Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

Here's what I find, as someone who's straddled both Anglo-Saxon and Germanic systems.

- In the UK, a lot of people have degrees, but it doesn't seem to matter what the degree is in. You have English and History grads trading bonds. You used to be able to get an options trading job straight out of school (some of my old bosses joined at 16, and are now the movers and shakers in certain option markets) but not anymore.

- In Switzerland (which I think is somewhat similar to Germany) not that many people have degrees, but everyone appears to be trained for their industry from a young age. My private banker is around my age, but started as a banking apprentice at age 16. He's a major asset for his international bank, and seems to know everything that folks in London know.

What are the pros and cons? I suppose if you do a degree in the UK, you can find a job in many different industries. But you'll probably have a steeper learning curve, since you won't be learning about bonds until you land at the desk. In the Germanic world, you'll somewhat hit the ground running. But you might find it hard to change industries, which is a problem at the moment for finance folks (major job cuts at the two Swiss investment banks).

Switzerland is unique in the sense that they never bought into the idea that knowledge worker meant non-technical. When the rest of Europe spent most of their time getting people with university degrees in various humanistic and social sciences, communication etc, Switzerland kept educating technical knowledgable but still of equal length.

The result of that is the Switzerland has managed to get most of the high quality production that requires special knowledge and the rest of Europe is fighting for the scrapes.

That wasn't my experience of working in a large insurer in Switzerland (admittedly just one company but I spoke to people who worked in other ones). I found the Swiss staff I dealt with didn't have the mental flexibility to deal with the sometimes chaotic world of managing a large IT system.

They could cope if it was something they understood but if it was a completely new problem they were generally at a loss. They tried to replace the contractors from my company three or four times and always ended up asking for them back after a month or two.

Obviously this is a generalisation based on working in one place but as I found Switzerland very rule based I wondered if that extended to their problem solving.

I second this comment about training for a particular role. A friend/colleague of mine (not a very Germanic combination) works in planning and controlling. The title of his masters thesis includes 'planning and controlling.' It is quite inflexible.

In the UK at least, the institution matters a great deal. If you have a degree from Oxford/Cambridge then you probably have your ticket punched no matter what degree you studied. If you studied at an ex polytechnic then you better have studied something useful.

It's easy to exaggerate the importance of institution. If you have a humanities degree from a top British university but little to no work experience and average academic results, you aren't going to walk into competitive jobs.

Competition for Oxbridge graduates is very fierce to the point where a graduate can be expecting to have multiple offers to consider from employers willing to wine and dine them before they have graduated.

There are well funded recruiting events at all good universities. That doesn't mean it is easy for the average non technical graduate to get a "top" job.

The amount that most firms , especially large consulting firms etc are willing to invest in securing a fresh Cambridge grad is on a different scale to what they will do to hire someone from a middling institution.

It's much easier for them to be hired into the sort of positions that will catapult their career to the top in the least amount of time.

As someone living in switzerland and having done my apprenticeship here in computer science I don't think it's that hard to switch. Of course I speak of mostly personal experiences, but when you're in school you usually have two forms of classes still, general education, like math, language and so on. And then you have your field related stuff. Of course if you're learing IT you'll have more math than a cook apprentice, but still. After you have completed one apprenticeship (mine took 4 years), you can learn other jobs if you want at a very reduced time, 1 to 2 years usually.

If you're fresh out of university you'll have a ramp up time too as you said. At my previous company we much preferred people doing an apprenticeship for 2 years than having someone with a bachelor. Because they were significatly cheaper during those two years, while usually require only slightly more training.

We were never able to take someone straight from university and put them on a project.

> But you might find it hard to change industries, which is a problem at the moment for finance folks (major job cuts at the two Swiss investment banks).

Do you have any source for that? Genuinely curious, because I haven't heard about that beeing an issue.

>Do you have any source for that? Genuinely curious, because I haven't heard about that beeing an issue.

No, that's speculation. It's well known the big banks have been reducing head count, and I suppose that most people in such a system will at least start by trying to find a seat in the same industry. At least one guy I know has been looking for work for ages.

The problem is age, mostly, isn't it though? With age you neither want to leave the place you grew accustomed with, nor would it be easier than finding a job in your profession, as some complain even here with respect to IT.

Anyway, I find it a terribly boring and ignorant idea, to work in one profession all life, without much change of pace. or chances to gain valuable knowledge from dfferent fields. Although, it sounds comfortable enough to understand why so many would not want to change a running system. As the saying goes, let the cobbler stay with his lasts (!g what's a last anyway?) edit: originally the saying ment to stay within ones competence.

The UK degree system is far more about assigning people to "middle class" (with degree) or "working class" (without). When people were entering careers at 16 they were being pre-sorted at age 11 into the two types of secondary school.

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