The Ivy Lie

[I penned the following post several years ago on my computer, but apparently forgot to publish it online with the rest of the “Reason #X” articles, so I’m doing so now. Thanks to the commenter who highlighted that this was missing.]

No, really, they don’t care. Not in the professional world, anyway. Or at least, not often, and not enough to land you an offer where you’d have gotten a rejection letter instead. I’m sure there are exceptions – feel free to comment if you’ve experienced otherwise – but I’ve never encountered anyone who backflipped over my degree, and I’ve read plenty of stories from other graduates of top-tier schools who have experienced the same lack of recognition. If you’re applying to graduate school, it’s a different story altogether – in that case, your grades and your alma mater will be scrutinized – but that is a separate discussion.

Since I graduated from Duke in 2006, I’ve had probably a hundred job interviews, for positions ranging from biology lab technician to software engineer to pizza delivery driver to drapery installer to commercial truck driver. In all of those interviews, I’ve never been asked about Duke’s degrees or the types of courses they offer, or the courses I took (other than to confirm what degree I have), or my GPA. My choice of school was never a make-or-break factor in deciding whether I got a job offer. No one ever said to me, “Wow, Duke’s a really good school. You know, you’re a bit short of the skill set we’re looking for, but I’ll let it slide on account of your education and grades, and hire you anyway.” On rare occasion, an interviewer made a passing comment along the lines of, “So, Duke’s a really good school. Did you enjoy the experience?” Or else they asked me how much I loved Duke Basketball and whether I thought they’d make the Final Four this year… but never anything which connected my diploma to my ability to be successful at the company.

In virtually all cases, the interview questions focused on practical skills relating directly to the job that I would be performing, or else addressed general aspects of personal character, such as work ethic, honesty, etc. By and large, the focus has always been: Can you do the job that you’re applying for well, and without a lot of hand-holding – yes or no? The question was not, “Did you go to Harvard?” but rather, do you have the skills necessary to be a productive part of our company? And the reality is, just because a person attended an elite university does not imply that they possess any particular set of skills – technical, social, or otherwise. My Duke degree certainly didn’t equip me with much.

When I first graduated and couldn’t find work, I was frustrated with the pragmatic attitude exhibited by companies where I applied. Here I was, having devoted so much of my adolescence and early 20s to my education, not to mention having spent $200,000 on college, and having accumulated an incredible amount of stress and burnout, just to attain the diploma that I have. And that wasn’t good enough? How dare they? It was infuriating. But after dozens of rejections which hinged on a lack of applicable skills (usually the rejection went something like, “You’re obviously a bright and well-educated young man, but you just don’t have the skill set or experience we need”), I took a step back and considered that maybe I was wrong.

And you know what? When I let go of my ego and my assumptions about the value of my degree, their perspective did make more sense than mine. I mean, let’s be honest: if you are hiring manager, who would you rather bring onto your team? Someone with a degree from Brown or Princeton who has nothing but theoretical knowledge and could take months if not years of training to become a productive member of your company, or someone with a more modest academic background who nonetheless already has most of the skills necessary to perform his role successfully, and will be able to hit the ground running?

Maybe you’re thinking: but this Princeton guy is probably smarter, and has a lot more long-term potential. Down the road, he could do something revolutionary for the company, whereas the other applicant – let’s call him the “vocational skills” guy, the “regular applicant” – may do his job adequately, but in the long-term he could just be a grunt, a worker bee.

Unfortunately, intelligence and potential are only part of the applicant package. Especially in a job market where turnover is high, even in technical fields, it’s important for companies to hire people who can become productive quickly, so vocational experience does count, potentially a lot more than theoretical knowledge. Yes, the Harvard grad might have more potential, but how does the company know he’ll stick around? Ultimately, it’s a huge gamble if it requires a major investment of time and money on their part. Some large companies with a lot of resources may be able to pull this off, or may be able to provide their own internal supplemental training programs to augment the theoretical knowledge gained at a private university. But for smaller outfits, it may not be realistic at all. And if you went to a top university, you may even find that you’re judged as “overqualified,” which is really a company’s way of saying they don’t trust that you’ll stay, since they assume you’ll find a better opportunity soon and then leave (even though this may not be the case). I’ve battled to convince a few companies that I genuinely wanted and needed the job, that I wasn’t going to quit, and that there weren’t any other prospects out there, but it has yet to work. Whenever I heard the word “overqualified” in an interview, it was game over.

There are plenty of articles out there which highlight (quite rightly, in my opinion) that too few companies provide training for their staff, and thus are at least partly culpable for the shortages of skilled labor that exist in many technical fields. It certainly seems that corporations used to show a stronger commitment to training – and retaining – their staff. I don’t think it’s right that there is such a paucity of training available in many companies today, but unfortunately, that is the reality that applicants face. And turnover is indeed higher than it used to be, and fewer people commit to single-company careers the way they once did, so companies’ skepticism of applicants’ commitment is understandable, if unfortunate. In the face of this difficult reality, it is practical, industry-relevant knowledge (which public schools, especially community colleges, are more oriented toward than their far more theoretical “elite” counterparts) that counts. What doesn’t count is the name on your diploma, so you might reconsider whether all the additional sacrifices required of a private school are really worth it.