Estudiar una carrera no hace que tengas una carrera

Callum Borchers, en el WSJ (link de regalo):

Skills-based hiring was one of the biggest buzzwords of the postpandemic job boom. It dangled the promise of a major shift in white-collar recruiting: Companies would stop fixating on traditional credentials, like college degrees and years of experience, and bring in anyone able to perform the duties of open roles.

Today, this egalitarian idea is a fad that is going out of style.

Otra vez, las dinámicas de oferta-demanda están en juego. No es una “idea”, es una respuesta al mercado. El CEO de SHRM lo entiende, pero no creo que por las razones correctas:

“I don’t buy it,” he told me. “What we’re going to see is that when there’s more supply than demand, employers are going to revert back to the degree as a proxy for smart. A lot of us are working to prevent that, but I think that’s realistic.”

Two and a half years later, this prediction is coming true.

Su modelo mental implica que las habilidades técnicas y un título universitario son proxies intercambiables para determinar la inteligencia de una persona. No sé con qué parte estoy más en desacuerdo: si con eso, o con la premisa de que las empresas principalmente optimizan para contratar personas inteligentes.

Pero esta sección del artículo fue la que más me hizo querer escribir sobre esto:

Toby Markham believed the hiring game had finally swung in his favor.

After dropping out of college in 2001, he spent the next couple of decades in a potpourri of roles: produce-company account manager, stay-at-home dad, podcast host, manager of an Outback Steakhouse.

When tech companies went on a recruiting spree a few years ago, Markham, 48, saw a chance to turn his computer-programming hobby into a more lucrative career. He spent $17,000 on an 11-week coding boot camp. He thought employers would be impressed by his skill set, and overlook the degree he didn’t finish and the years of software-development experience he didn’t possess.

Things haven’t worked out that way. He’s applied to hundreds of engineering jobs and landed one interview.

In hindsight he thinks he paid too much attention to people questioning the value of a four-year degree.

“That’s part of what made me believe in skills-based hiring,” says Markham, who is working at a restaurant again while hunting for a tech job. “You see so many people getting degrees and then they never work in that field.”

Estudiar una carrera no hace que tengas una carrera. A muchos les toca aprender a la mala: un título universitario no te hace acreedor de absolutamente nada en el mundo real. Una carrera se construye, poco a poquito, estudiando y aprendiendo, con constancia y dedicación y propósito. Lo que sea que estudies en una universidad (o donde sea) puede ayudarte a construir tu carrera, pero no es tu carrera.

There are plenty of reasons to think hard about whether college is worthwhile, including the prospect of suffocating debt and the option to learn a trade instead. On the whole, though, people with bachelor’s degrees earn considerably more than those without.

Correlación no implica causa. Sí, ganan más, ¿pero es por tener un título universitario? ¿O tienen un título universitario porque socialmente ya estaban predisupuestos a tener acceso a una educación universitaria que los expone a mejores oportunidades profesionales?

P.S. — quiero probar cómo me siento escribiendo mis posts sin traducir las citas de los artículos. Avísame qué opinas.