Adults are struggling to learn 21st-century skills

I think a lot of this will be overcome when schools teach people how to learn. Learning 101 or something. This will enable adults to teach themselves when they grow up. Have not run a class in almost 20 years and still learn new things nearly every day. The internet is a wealth of information that you can pick up and learn IF you know how to learn. It sounds silly, but it is what I believe.

Also, another factor is employers demanding degrees over skills? Maybe slightly off topic, but I will employ someone with hands-on experience much easier than someone with a piece of paper in his hand. Sadly a lot of corporates still demand the paper for employees to stay relevant.
 
oltman said:
I think a lot of this will be overcome when schools teach people how to learn. Learning 101 or something. This will enable adults to teach themselves when they grow up. Have not run a class in almost 20 years and still learn new things nearly every day. The internet is a wealth of information that you can pick up and learn IF you know how to learn. It sounds silly, but it is what I believe.

Also, another factor is employers demanding degrees over skills? Maybe slightly off topic, but I will employ someone with hands-on experience much easier than someone with a piece of paper in his hand. Sadly a lot of corporates still demand the paper for employees to stay relevant.
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Unfortunately most education systems rely on remembering a lot of facts rather than teaching techniques to evaluate, analyze and solve problems. The only real subjects that rely on actual learning is Math and Science. I regularly tell my colleagues and staff that I cannot teach them how to troubleshoot. The reality is that I can't, because you have to understand the source material and how these things interact with each other in order to start troubleshooting things.

Getting back to the experience vs paperwork; For me it's a mix of both. Some certifications, diplomas and degrees are worth a bit more than others. For instance, if I want a junior developer I'd take a B.Sc. Computer Science or Information Systems degree, but someone with real world (3-5 years) worth of experience can do the job just as well. The parity between Degree and Experience closes significantly past the 5 years experience mark.

When it comes to industry certifications though, I would never employ a MCSA/MCSE without experience as the exams are just way too simple and braindumps are available everywhere. These certifications rely on the candidate to memorize terms/problems/etc and does not test actual proficiency in the products. RHCSA/RHCSE on the other hand i'd employ without any experience whatsoever, the difference is that it's not a monkey puzzle exam and it's just a practical two hour exam with a bunch of objectives. If you don't know how to do something you cannot pass the exam.
 
PsychoFish said:
Getting back to the experience vs paperwork; For me it's a mix of both......
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Very true, I guess it depends on the situation and the time in a specific role. The 3-5 year experience level is actually a very good benchmark. Unless the applicant has had 3 - 5 jobs during the same time :p
 
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