The Case Against Credentialism

March 15, 2015 9:57 AM

The connection between education and occupation is now so firmly ingrained as to seem almost a fact of nature. To get a good job, you get a diploma: at once time a high school diploma stuffed, and then a B.A., but now you're better off with a J.D. or an M.B.A...Yet this familiar system, far from evolving “naturally” or “unconsciously,” is the product of distinct cultural changes in American history. The process that left it in our landscape is less like the slow raising of a mountain range or the growth of oxbows on the Mississippi, and more like the construction of a dam. Three changes, which took place in the past hundred years, produced the system that is now producing M.B.A.s. They were the conversion of jobs into “professions,” the scientific measurement of intelligence, and the use of government power to “channel” people toward certain occupations. James Fallows explains in a 1985 article in The Atlantic. (See also William James 80 years prior on The Ph.D. Octopus).
posted by shivohum (19 comments total)

But without credentialism, how would bosses pick the person most-overqualified for a position?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:14 AM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

Was this article edited by anyone? The typos are making it hard to read.
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:24 AM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Since the article is from 1985, perhaps it had been scanned but not checked for OCR errors.
posted by metaquarry at 12:47 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Was this article edited by anyone? The typos are making it hard to read.

They didn't have anyone wit an English degree available to edit it.

Anyway, is this yet another article arguing that people really don't need college degrees, done by someone with a gradate degree?
posted by happyroach at 1:02 PM on March 15, 2015 [7 favorites]

I wouldn't say that an MBA is necessarily useless, but a lot of the people I've worked with who have one are.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:20 PM on March 15, 2015 [11 favorites]

An MBA is probably the least valuable/necessary advanced degree. It's kind of become a sort of "liberal arts" degree of the business world.

That said, I sure as hell want the guy about to do my colonoscopy to be able to show me something that says he received something like actual medical training. A degree in the field would be nice.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:09 PM on March 15, 2015

That said, I sure as hell want the guy about to do my colonoscopy to be able to show me something that says he received something like actual medical training. A degree in the field would be nice.

The ones with the good degrees are not in within your approved provider network due to the guy with the MBA credentials.
posted by srboisvert at 2:15 PM on March 15, 2015 [24 favorites]

True fact: 50% of MDs graduated in the bottom half of their class.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:24 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

In the 1970s, I changed my major from a generic "Communiction Arts" to a generic "Business". That Bachelor's degree never got me a job in my 30 employable years after. BUT one specialty class, "The Business of Radio", along with my participation in college radio, helped me get a gig as Operations Manager at a tiny automated station in Central California. I have never regretted anything more.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:35 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

True fact: 50% of MDs graduated in the bottom half of their class.

Q: What do they call the guy who graduated at the bottom of his class in medical school?

A: Doctor.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:03 PM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

My impression was that the MBA began in the 50's or 60's as some kind of obscure elite Ivy League degree, and it caught on and spread to all the universities and became a required credential, not like an optional thing that management theory fanatics did, and, at the same time, the kind of management consultant ideology taught in MBA school (you don't need people who understand a business, you need people who understand management) became ubiquitous.
posted by thelonius at 3:46 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure why a 29 year-old article is considered still relevant.
posted by ITravelMontana at 5:12 PM on March 15, 2015

I have never regretted anything more.

The degree or the gig, oneswellfoop?
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 5:42 PM on March 15, 2015

I work for the public sector, and supposedly there is an official policy against credentialism in hiring. Unless a degree is required to do the job, hiring managers aren't supposed to consider it as relevant. I'm not sure how it's rea applied in practice, but I think its a pretty enlightened approach. Long live unions!
posted by sevenyearlurk at 5:44 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure why a 29 year-old article is considered still relevant.

Yeah, it's not even written in the latest revision of Newspeak.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:01 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hire person without degree and pay less and tell him why he is getting crap pay
posted by Postroad at 6:26 PM on March 15, 2015

They didn't have anyone wit an English degree available to edit it.

As typos go, this is one of the better ones.

I work for the public sector, and supposedly there is an official policy against credentialism in hiring.

I used to work in the public sector and there was rampant credentialism (and also no unions -- I suspect a connection). It was a funny sort, though, because the people doing the hiring were from the old days and didn't have much credentials, but they were the most rabid in insisting that new hires needed to have the fanciest of credentials.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:21 PM on March 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm in IT, and I don't have credentials...neither does anyone else really. The head of the whole department (three management levels above me) has a bachelor's in something unrelated I believe.

We recently hired another manager. It was suddenly absolutely imperative that the successful applicant would have a degree in CompSci. Because of this and other things, no one internal could get the job.

As it turns out, I really think the guy who got the job is going to be awesome at it. We needed the fresh viewpoint and style. But it still seems a little unfair that the credential was a requirement.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 12:48 PM on March 16, 2015

I'm in IT, and I don't have credentials...neither does anyone else really.

When I first took CS classes, graduates were considered failures. Successful coders got recruited and left school after 2 years of classes. The CS department took pride in its high dropout rate.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:32 PM on March 16, 2015