[ILUG] OT: A university degree is required. Why?

[Andrew Court]

"There is a perception among degree holders that they somehow have an
edge on those who don't hold degrees. I run into this big time. They
feel that even if your degree is in music, or arts, your thinking is
somehow disciplined by the exercise, and therefore you are a better
candidate.."

This is exactly what I was talking about. There seems to be an
old-boys club consisting of degree holders, who pat each other on the
back when getting jobs. Regardless of whether the degree course was
relevant. Many comments I have heard are that people with degrees, no
matter what the subject, are better, more-well rounded individuals.
However I would feel that people without degrees(not all people but
alot), are more down to earth, as any knowledge they have, has to be
relevant for the job at hand or they won't last.

"Start your own business or get a degree. That's my advice"

I ran a computer repair business for 2 years. Maybe I should look at
one of those spam emails I get regularly offering me a degree for only
$39.99. That might get me in the door.

"As it happens, my brother does recruiting for Google, and given the
quality of your experience, he might be able to bypass this restriction
if you want me to send him your name."

I appreciate the offer but I am more inclined to wait until my
experience or knowledge are noticed on there own merits. I would
rather get a job where they are interested in my skills, not one where
I got the job because I knew someone. Add that to the fact that I dont
have a degree and I could become Google's black sheep, and end up not
getting on with my co-workers, which would be very bad for
productivity, and bad for me in general.

"The IDA regularly attaches "at least N degree-level positions" and that
kind of thing to the incentive schemes which get companies like Google
to come to Ireland in the first place. Mainly because it's seen as a
national and strategic objective to develop a knowledge economy, keep
home-grown talent and so on."

And the government screws me again...

"Note that lack of a degree does not automatically disqualify
candidates; none of the "requirements" are absolute requirements.
Candidates are ranked on numerous axes (one of which is educational
qualifications), and we hire the top candidates according to a
weighted score across all these factors.  It is perfectly possible
for candidates who don't have a degree, who shine in other areas, to
be hired (many of my staff, for example, do not have degrees)."

First off, why are they called requirements if they are not required.
Should they not be called "guidelines" or something. Also that
ideology suggests that everyone in the HR department follows the same
school of thought, but if you give a HR worker a list of requirements
and a pile of CV's. Is that person not likely to bin all the ones
which do not fulfil the requirements?

"Computer Science graduates do not usually apply for the datacentre
technician positions; they tend to go more into systems
administration, systems architecture, or pure engineering.  DC Techs
tend to have backgrounds more from Electrical and Electronic
Engineering or Applied Computing.  However, I do actually disagree
with your analysis; I've found the top tier of CS graduates to be
every bit as good as those of yore."

Are most electronic engineers Linux guru's now? If not, what walks of
life do your Linux/Unix guru's come from?

"Maybe you should consider applying in any case; on the principle of
"nothing ventured, nothing gained".  If you want to work for Google,
you should apply and see what happens."

I have applied in the past for similar jobs and always recieve the
cryptic "We could not find a job which matched your cv." Whenever I
recieve that email I always want to write back "Its ironic that google
can't find something." I don't however because I don't want to get
black listed. The email I get back looks like its been generated by a
script, so I wonder did they look at my CV, see no degree, and pass it
to a script to email me and say a suitable job for an uneducated twit
like me could not be found residing within googles walls. Maybe i
should try dunnes instead. I also wonder if the first line of
filtering done by them is checking i used the right font size. Does
trinity tell its students to always use font 10, due to a secret
between them and the elite companies in the world:
{
if fonsize ==10, sendto tier2-queue
}else{
sendto notsuitable-script}

"These are the best bits of advice you can be given about job
advertisements.  These sort of requirements are rarely rigid.  Usually
they're posted to weed out those who are unsure of themselves before
they even apply.  If you think you can do the job and would like it,
apply regardless of the requirements.  That's what I've always done and
it's worked for me."

I appreciate the positive outlook, and its what i have done in the
past, and it too has worked for me, just not in google. You may be
asking why I appear so anti-google. The truth is I would really like
to work there, and feel annoyed that they repeatedly think I dont have
waht it takes. At this point I think the only way I'm going to get
recognised is by either writing something big, or hacking something
big. Any one any ideas for either project?