Posted on 07/08/2016 10:04:51 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Of late, the Obama administration has been applying pressure to ban the criminal record box – that is, to keep employers from asking if an applicant has ever been convicted. That is supposed to open up more job opportunities for people who have criminal records.
It could, but then it could also have harmful consequences if people with past criminal records and current criminal intent are put in jobs where they can commit more crimes. (Another objection is that the federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate hiring policies, but let’s put that aside.)
There is another hiring policy involving a box that is equally damaging to people who are trying to find employment, namely the way many employers now decline to consider applicants unless they have a college degree. Even if they have the knowledge needed to do the work or are just as trainable as a college graduate, the degree box keeps many who don’t have one from a chance at jobs other than the most menial.
Things weren’t always this way in the U.S. Earlier in our history, employers rarely concerned themselves with educational credentials. Only a very few jobs were foreclosed to people who didn’t have the right degrees. That changed rapidly starting about 40 years ago.
A key reason for the change was a Supreme Court decision, Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Thank you for coming to Forbes. Please turn off your ad blocker.”
(I didn’t.)
Second click: “We noticed you still have your ad blocker on, please log in to continue to the site.”
Must be something really special in there!
>>Must be something really special in there!
Yes. One BILLION pop-up ads!
As an employer, this kind of crap infuriates me. According to lawyers, OSHA & all other government agencies, employers are responsible for every thing their stupid employees do. They get in an accident, it’s our fault, we’re sued. They disobey safety policies, it’s our fault, we’re sued and / or fined.
They keep limiting what we can ask, but we’re more and more responsible for them.
F’d up world. We need personal responsibility and common sense again.
Obama won’t protect the unborn but loves criminals.
Not to mention malware that’s been served via 3rd-party ads on Forbes. . .
That college degree box hurt me for 20 years. My certifications meant squat. I was losing job opportunities to French lit majors. A while back I decided to change the rules. I declared myself African American on my job applications. When I was interviewed I would get funny stares from HR. I knew what they were thinking, but wouldn’t come out and say it. “You said you were African. You don’t look African.” The ones who asked got, “I was born in Johannesburg. That makes me African American. Or is there something more to my origin that has me here today?”
The entire application and interview process is an obvious series microaggressions. Eliminate all consideration of qualifications and just hire the first one through the door.
The Industrial Age has brought about a series of changes that has led to an irreconcilable problem tied to the human condition: most people are incapable of working for themselves, and must rely on someone else for their employment. Personally, I think a democratic form of government is ultimately doomed to failure under these circumstances. Giving people the authority to govern themselves makes no sense when they aren’t capable of doing basic human functions anymore.
It looks like the author overlooks an important factor here: if employers didn’t require college degrees even for jobs that require no serious academic background, most colleges would go out of business tomorrow.
When I was 18 I got accepted to an elite university. Not quite Ivy League, but a very prestigious reputation in our part of the country.
Tuition at the time was $13K. My dad thought that too expensive so I did not go.
Have regretted the decision ever since. Primarily because my entire adult life I’ve been watching drooling morons and idiots repeatedly get jobs, promotions and gobs of money thrown at them just because they have a degree from the “right” university.
I know several pieces of ambulatory human waste who have degrees from the school that accepted me. I doubt they could chew gum and tie their shoes at the same time. No matter. Companies see that degree on their resume, they have their multiple orgasm, and they write them a check.
In life you will never go broke underestimating how shallow people can be.
And technological advances are rapidly reducing the need for human labor in a vast variety of fields.
That’s a great idea! There are so many app!I can’t that employers use it as a way to eliminate blocks of candidates.
Not necessarily a bead thing. A college degree does not help you live life, it only can potentially (now almost by law is needed) allow one to negotiate a trade for money they will receive for hours they put into a job for a company.
I know plenty of folks make good money but live stupid lives with the money they make. a real shame, waste of all that college tuition in the first place, imo.
I would think that the large gap on the ex con’s resume would be a telltale sign for the HR department.
I think that, in another time, a classical education was intended to teach one how to live a good life rather than how to make a living. Today, no one is taught how to live a good life but rather how to become a good SUBJECT.
Just do away with degrees. You get a level 1 or a level 2 or a level three certificate of attendance.
I work as a machine designer designing / engineering liquid filling machines for products such as personal care (lotions, shampoos etc.), food (peanut butter, salad dressing etc.) and now beer and soda for major manufacturers. Funny thing is, I never went to college. I bought a bunch of mechanical engineering books on Ebay about 20 years ago and studied away. I got a job as a draftsman and worked my way up. I make over 100k/year with no debt to show for it.
Sadly, moving to another job, even laterally is very difficult. I’m expected to have a Masters at my pay scale. Never mind that I can do the job and excel at it.
From the lowest prestige to the highest, universities have largely been overtaken by Marxist social programming, shaping useful idiots and selfish “altruistic” entitled zombies that I’ve seen fail to perform in the workplace...
I’d rather hire people who worked hard to earn their specialty expertise and learned from all the mistakes, than hire someone who wants it all handed over on a plate and has no idea what real elbow grease (mental or physical) really is in the workplace.
The person who worked hard without the college degree has a proven work ethic that carries over to your business... along with lessons they learned (mistakes to avoid and how to recover from them).
Some who get their college degrees have strong work ethics, but it seems to be more and more rare in the cry-baby college culture. It’s up to the degreed college candidates to prove to me they have enough real world skills and work ethic.
The College Degree “checkbox” is a crutch, one that implies favor to the college degreed when they are not always the best workers and problem solvers. I support removing the College Degree “checkbox.”
Re: “As an employer, this kind of crap infuriates me. According to lawyers, OSHA & all other government agencies, employers are responsible for every thing their stupid employees do.”
One word solution...
Robots.
I come from five generations of small business owners.
Fifty years from now, general management skills will be completely useless.
Thank, God.
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