[that] when you’re interviewing with Bob from the HR team at Wal-Mart who’s wearing a tie that has the twin towers smoking with writing underneath that says “We Will Never Forget,” your art history degree says to him “I’m a commie a-hole who thinks I’m better than guys with 9/11 ties.”
h/t CC
RU kidding me? Neck ties aside, when I was in retail training for manager I was told this: “Always put resumes with University degrees or experience on the bottom of the pile!”
This is no joke, this is how I was trained, and it is an excellent piece of advise to hiring managers. I’ll leave it to others to muse as to why such a resume belongs on the bottom of a pile for entry level retail jobs.
Is anyone interested in learning what Rule #1 is for hiring ‘Door to Door’ salesmen? It ain’t perty, but I learned at my own peril the truth of the matter.
Advisory for those at work: The link in question has a Facebook component. A lot of corporations have Facebook blocked and/or a redirect to a “Get back to work” site.
As my coffee break is almost over,{grin} I return you to normal blogging.
Indiana Homez
I’ll bite. Criminal record…pathological liar…great teeth?
Indy – hit me.
Well, at least Anthropology wasn’t on the list. Hope for me? Hmmm…. Ah well, I have a bottle of wine somewhere…
Well we might as well burn them all down.
“With an art history degree you could maybe curate an art gallery or work at a museum or….yeah, that’s it.”
Someone should inform President Obama of this tragedy. Those are HIS people out there without jobs!
Perhaps in his next stimulus package,he can include building a lot of galleries and museums for these good kids.
I know a couple of bright kids that were impressed by the ease with which they obtained their degree in Geography. She waits tables,he is still unemployed.
Another friend of my son got his degree in anthropology at UVic. The only jobs he’s gotten so far have been ALL paid for by the taxpayer. Right now he’s hunting for Native artifacts up North,trying to find evidence of Native settlements in the oil patch,so the Natives can blackmail more money out of the oil companies. This is paid for by our Federal Government!
Another friend of my son took his electrician’s pre-apprenticeship and went up to Fort McMurray to work as an electrician. Last we heard a couple of years ago,he’d gotten his journeyman’s papers,and now owns four houses which he rents out.
But, smarter and better people don’t get their hands dirty.
our dog(whisky were his name)put the run on a Fuller brush man(go look it up you igorrant punks)when i was a younker….i remember they all carried black cardboard suitcases….
wrt ‘door to door’ sales and hiring people… and know that in my idealistic 23 yr old mind that I thought this bit of advise absurd… but then I grew-up.
Rule #1 when hiring ‘door to door’ salesmen: Never hire an Indian or someone that looks Indian.
Once again, I’ll leave it to others muse as to why this is.
Well, there are art historians and then there are art historians …
When my first wife studied Art Education at U of Oregon, her art history instructor was ex-USMC!
Shall we say that their art history courses were well-disciplined?
Women who take a degree in whatever would be advised also to obtain a solid diploma from a secretarial school.
The combination often works well. That doesn’t work so well for men.
While a degree in Latin requires some imagination to find a job, my Latin courses have sure helped me to figure out how many of those pills the doctor gives me I should take.
Indy, just to clarify, are we talking Native-Canadian or a dude from India? (I realize we’re not supposed to call the former ‘Indians’ any longer)
Black Mamba
Care to speculate? Anthropological interpretation does seem appropriate.
In grade 9, I learned how to type. And in grade 10 I learned about double-entry bookeeping.
And then I dropped out.
Along the way I was a farmer, a radio-TV technician, oilwell service tech, and finally I found my niche in the mainframe computer business. That kept me in peanuts until big iron went the way of the dinousaurs. Then I did about a dozen years of free-lance consulting.
The secret to this is to learn what you need to know when you need to know it. I have done this in a multitude of ways over the years and continue doing this even to thus day.
ABORIGINAL
“Another friend of my son took his electrician’s pre-apprenticeship and went up to Fort McMurray to work as an electrician. Last we heard a couple of years ago,he’d gotten his journeyman’s papers,and now owns four houses which he rents out.” – dmorris
I think this disparity between education and wages may what those in the humanities/social science circles would call a social injustice. Once that has been established, they move on to the income gap “crisis”, the necessity of wealth redistribution, free post-secondary education etc., etc.
I know of an oil company that was looking for an engineer straight out of school. They put another engineer with the job of looking thru the resume. He was having trouble so asked one of his bosses for help. It was simple. First take the ones that met what the company wanted. Seconded dump into the trash all the ones from Ont. and POQ, then keep the ones from small towns and lose the city kids. Pick from the small pile left. They figured western small town kids just worked harder. Plus the upside was my friend figured out how he got his job.
I think he’s confusing “art history” with “____ studies”.
Art History majors actually have to, you know, engage the Canon of Western Culture – and in my experience, Art History classes haven’t been all pooh-pooh about that.
(And unlike art majors, Art History majors aren’t under the delusion that they’re Precious Creative Flowers Who Are Just Underappreciated.)
(Full disclosure: My useless degree is not in Art History, though I took a few classes.)
“Good jobs for Philosophers, too!”
— Any More Rocket Fuel For You Hard Hats?
Firesign Theatre, 1981
In 30 years of hiring salesmen, I’ve never had an aboriginal apply. What does that mean?
What does that mean?
They didn’t see your ad? 😉
9/11 tie? Oh how tacky! I wouldn’t want to work for a jackass like that-especially at Wal-Mart.
Well, I’m glad not to see “International Relations” on the list.
And more than a little surprised…
FYI
The reason you “don’t hire an Indian” for ‘door to door’ sales is prejudice. It was explained to me that generally people will not invite an Indian into their homes to sell them stuff. It may not be fair, and it may not be right, but it’s the unfortunate truth.
I’m surprised that “What Job You’ll End Up With: government” didn’t appear in any of them.
“The reason you “don’t hire an Indian” for ‘door to door’ sales is prejudice. ”
Or Post-judice. Seriously, and with the usual apologies to those who don’t conform.
The reason sterotypes exist is often that observation and experience ( 1st or 2nd hand) reinforce it as an efficient method of quickly sorting probabilities.
IS that fair to all. No. Is it human and effective inthe balance of probability, yes.
Lots of sleazy outfits use minorities to go door to door in small towns. They have it figured that small town people’s fear of appearing prejudiced will keep them from slamming the door on them. They get a real surprise at my house. When a Jamaican dressed like a pimp shows up at my door, trying to sell me Shaw Cable, I treat him like a pimp.
IMO the most useless thing to take at university is “communications”. This was just getting started when I was an undergrad and I remember reading through one of the textbooks thinking what absolutely trivial self-evident crap. But then, I guess fast food restaurants need people who are better able to explain the options on the menu.
What got me my first job after university wasn’t my electrophysiology degree (although that helped) but rather my knowledge of digital electronics and programming which I picked up on my own. My only regret is that I hadn’t looked outside of academic environments as I probably would have made way more money programming there.
I do miss repairing electronics as machines don’t ask annoying questions or bombard you with reams of material off the internet about what they think is wrong with them.
What, women’s studies doesn’t make the list? Gimme-a-friggin break!
Mind you, lots of them end up being HR manglers in the government, so maybe not as useless as pernicious.
me?….i love it when an Arapahoe salesman shows up at my door…makes my day….all that cool wampum beads and stuff for sale….and so CHEAP!….i pour em a drink of firewater of course…light up a pipe of sweetgrass….a few feathers off’n my cockatoo and we’re in business!
I know it is the exception to the rule but the son on a friend of mine took an art history elective at university. He liked it so much that he started buying art at auctions and reselling it. He now owns a very successful gallery.
@ john begley
Arapahoes and cockatoos…yowza..
@ john begley, lol, we needed a word from you on the (John) Bolton on Egypt thread.
The French courses have come in handy for reading cereal boxes.
Taking Latin for a course is stupid. Taking it as a gateway language to other professions should be mandatory. For Law , Science, Medicine , engineering, respectfully.
Most of the technical & other terms for those jobs language sets, are Latin based. If you know the descriptor’s that are in Latin, thats a big leg up from a neophyte.
JMO
I got Numbers 1 and 4. Put me in Coach, I know I can do it!
I recently ran into an art grad who specialized in “mixed media”. I thought that, like Kate, this was someone who painted, sculpted, etc. Actually, he produces unintelligible abstract messes concocted out of yarn, finger paint, and popsicle sticks. Mixed up media would be a more accurate description.
dmorris @1:47 – “Another friend of my son got his degree in anthropology at UVic. The only jobs he’s gotten so far have been ALL paid for by the taxpayer. Right now he’s hunting for Native artifacts up North,trying to find evidence of Native settlements in the oil patch,so the Natives can blackmail more money out of the oil companies. This is paid for by our Federal Government!”
This is honestly what I’m afraid of if I finish my Masters. The other possibility – being an academic – is even worse.
Rev. – “Taking (Latin) as a gateway language to other professions should be mandatory.”
Latin and Philosophy and Art History are great; they’re just not likely to get you employed. That doesn’t mean they’re worthless.
The University bubble is bound to burst, which will be excellent for everyone except the young untenured academic hopefuls who’ve invested so much money and time and brown-nosing.
May I respectfully say if you are aiming to become a lifer in a government job, the quality of degree doesn’t matter – only the fact that it shows up on the resume. Most middle level jobs in gov. require a college degree merely to apply. Many times, this is done to avoid discrimation lawsuits from those refused the job. In the private sector, of course, this is not nearly as important, because the person hiring is looking for actual qualifications and indications of aptitude for the work, so, yes, the degrees like musical therapy – har, har! – are simply a waste of ( usually other people’s ) money. It’d would be much better if young people worked hard a few years before embarking on college.
The thing I can’t understand in these examples is where were the parents in the prospective students decision? Are they all brain-washed into believing a degree is necessarily the best way to achieving a great living? Hard work, intelligent life decisions, the ability treat others right, and thrift are far more important to individual success than possession of a degree.
Black Mamba
I honestly suspect that brown-nosing skills are highly underrated in academia.
Of course this is merely a supposition.
Wha… where’s the entry for “Wymmyn’s studies”?!
Indy:
Here in the Big Smoke, a lot of companies selling long term energy contracts specifically hired Asians to go door to door, not because of prejudice or expected politeness – they did it because of these Asians’ very poor English language skills. They’d ask to see the prospects’ energy bills (flashing “Energy” buttons that looked official), copy down their account numbers, and then insist the prospect sign the bottom to “show boss we look at your bill”. The poor sap customer didn’t realize he’d signed a five year contract for natural gas and/or electricity until he got his first bill from the new retailer, about two months later – long past the provincially-mandated “cooling off” period. Door to door should be renamed scam to scam.
Interesting link only in that the person who wrote the article has no idea of what a degree is, or what a personnel manager (sorry, refuse to call it HR) is looking for in most companies.
There are degrees listed that are pretty pointless, but others (philosophy being the best example) are sound and rigorous, and when I was recruiting I would have put such a graduate above graduates of the pointless, vocational, fake degrees* aimed at my sector. These would go way down the pile for two reasons, first they show poor judgement in doing the degree and second I really hate to make people squirm in interviews, and I would have to ask how they thought their degree would help them do the job.
* a degree has an element of original research. If it does not, then it is a diploma with the wrong word on the certificate.
If I had advice for prospective university students it would be learn French because (sadly) there are some who haven’t clued onto the fact that though the lingua franca is no longer French, it will still get you a job no matter how incompetent you may be in other areas of professional life, learn a trade- any trade- because it could be something to fall back on and do what you think you will like doing because no one likes going to a job they really, really hate.
Richard, agree with you about a philosophy major being quite a bit more useful than the other examples given. What I’d do with a philosophy major would be to ask them which philosopher they were most impressed by: if it was Hegel, they go to the bottom of the pile, if it was Popper then they go near the top of the pile.
Also agree about the value of someone who’s done original research, but the problem with this is that one has to then evaluate the quality of the research and whether the person who did the research had a lot to do with the project design or just did as they were told by the research supervisor. Unfortunately there’s no quick and easy way to determine who’s going to be able to quickly pick up knowledge in a new field and who isn’t.
Osu
My daughter wants to be PM, so she’s been enrolled into French immersion.
Are they all brain-washed into believing a degree is necessarily the best way to achieving a great living? Hard work, intelligent life decisions, the ability treat others right, and thrift are far more important to individual success than possession of a degree.”
Yes.And yes.
I worked with a fine young fellow who had a degree in philosophy. He was a hard working guy,excellent work ethic,and was a first rate Timber Cruiser.
We very much enjoyed singing “The Philosopher’s Song” from Monty Python.
During his pre-employment interview the District Manager asked what his degree was,when he told him it was Philosophy,the DM burst out laughing,but hired him.
Indiana Homez, if she is her father’s daughter, she’ll be fine. 🙂
Dmorris, it is quite possible be a philosophy major and still be a hard worker. I think people sometimes confuse work ethic with a degree and vice versa. There are silly women’s studies fillies out there who deserve to be barristas and then there are arts students who really have a passion for art but could be willing to settle for such-and-such a job just to pay bills while pursuing another interest on the side. What should be encouraged is having a proper job.
Journalism Degree from Carleton U or Ryerson…where does that rate?