potential husbands/LTRs...and is usually a mistake in both cases. See hunting the five-pound butterfly.
david foster at July 23, 2011 12:32 PM
A liberal arts Master's degree is a useless instrument in most cases
In my experience, that's not been the case. I have two of those "useless" degrees, and I'm gainfully employed, and have always had jobs I've liked. You do, however, have to be OK with not earning a lot. And, if you want to go to an expensive school, you'd better HUSTLE and get some scholarships -- or you'll spend your life paying off your degree.
I got my master's in the first place because I was trying to get a better job -- and a master's degree was a requirement for all the ones I had my eye on. Stupid? Hell yes. Did I *need* a master's to do the job I now do? Hell no! But did I need it to get the interview? Yes.
sofar at July 23, 2011 2:37 PM
I am a big believer in performance-based hiring. For writers, you want to see how they write. For programmers, you want to see their code (or solve logic problems).
That's one benefit of working in software engineering. There are still a lot of firms that hire based on ability. You'll run into odd degree and skill set requirements if you interview for corporate IT, but there are typically better opportunities w/ start-ups and dedicated software shops anyway. Corporate HR is always a stumbling block because it's typically staffed by people who don't know diddly about software or IT. Which is why you always see ridiculous requirements, like needing 5 years in Fandango 3.0, though it had only come out last year.
malco at July 23, 2011 3:09 PM
I've had a few people apply for engineering jobs at my startup with PhDs.
I always flush them.
I'm hiring for common sense, and trading six years of one's life for a piece of paper doesn't demonstrate a lot of it.
The best engineer I ever hired had never gone to college.
(He got hired away by a Silicon Valley VC backed firm a few years later, at twice the salary - my hiring instincts were good)
TJIC at July 23, 2011 4:32 PM
When I got laid off a couple of years ago I saw that job I had right out of college - I mean at the same company and everything - was available and now required a master's degree and it had not significantly changed.
I think one thing that makes it difficult is many people cannot show there work...all my work was confidential from my previous employer so I couldn't show it to a new company.
I found most companies want you to have experience with exactly what they are doing. I guy who got laid off at the same time I did got a rejection letter saying they really wanted someone with experience on software package XYZ 4.5.789 and you only have experience with XYZ 4.5.678...(fake #s there) ... the difference was a few minor bug fixes. I assume it is an excuse...but why even write that detail.
The Former Banker at July 24, 2011 1:39 AM
I had made the mistake of going to graduate school for a PhD in mathematics education.
I only lasted one semester. The details are here: http://clearysquared.blogspot.com/2007/12/tales-of-graduate-school-dropout-no.html
After about two to three years of temp jobs with promises to hire temp-to-full time work, only to hire someone else from the outside, I landed a job at a health insurance company. The commute was about 22 miles each way by public transit, but in 2000 that got reduced to fifteen.
I'm still with the same company after 15 years. It's true I don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but that money paid off my college loans in a span of 13 years (the payments were actually quite reasonable; about $350 a month total).
Dropping out of grad school is the best decision I ever made, but my mother has been pressing me to go back to school. After 13 years of paying those loans off, that's inured me never to return.
Cleary Squared at July 24, 2011 7:41 AM
The job listings I laugh at are the ones that want both a master's degree and all kinds of direct experience with the specific job, and then they end with "0-3 years experience". That says to me: "We want a person who's both credentialed and has all of the knowledge and characteristics of an experienced professional... but we don't want to pay for it."
Cousin Dave at July 24, 2011 8:27 AM
My MRS is worth more than my EdM, though both are from the same institution.
NicoleK at July 24, 2011 10:43 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/07/23/the_masters_deg.html#comment-2380350">comment from NicoleKHah, love that NicoleK!
Amy Alkon at July 24, 2011 10:48 AM
"It's true I don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but that money paid off my college loans in a span of 13 years (the payments were actually quite reasonable; about $350 a month total)."
Wow, that's big. Had you spent 6 years in Uncle Sam's Undersea Tubular Transportation And Instantaneous Parking Lot Installation Company as a nuke, you could be running something like Plant Vogtle right now for ~$85K to start -- with NO student loans.
But if you flunk out of Nuke school, you're done. They fail people for good.
Radwaste at July 24, 2011 3:23 PM
> flunk out of Nuke school, you're done.
Special people, special powers. It's a rarefied, ruthless environment that most people could never experience....
Crid [Cridcomment at gmail] at July 24, 2011 3:58 PM
The problem isn't that Mr. Klein doesn't have a master's degree, it's that he lives in Buffalo, New York, one of the poorest cities in the U.S. It's been in decline for years. If he moved out here to Denver, he could get a receptionist job paying twice that. No degree required.
Lori at July 24, 2011 4:10 PM
"After earning his bachelor's in history from the College at Brockport, he found himself living in his parents' Buffalo home, working the same $7.25-an-hour waiter job he had in high school."
Unless you're planning to teach or have connections at a museum, a history degree isn't going to do you much good.
I keep hearing that recent grads can't find jobs, but it always turns out that their degree is in communications, socialogy, liberal arts, medieval french history or some other nebulous field.
I really think a lot of these folks would have been better served by getting a two year degree in HVAC or automotive repair, or in bookkeeping. They'd actually have some marketable skills and wouldn't be $60,000 in debt.
Although, this whole credential mania has gotten ridiculous. I was told by my company's HR rep that I wouldn't be qualified for the job I've held for 8 years, if I were applying for it today, because I didn't have a degree. I'm a secretary.
JoJo at July 25, 2011 1:39 PM
The New York Times asks if a graduate degree is worth it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24roi-t.html?_r=1
Conan the Grammarian at July 25, 2011 3:26 PM
How many job listings requiring a masters mention a degree in X "studies"? How many job listings period?
TGGP at July 28, 2011 7:56 PM
"Special people, special powers. It's a rarefied, ruthless environment that most people could never experience...."
Fantasy, entirely your own.
Radwaste at July 30, 2011 11:27 PM
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