Author: Ben Meredith

My Governor Bev Perdue has until midnight to veto H129, a bill that some are saying “protects the monopolies of second rate corporate ISPs at the expense of fast, cheap, local broadband.” I hope she doesn’t.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do work for a corporation that provides high speed internet, but I want to make clear two things: (1) I held these views before I worked here, and (2) the views expressed in this post are mine alone, and unrelated to my employer or my employment.

I’m frustrated, as I’ve written before, that those on the opposing side of the debate are characterizing my position as a support of “big business” or “corporate monopolies.” What I am against is a governmental monopoly. Municipal broadband is broadband that doesn’t have to continue making a profit to continue to function. Governments are fiscal nightmares, generally. Instead of closing up show when they stop making money, they just continue to spend money they don’t have until our economy collapses. “Big Business” on the other hand, makes a profit. That profit is used to hire more people, provide healthcare to those people, provide income to those people, and make the economy grow. (to call that a vast oversimplification would be itself a vast overstatement)

I understand that the same corporations are using those same profits to lobby government to pass legislation protecting their profits. (but can you blame them? Imagine someone entering your field, doing what you do, but for free, without having to make a profit to continue doing it.) I’m not suggesting that I know the answer to the complex issues of corporate lobbies for government action. I’m only vaguely familiar with the issues in the first place.

Let’s start, though, by seeking to understand and debate the issues, not just the sound bytes.

If you are in the business of hiring people to work for you, and the first filter you have is for a college degree, you might be costing yourself money, time, and the best applicants.

The tried and seemingly-true line (sold thoroughly to us–by educators) is that the single most important thing you have to have to get hired is a college degree. You have to go to college to get a good job. To think otherwise is to go against the grain of popular thought for the past 50 years or so.

And I certainly don’t mean to say that college is unimportant. I won’t go see a dentist who hasn’t been to college. There are many fields where a college degree is absolutely vital to getting hired.

But please don’t buy the lie that the degree is what makes someone (even a dentist) hirable. Somebody who treated dental school like I treated my undergraduate degree should never touch the inside of a mouth. I graduated using the “path of least resistance” method. Find the classes that are the easiest, and get out with as little work as possible. That person’s dental school degree doesn’t qualify them for hiring.

If you are in the business of hiring people, the first filter ought to be teachability. Can the person be taught? Sure, depending on the field you are hiring for, there are some things other than teachability that might rule out a person. But a lack of teachability will always rule a person out.

The second filter needs to be integrity. Take the person out to a middle-to-low-end restaurant for the interview, and see how they treat the server. Take them to Starbucks (ahem) and see how they treat the barista. Interviews are easy to fake. Integrity is not.

No matter the size of your business, hiring people without teachability and integrity will kill it. Even if they have a degree from Harvard.