Looks good on paper. The record is strong, but the person is not yet proven in practice.
Foot in the door. A first entry into an organization that can lead to more.
Name-brand school. A university that employers recognize at once.
Résumé builder. A job or activity chosen mainly because it looks good on a résumé.
Book smart, street smart. Knowledge from study, and knowledge from experience.
Prove yourself. Show by the work that the confidence was justified.
In 2015 the sociologist Lauren Rivera published Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs. She studied hiring at elite professional service firms. Each firm has a few “core” universities from which it chooses most of its new hires. It also has a few “target” schools that it considers when the core schools do not supply enough candidates.
“By far the most important hiring factor, Rivera said, was school prestige,” NYU Law reported.
In June 2013 Laszlo Bock, who led people operations at Google, gave an interview to the New York Times about hiring. “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless,” he said.
Bock also said: “What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well.”
No NFL team drafted the quarterback Kurt Warner in 1994. He stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for $5.50 an hour. He then played Arena Football for the Iowa Barnstormers and led them to the ArenaBowl in 1996 and 1997.
In 1999, with the St. Louis Rams, he was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. That season ended with a Super Bowl win over the Tennessee Titans, and Warner was the game’s MVP. He entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017.
The job site Ladders used eye tracking to study how recruiters read résumés. In its 2012 study, recruiters spent an average of about six seconds on the first screen of a résumé. In its 2018 update the average was 7.4 seconds.
On March 15, 2022, Maryland governor Larry Hogan announced that thousands of state jobs would no longer require a four-year degree. “People shouldn’t be compensated based on their years of education, but what their skills are to do the job,” he said.
The federal government had moved toward skills-based hiring earlier. Executive Order 13932, signed on June 26, 2020, said that “an overreliance on college degrees excludes capable candidates.” It told agencies to assess candidates “in a manner that does not rely solely on educational attainment.”
The Oakland Raiders chose the quarterback JaMarcus Russell with the first pick of the 2007 NFL Draft. His six-year contract was worth up to $68 million, with $31.5 million guaranteed.
In May 2010 the Raiders released him. He is often described as one of the biggest busts in NFL history.
On May 21, 2001, President George W. Bush spoke at the Yale commencement, 33 years after his own Yale degree. “To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done,” he said. “And to the C students,” he went on, and the audience applauded, “I say, you, too, can be President of the United States.”
College students have a shorter version: “C’s get degrees.” A 2024 opinion piece in the student newspaper of The College of New Jersey explained it. “With minimal effort and average grades, one can still finish four years of college with a paper diploma.” The headline called it “a dangerous mentality.”
The New England Patriots drafted Tom Brady with the 199th pick in 2000, in the sixth round. Their starter was Drew Bledsoe, who had signed a 10-year, $103 million contract. On September 23, 2001, a hit from the Jets linebacker Mo Lewis sheared an artery, and Brady got his chance.
In November, with Bledsoe back, Bill Belichick announced that Brady would remain the starter. Bledsoe said he had been told he would get a chance to win back his job. Brady finished that season as the Super Bowl MVP.
Bill Gates left Harvard. Steve Jobs left Reed College. Mark Zuckerberg left Harvard. In American business culture these are not scandals. They are origin stories.
The culture formalized the choice. In 2011 Peter Thiel’s fellowship began paying young people to skip college and build companies. The first class had 24 fellows. Each received 100,000 dollars.