[Hizonner]

> Previously, tests could be administered to determine aptitude, but was found illegal form of discrimination.

Not strictly true. But you have to be able to show that your test actually measures something important to the task, without at the same time being biased by unrelated issues. Which is hard, and requires domain knowledge, and might mean that some tests couldn't't be written tests, so it scared off the HR types.

And, yeah, of course you're right that those same unrelated issues keep people from getting degrees. But everybody gets to ignore that somehow.

Perhaps the right approach to the "degree" thing would be more regulation, in the form of a requirement that you show that the actual subject matter of the specific degrees you were requiring or advantaging was relevant to job performance. No more "any college degree" BS.

[ndriscoll]

The point of trying to determine aptitude is exactly that it does not measure current ability to perform specific tasks or possession of specific domain knowledge, but rather general ability to learn/flexibility to be given new tasks.

One of the places where software has succeeded is that the industry gets away with quietly trying to test for intelligence while ostensibly making it look work related (algorithm puzzles, "wanting to hear how candidates think"). IBM straight up gave me math problems (like solving systems of equations under time pressure) when applying to my first programming job in addition to some basic whiteboard coding. This is part of why it's possible for smart people without CS degrees to break into the field.

Basically any job where you're not acting as a human automaton benefits from general learning ability, so if degrees stop working or stop being allowed, people will no doubt look for another proxy.

[Hizonner]

> The point of trying to determine aptitude is exactly that it does not measure current ability to perform specific tasks or possession of specific domain knowledge, but rather general ability to learn/flexibility to be given new tasks.

Great. You can go ahead and do that then... provided that your test actually measures that and not a bunch of unrelated knowledge. Which is a lot of what an "aptitude test" designed by a clueless person will actually tend to measure. And honestly is also a lot of what the ability to get a degree tends to measure.

You might be able to fix the test, but I don't think you can fix the degree.

> IBM straight up gave me math problems (like solving systems of equations under time pressure) when applying to my first programming job in addition to some basic whiteboard coding.

... which is mostly going to measure how recently you've had to do a bunch of similar mathematical tasks, to the point where that overwhelms almost anything else. And has the bonus of not being obviously related your general ability to learn or flexibility. I suppose how you do on that might have some correlation with your ability to code under similar time pressure... which of course only happens in badly managed projects.

That's exactly the sort of selection process you get when you let clueless fools try to come up with ways to measure things like "ability to learn" or "flexibility".