Leading large companies are beginning to trivialize the value of university degrees while they also become unnecessary for the real supply of employment.
The question is not new but it is increasingly recurrent: What is the point of having university degrees today? “We have realized that the data of the final average grade is not worth anything as a criterion for hiring, nor are the grades of the exams,” said Google’s vice president and director of Human Resources in 2013 in an interview with The New York Times. “What’s interesting is that the proportion of people without a college degree at Google has increased over time. We have teams where 14% of the staff have never been to university,” he added.
The debate was revived last April, with the publication of a report on the matter in Fast Company, where it talks about other large Silicon Valley companies that say they are minimizing the importance of university degrees when looking for talent, and giving more importance to skills or the search for heterogeneity and racial diversity. cultural, gender…
On the other hand, a recent study by the Institute for Education and Work at Georgetown University (United States) concluded that 30 million good jobs in that country can be held without the need for a degree. These positions receive an average annual salary of $55,000, and a minimum of $35,000 per year.
The Georgetown University study also highlights that, while in the past these good jobs were almost entirely in manufacturing, transportation or construction, they have now given way to specialized service industries such as health, finance or information technology. “These new good jobs have been replacing the good jobs lost in traditional industries,” the study states.
Bringing the debate to the reality of Spain, we could talk not so much about good jobs for which it is not necessary to have a degree as about many positions (plainly) for which such a qualification is not necessary. There is also an excess of graduates with jobs or mini-jobs for whom it would not have been necessary to have a university degree. This phenomenon is called overqualification and has grown by 12% since 2013, according to Asempleo. Overqualification in Spain affects more than half of workers, according to a February 2017 report by this association of temporary work agencies and employment agencies. In the case of young people, the percentage rises to 68%, and women are the worst off. Regarding the type of contract, skilled work finds its place more often in the form of temporary employment.
The data speaks for itself. Large leading companies are beginning to trivialise the value of university degrees while they are also becoming unnecessary for the real supply of employment (whether temporary or permanent), which often requires a lower qualification. So what do we want titles for? Well, the reality is that while what happens in Silicon Valley may be significant and anticipatory, it cannot be extrapolated at a general level. Degrees, master’s degrees and MBAs continue to be a very useful form of screening in selection processes, although the trend to ask for these qualifications is downward.
On the other hand, not all business leaders agree with the ideas of Google’s vice president. There are those who even believe that, at least, two careers should be studied. Or so proposes in
