[josephg]

Right but, are most hiring decisions like this? If most hiring / firing decisions are based on ability (which is the case everywhere I've ever worked) then its a meritocracy with flaws. That is to say, if these stories surprise and disappoint you then the overall philosophy is that its a meritocracy and you're disappointed that its flawed for not being meritocratic enough.

As far as I can tell, even obsessing over credentials happens because its a proxy for merit[1], and we care about merit. Its often a lousy proxy, but our industry as a whole didn't care about merit, why would anyone care to look at a candidate's credentials?

[1] "Nobody gets fired for choosing IBM" -> "No recruiter gets fired for hiring a PhD"

[modriano]

Seriously, yes. This happens all the time. I recently finished a Masters in CS with a focus on data science and machine learning from DePaul University, and I built predictive models that saved my previous employer hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. They had multiple machine learning positions open, but they told me they wanted Ph.D.s from University of Chicago level schools.

Now I lead a team of analysts and junior data scientists at the University of Chicago.

That company is still making money hand over fist.

By the way, the point of the concept of meritocracy is that it depends on performance, not on some proxy variable.

[arethuza]

Worth noting that the person who coined the term "meritocracy" did it to criticize the use of just those proxy values, particularly education, rather than actual performance:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

[wenc]

So I have something of a different experience, not exactly with DePaul or U of C students per se, but let's say, A and B respectively, where A=practical and B=theoretical.

A or B students could generally get the job done, but B students tend to be able to go deeper because of their greater theoretical horsepower. I could assign them tasks of greater difficulty and they will figure it out on their own and deliver.

If the organization only requires A-level talent, then let's be honest, there's no difference between A or B students. The majority of enterprises out there really only require A-level talent.

But if your organization has the kind of challenges that require B-level talent (a minority of organizations, to be sure), I think you might struggle with A-level talent. I faced this first hand when I learned that I couldn't scale because I was limited with the A-level talent that I had and was spending an inordinate amount of my time training and guiding them that I barely had time to do my work.

In general you are correct, but in some very specific situations, my experience has been there's value in identifying the right kind of talent that fits the problems you are trying to solve.