From a 2014 interview with Google’s Chief Recruiter: How to Get a Job at Google
“Your college degree is not a proxy anymore for having the skills or traits to do any job.
What are those traits? One is grit, he said. Shuffling through résumés of some of Google’s 100 hires that week, Bock explained: “I was on campus speaking to a student who was a computer science and math double major, who was thinking of shifting to an economics major because the computer science courses were too difficult. I told that student they are much better off being a B student in computer science than an A+ student in English because it signals a rigor in your thinking and a more challenging course load. That student will be one of our interns this summer.”
Or, he added, think of this headline from The Wall Street Journal in 2011: “Students Pick Easier Majors Despite Less Pay.” This was an article about a student who switched from electrical and computer engineering to a major in psychology. She said she just found the former too difficult and would focus instead on a career in public relations and human resources. “I think this student was making a mistake,” said Bock, even if it meant lower grades. “She was moving out of a major where she would have been differentiated in the labor force” and “out of classes that would have made her better qualified for other jobs because of the training.”
Bloomberg’s Noah Smith observes:
“Many of these good
jobs require Ph.D.s. A survey by Paysa found in 2017 that about 35 percent of
AI jobs required a doctorate. In finance, Ph.D.s are heavily recruited for top
quant trading jobs — as a professor at Stony Brook University, I helped advise
applied-math doctoral students who were aiming for that industry. Plenty of
workers at top tech companies such as Intel have Ph.D.s too. And more Ph.D.
economists are going to work for industry. A quick Google search reveals a vast
array of tech industry positions that now require this most advanced of
degrees.”
Wall Street Bonuses
Barry Ritholtz notes:
“… bonuses are big because the financial industry makes a lot of money and distributes a large share of the income stream to talented traders who might well make a lot of money in some other field. There’s a lot of competition for skilled workers and any pay regimen that didn’t take account of this would put the industry at a disadvantage versus those that did”.
“… bonuses are big because the financial industry makes a lot of money and distributes a large share of the income stream to talented traders who might well make a lot of money in some other field. There’s a lot of competition for skilled workers and any pay regimen that didn’t take account of this would put the industry at a disadvantage versus those that did”.
Tyler Cowen on Automation and the Future of Jobs