[jval]

Sad thing about this article is that it is amazing, and yet the last thirty years has probably favoured well-credentialed people more so than any point in history. While there's an argument to be made that this is now turning around (and no doubt it should, and should have many years ago), I still think the trend is moving in favour of credentialism rather than away from it.

I don't really know what can be done about it because as Nassim Taleb put it, university degrees are like racketeering - bad for the collective but good for the individual,[0] so unfortunately I think it will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future at least. If you had disregarded everything this article said in 1985 and gone straight to HBS followed by Goldman, you would probably be sitting in your mansion right now and not care in the slightest about the credentialism problem, entrepreneurship or Silicon Valley. Obviously there's a ton of value judgments you can make about that, but the fact it is true is a huge net negative for society, as we need to align prestige and financial incentives around behaviours which are good for the collective.

Ultimately I think any solution to this problem would have to go back to the root of it, which is the increasing strength of vested interests in Western society who push for the creation of rents to perpetuate their wealth and power. Ultimately that reality is what makes rent-seeking professions so attractive, and in turn allows those professions to monopolise and 'rent seek from rent-seeking', i.e. have a monopoly over rent-extraction in the same way the law and investment banking does.

How you would solve that? ... well I don't know. Get some sort of 21st century Theodore Roosevelt, I guess.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=13012333374&story_...

[IndianAstronaut]

>Ultimately that reality is what makes rent-seeking professions so attractive

This is what peolle that want a programmers guild or union want. Put up barriers to new entrants so they can protect their prestige and positions.

I do hope sites like Hacker Rank set a model for finding workers on pure talent rather than degrees or anything else.

[jamesmiller5]

The article specifically states that an arbitrary measurement of "professional" fitness is the problem. How would a ranking system be any different than a credential system?

A more effective solution at finding the right candidates is an educational system available to all.

[IndianAstronaut]

>A more effective solution at finding the right candidates is an educational system available to all.

Yes, will be good. Also important is the free movement of talent to where it is needed.

>arbitrary

Not all ranking is arbitrary. A lot of it is targetted for the skillset a job needs. What I find arbitrary is quotas. I see this in medicine and actuarial science. Where instead of basic competency, they take the top x %.