Mark Zuckerberg advocates for hiring based on demonstrated skill and critical thinking, highlighting a shift away from traditional degree requirements in the job market.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has joined a growing number of executives suggesting that a specific field of study is less critical for employment in today’s competitive job market. According to Zuckerberg, the key to success is being able to “do one thing really well.”
In an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Zuckerberg was asked, “What should kids be studying these days?” He emphasized the importance of critical thinking and learning values over specific subjects. Rather than focusing on a particular field, the billionaire Harvard dropout stressed that mastering a skill is more valuable than having a business or economics degree. This ability to excel in one area can be applied across various business sectors.
Zuckerberg illustrated his “hiring philosophy” by mentioning his daughter, who is currently writing a novel about mermaid crystals. He explained that if someone has shown they can go deep and excel in one thing, they have likely learned how to master the art of learning, which can be applied to other tasks. “If people have shown that they can go deep and do one thing really well, then they’ve probably gained experience in the art of learning something and taking it to an excellent level, which is generally pretty applicable to other things,” he concluded.
Zuckerberg has long believed that raw talent and personality are more important than formal credentials. Even in 2015, he insisted that he “will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person,” and that his team looks for people whose values align with the company’s.
This philosophy is becoming more common as businesses increasingly drop degree requirements from their hiring process. Companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple have all eliminated degree requirements to remove barriers and recruit more diverse talent. Globally, recruiters are now five times more likely to search for new hires 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-felons” because talent doesn’t just come from colleges. “I don’t think necessarily because you go to an Ivy League school or have great grades it means you’re going to be a great worker, great person or something like that,” he said. “If you look at skills of people it is amazing how skilled people are in something, but it didn’t show up on their resume.”
Similarly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has pointed out a “mismatch between the skills that are coming out of colleges and what the skills are that we believe we need in the future.” He has emphasized that aspiring coders, in particular, don’t need a degree to be successful.
David Meads, Cisco’s top executive in the U.K., also shares this view. Having dropped out of school at 16, he told Fortune that “attitude and aptitude are more important than whatever letters you have after your name, or whatever qualifications you’ve got on a sheet.”
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 "Mark Zuckerberg on how to get job in Meta")
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