Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with many other executives, believes that a specific field of study is no longer as important for employment in today’s competitive job market.
The most important thing, he said, is to be able to “do one thing really well.”
When asked by Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, “What should kids learn today?”, Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of critical thinking and learning values.
Rather than pinpointing a specific topic for aspiring Gen Z professionals, the Harvard dropout stressed that mastering a skill is more important than having a business or economics degree, as such persistence can be applied across a variety of business sectors.
Zuckerberg explained his “hiring philosophy” by pointing to his daughter, who was writing a 40-page novel about mermaid crystals.
“If people demonstrate that they can dig deep and do something well, then they probably have experience in the art of learning something and taking it to the next level, which can often be applied to other things,” he concludes.
High scores do not guarantee you are a good worker.
This is not the first time Meta has stressed that talent and character are more important than degrees.
Zuckerberg was way ahead of today’s skills hiring revolution—even back to 2015The tech genius insists that he “would only hire someone to work directly for me if I also worked for that person” and that his team is looking for people whose values align with the company’s.
Now, as businesses increasingly remove degree requirements from their hiring process, Zuckerberg’s hiring philosophy is becoming more popular.
Google, Microsoft, IBMAnd Apple have everything have eliminated their long-standing degree requirements. to remove barriers to entry and recruit more diverse talent. Meanwhile, global employers are five times more likely to look for new employees based on skills rather than higher education.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently revealed that the Wall Street giant has hired “four or five thousand ex-criminals” because talent doesn’t just come from college.
“I don’t think that necessarily because you went to an Ivy League school or got good grades you’re going to be a great worker or a great person or anything like that,” he said. “If you look at people’s skills, it’s amazing how many people have skills in a certain area, but it’s not reflected in their resume.
Similarly, Apple CEO Tim Cook also highlighted that there is a “mismatch between the skills that universities provide and the skills that we believe we need in the future”.
That’s why he says that aspiring programmers, in particular, no degree needed to succeed at a meeting of the US Workforce Policy Advisory Board.
Cisco UK Senior Managing Director David Meads, dropped out of school at 16. Like Zuckerberg, he said Luck that “attitude and aptitude are more important than any letters you have after your name, or any degrees you have on a piece of paper.”
