New Executive Order Fights Credential Inflation In The Federal Workforce"
"On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to fill job vacancies based on merit, rather than require a minimum level of education for candidates seeking open positions. The order rightly recognizes that a job candidate with several years of relevant experience may be just as qualified, if not more so, than one who has collected a stack of advanced degrees."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2020/06/29/new-executive-order-fights-credential-inflation-in-the-federal-civil-service/#6a382a085759
22 comments:
Could have a point. I have read somewhere that part of the rise in for profit colleges was to get degrees for government workers where your salary was based on your highest degrees so you had all sorts of these odd masters degrees and so on. One way to hire people would be experience and IQ tests, probably would work pretty good. I think it is not actually legal to use IQ tests but Wall street and high tech companies actually do just that with a series of questions which are just problem solving questions, so it is not technically an IQ test but is effectively one.
It might require hiring practices that value merit over paper.
"It might require hiring practices that value merit over paper."
It may also require hiring practices that value merit over cronyism and sometimes nepotism.
10:16. Funny. That will never happen at a DOE lab. We have become a dumping ground for second rate management. The old adage that A-students hire A-students and B-students hire C-students applies.
IQ tests? What a joke. In what professional or scientific field do you get a chance to prove your "merit" before you have an advanced degree? Your "merit" is proved by your attainment of an advanced degree. How does higher "merit" come about without the knowledge involved in obtaining an advanced degree? Just stupid - "don't need none of that'all Book-larnin."
IQ tests? What a joke. In what professional or scientific field do you get a chance to prove your "merit" before you have an advanced degree? Your "merit" is proved by your attainment of an advanced degree. How does higher "merit" come about without the knowledge involved in obtaining an advanced degree? Just stupid - "don't need none of that'all Book-larnin."
Degrees get your foot in the door. Same as experience. That is all. Merit is earned through effort and success associated with the job you were hired to do.
Why the angst? None of this matters for LLNL or LANL employees, you’re not feds.
Just as it is useful to know the rejection rates of different journals when comparing candidates' CVs, it is also useful to know the drop out rates for different universities.
6/30/2020 7:24 PM
A successful and cited Ph.D. thesis and associated peer-reviewed publication(s) is an extremely good sign of merit.
"A successful and cited Ph.D. thesis and associated peer-reviewed publication(s) is an extremely good sign of merit.
7/01/2020 6:08 PM"
Fine enough but why are we hiring people with almost no publications and little citations? By the way we are hiring less and less Ph.Ds at the labs. I think LANL is now down 16% of the workforce with Ph.Ds it was close to 40% 25 years ago.
Revenge of the C+ students part II, because as we all know Part I is Plant Management who charge astronomical amounts for every day construction. Level F estimate = plus or minus 50%. Move over paper smarty pants, real people moving through!
7/01/2020 8:01 PM
Operations (including security), environmental compliance, facility management, contract compliance, audits and assessments, community relations, etc., etc. require no Ph.D. degree. What percentage is that of the lab employees?
Revenge of the C+ students part II, because as we all know Part I is Plant Management who charge astronomical amounts for every day construction. Level F estimate = plus or minus 50%. Move over paper smarty pants, real people moving through!
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You should look a little deeper into that. The reason it costs so much is that where the tax to build the slush fund for LRDR (the PHD tax) is burdened. Capital expenditures. So in reality, it is paying for your research into things not specifically funded by the customer.
"You should look a little deeper into that. The reason it costs so much is that where the tax to build the slush fund for LRDR (the PHD tax) is burdened. Capital expenditures. So in reality, it is paying for your research into things not specifically funded by the customer.
7/03/2020 8:07 PM"
(1) A couple of points LDRD is only 6% of the labs budgets it is usually less, so it is hardly part of some astronomical amount of money. (2) Yes it is part of the what the customer wants. The customer, (which is a bizarre name and makes no sense to use), is the NNSA, the NNSA itself wants LDRD at the labs for a variety of reasons. (3) LDRD has actually been shown to bring in more more money to the labs in the long run. This is been demonstrated in a several studies, and makes sense when you simply count non-NNSA funding, from DOE, NIH, WFO, office of Army and Navy, not to mention expansions of NNSA programs. As for the reasons to have LDRD, besides research, it also is one of the main tools to recruit postdocs. All you have to do is look at how many NW scientists came in under LDRD. There are also endless programs, computational tools, experimental diagnostics, software, understand of materials, detection devices that have all come from LDRD, all this is very well known, and easy to find.
We use the word “customer” because We are a customer service organization. We do not have a single agency as a “customer” though the weapons program is by far the largest. I disagree with nothing you said, generally, but you just brush over the fact that 6% is a very large number of $2B (say $120M) tax on capital expenditures (say 50+%) on a budget that burns around $180M a year at best. So yes. That tax makes your conference room cost 50% more but it goes right back in your pocket so get over it. That was my point. I dont care what you do in LRDR.
If you knew the burdens that are put on capital expenditures by the programs for the lab (up to 125%) that more than double the cost you would know how dumb the process is and why your facilities continue to degrade. No one wants to pay double so they dont. In the mean time they dont know why it is double. Its a death spiral.
As a for-profit, LLNS has to pay taxes that a non-profit would not. It's not a trivial amount of the NNSA budget for LLNL work. There is your 6% and then some.
The guy who keeps typing "LRDR" obviously has no idea what he is talking about, just talking.
The guy who keeps typing "LRDR" obviously has no idea what he is talking about, just talking.
7/05/2020 5:31 PM
Good catch. There is something off about this guy. Maybe the Russians or Chinese have trolls on these pages to try and hurt the labs? Seems a bit farfetched but I suppose it is possible.
Good catch. There is something off about this guy. Maybe the Russians or Chinese have trolls on these pages to try and hurt the labs? Seems a bit farfetched but I suppose it is possible.
7/05/2020 9:16 PM
How does this thread "hurt" the lab?
7/11/2020 6:17 PM
Not the thread, but the poster who misrepresents himself as knowledgeable and gives himself away by using "LRDR" instead of the correct "LDRD" in opposing a funding source for basic and applied research at the labs that DOE/NNSA has consistently supported.
How does this thread "hurt" the lab?
7/11/2020 6:17 PM
Well trying stop the labs from doing cutting edge science and bringing in top talent for one thing. I am sure China/Iran/North Korea/Russia or whoever would be very happy if the labs decline scientifically. Remember a high tide raises all boats, the converse is also true. Clear enough now.
I think you misconstrued someone taking exception with you pointing at capital costs as being a problem and telling you why they are so high as being anti lab and anti science. They obviously work at LANL.
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