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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

> professional position for 10+ years, what relevance is a college degree from so many years ago

People look at that? I'm nowhere close to 10 years and people already don't care. It was only relevant for my first job out of college.

> education requirements

This is such a lie which is why is why the meme "have the audacity of a mediocre white man" is so important. I got a job where I've met less than 20% of the "non-negotiable" requirements. After I got the "you got the job" email I called my friend who was the self-proclaimed mediocre white man who told me to apply anyway and busted his balls for like 20 minutes like, "You sonofabitch you've been able to do this the whole time?!? What other secrets are you keeping from us?"

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> why the meme "have the audacity of a mediocre white man" is so important.

Important? I avoid people who are comfortable speaking like this. If someone said this to me in real life, I'd make a mental note that they're not to be taken seriously, or worse, potentially dangerous.

Yes important. You can take issue with the phrasing all you want but it's the phrasing that caught on, in large part due to the fact that it's attention grabbing. You can tell women all day every day to apply for jobs you don't meet all the qualifications for and that it's a good thing to go in confident and self-assured but you won't have 1% of the impact of that phrase going viral.

It sets up a reference that every. single. woman. in the world knows and has experienced first hand for actually how you actually change your behavior. You got this girl -- channel the energy of that guy at the bar who tried to impress you by acting like he was god's gift to finance because he worked in crypto. And since you're putting on a kind of persona it's so much easier to do it without holding yourself back, you're playing a character.

What you're selling can be sold without racially-charged memes. Thanks for understanding.

Maybe it sells better as a meme. Your patience is appreciated.

I think there might be some class-based miscommunication here. I would like to humbly recommend a book: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/darren-mcgarvey/poverty... . It's one of my favorites because it puts into words some inklings I occasionally get when I talk to mediocre white men (read here: upper middle class people). I think that the default stance when you're a member of the in-group is one of comfort and tacit understanding that your opinions will be valued and your personhood will be respected. I think that the default stance when you're the member of an out-group is one of fear and stress because there is a tacit understanding that your opinions will not be valued (unless exceptionally insightful/valuable) and that your personhood will not be respected. Class is racialized in the United States and I am making the assumption that the above commentor is American (hence interpreting racialization as class; race is constructed. See blonde white women). Now, I ask: what makes the above comment about mediocre white men challenging? For me, I think that it comes from an out-group default frame of reference, where the default state of worth is replaced with a default state of worthlessness. Being implicitly treated as worthless can be aggravating and feel threatening, because it is. I think that this frame of mind is perfectly rational when you look at outcomes from members of out-groups. When looked at from the point of view where only the truly gifted and exceptional in your class are treated as people, is there any wonder why there is class rage? When I look at mediocre white men and observe them, they have class signifiers. Walking around in a relaxed posture, general ease, confidence, and sometimes even this type of generic dismissal of the thoughts of others are some typical behaviors of mediocre white men. I guess I'm trying to say that we should try to be thoughtful about why people write things. The words are not often careless. Also, a hit dog will holler.

My issue is with the implication of a skin color. I don't need a book to know that's wrong. Can't be hand-waved away, I'm afraid.

> People look at that? I'm nowhere close to 10 years and people already don't care. It was only relevant for my first job out of college.

This was my experience as well. A lot of places that previously had a hard requirement for a degree will now say “4 year degree or equivalent experience in the field.”

For most jobs, the degree is not required but acts as a convenient filter for the company to narrow their candidate pool. They are starting to realize that it’s no longer a reliable indicator of job success.

In my experience, that requirement seems to have be added by HR whether the hiring manager wanted it or not. Most of the jobs I’ve held “required” a 4-year degree but they were either fine with the “some college” I actually had or explicitly told me they didn’t care.

I occasionally get asked about it, but it usually doesn’t matter. However I suspect it does matter in certain classes of jobs, namely federal government jobs. They way those are written just evoke an idea of box ticking based hiring to me.

Totally fair, for me they've all been private sector where the interviewers have less idea than me what's even on the job listing.

> However I suspect it does matter in certain classes of jobs, namely federal government jobs

It also matters if you have a hire in mind. You might due to laws need to have a competitive job solicitation but you know they were an intern for you and therefore you really want to bring them on full time. So magically the job description has exact years of eduction, certain skills, etc that your intern all meets to the T.

It's often corporate policy or just something HR requires even though the hiring manager doesn't care about the degree at all. It's far more common when you're an expense than when you're a revenue source.

>People look at that?

I can tell you that in law they certainly do, as ridiculous as that may be. Legal jobs will often ask for your law school GPA even for senior positions.

I’ve only ever had one prospective employer even ask about my education history… and they were also the one who insisted my job experience would be determined only by the entries on my resume, so if I wanted them to believe “10+ years experience” I needed to go back and add bullshit I had removed for years prior. Other places completely disregarded their education requirements without so much as mentioning it.

I completely dropped the education bullet point on my resume and I’ve only been out of school for about 5 years. It’s frankly a waste of space when I’m already working so hard to keep my resume concise enough to fit on a single page and not downplay my career outcomes.

Maybe it’s filtered me out of a few positions - but I get enough interviews that it doesn’t matter

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