After being interviewed for a contract job in Michigan, I received the following feedback: “You were the best candidate, but we can’t hire you because you have no degree.” This is apparently a popular mantra in the Michigan area medical industry. My sister, who happens to work in that area and industry for a very large pharma company, says they have an unwritten rule – only grads from Western Michigan University. She only found this out AFTER interviewing candidates and being told which ones could be hired. It also turned out to be the reason she had been turned down for some job she had applied for within the company. After all, her degree was from Indiana University and even though she had over twenty-five years experience in the industry for two of the largest. Otherwise, of course, they love her.

Now in my case, I’ve got thirty years in the industry, great references, and in this case, lots of relevant experience, both recent and historical.

Here’s where it starts to get interesting when examined in depth. It appears the dominant thought is that by hiring only degreed people (applying some sort of “minimal standard” they hope to protect themselves legally because they have deep pockets). So, rather than hire someone trained to do the job, they only want what my sister referred to as “Magic Paper” (she earned hers going to school nights for many years earlier in her career). She points out there was no difference whatsoever from the day before she earned her degree and the day after, just the “magic paper”.

So it’s evident they would rather play games because of liability than hire the best candidate. I’d love to see them explain THAT to a jury in a liability trial!

Now the weirdest part of all. I’ve taught classes at many of the companies I’ve worked for, often to people with masters and PhD’s. Not so unusual. After hanging out my shingle some years back, I was running a little prototype development business in San Jose. The President/CEO of a local award winning flex circuit company called me one afternoon. “I’ve got a friend of mine, a young man who just graduated. I’d like you to help train him for me. I’ll give you $50 an hour and he will work for you for free.” He specifically wanted me to train him about components, ratings, BOM’s, specs, etc. As an engineering student, he spent 5-6 years earning his MSEE, but had never worked in the real world, and although well trained in theory, could not pick out a real world capacitor from a footlocker.

It seems they spend all five years modeling systems on a computer. Now, when it came to advanced CMOS design using VHDL and tasks like that, the young man was quite competent. I can’t do that, but the original job I was interviewing for was a pretty easy one, the type usually given to young engineers to help expose them to the manufacturing process – sustaining engineering. Would you want him spending time finding replacements for a 74LSxx device and capacitors or designing new silicon?

Most importantly, do you want someone in the medical device industry making decisions because they are the best at the job, or because they have “magic paper”? All the points made by your readers were spot on, but I think more needs to be written, considering the unemployment rates and unrealistic expectations.

Allan Knox II

Knox Associates Design

408-394-2648

PS: On top of all that, since they were going through an agency, they had already mitigated the majority of the risks when trying out a new hire!

For me, that stupid magic paper might ALLOW them to hire the BEST candidate, as opposed to sticking with corporate dogma.

If you hire someone who is “overqualified” you still have that chance, the thing to determine is WHY they want to work with your company? If you are that concerned about them simply using you, have them sign a contract negotiating the minimum amount of time they have to be with the company if they decide to work for you.

The biggest problem is that many times you have an HR department filled with people who have no idea how to do a job, and have never done the job in their life. What they think might be needed, and what actually is needed tends to be two different things.

Take medical for example. You have two doctors. One has been a doctor for 15 years. He became a department head after 8 years, and then decided to go into research. He specialized in open heart surgery, during his research for the last four years he’s discoverd better ways of surgical thread integration to lessen the impact and improve healing. He isn’t happy with the research lifestyle and wants to go back to being a doctor. Any doctor.

The other has just finished residency and has no other experience. He is fresh, new, and has his entire career ahead of him.

You have an opening for a general practicioner (or an easier way to say that, is the low guy on the totem pole at the Hospital ER room) during the evening and night shift.

Who do you want to hire. Who would you want to work on you? I’d choose the first guy any day of the week.

He’s overqualified, could be looking to have a foot in the door for a better position…and he’s going to do a better job while he’s there.

The younger guy may stick around a while longer, but have no illusions he’s going to stay on that job in that shift. It’s a drain and stressful. Plus, he’s not going to be as good as the one with experience in all likelihood, no matter how much more we may like him.

I think patients would be MUCH happier to have the guy who’s dealt with a ton of medical problems, had a good long career and isn’t basically the guy fresh out of medical school and residency as opposed to the new guy…even if the position t ypically GOES to the new guy (or worse, someone just getting into residency)

Think that only applies to doctors and experience?

Think again. The guy with experience SHOULD win out everytime. The fact that they don’t is one of the major problems with HR.

You want to know why MS did so well for years? Because they didn’t believe in stupid stuff like overqualified…they did tests to see if you were actually qualified or not and CHOSE the highest qualifed from those tests. Overqualifed or not.

Best line I may have ever read on this topic. Thanks for sharing man.