1. Recycled Scott Alexander’s “college degrees should be banned from job applications” which, Scott still doesn’t understand that everything you’re not supposed to make hiring decisions based on is exactly what hiring decisions are based on.
2. Bring back 1) mandatory military service (not a great look) or 2) mandatory civil service à la CCC. At least the author understands what a bad idea this is.
3. Magically separate the credential function from the research preparation function. To my knowledge, has only worked in government-run laboratories during wartime (and those were still mostly good ol’ boy networks).
In short, a lot of text for no actionable items.
> In the immediate short term, I would love to see an ambitious startup take a crack at the credentialing problem using exams. I think it's extremely doable to make some exams; the hard part is the same chicken-egg advertising problem. No recruiter ever got fired from hiring a Harvard grad; they may get fired if they hire someone who's only credential is your random test. But if you can get some big names to vouch for your exams — like Terrance Tao for a suite of math proficiency exams — and get some big names like Google to openly consider your exams as qualifications, you may be able to make some meaningful headway. Leetcode does something similar, and while they are obviously aiming for a different market niche it is still a useful comparison to see how far you can go.
I'm sorry that you don't think any of the suggestions are good. I'd love to hear your suggestions
almosthere•9mo ago