Why Hiring Managers Are Widening Their Gaze Away From The Ivy League

[Music] hi everyone I'm Maggie McGrath senior editor at Forbes and today we are joined by Randall Lane forbes's Chief content officer and he's going to talk about a new Forbes survey that shows declining trust from America's hiring managers in Ivy League institutions Randall thanks so much for joining us thanks Maggie thanks for having me so this survey is really provocative it's finding that hiring managers have less trust in the ivy league than they had even just 5 years ago what is at play here I think uh I think we now have numbers that kind of confirm uh something I think a lot of people a lot of hirers uh are feel have felt anecdotally which is uh what is happening you know I mean if we want to even take a step back and think about what the ivy league means the ivy league for H literally hundreds of years uh you know Harvard's case more than 300 years yeah more than 300 years uh has kind of served as kind of America's meritocracy filter where it said basically we're going to try to pick the highest Achievers we're going to train them through a really hard regimen so that employers can say hey okay well you know your Harvard your Harvard grad your Dartmouth grad whatever it is I know I'm getting I know what the product I'm getting and what this survey uh shows and and just to back up we've surveyed 300 people 300 subscribers to our future of work fors future of work newsletter but three qus of them are direct H make direct hiring decision so we focused on that cohort and we said five years ago more or less likely to uh to hire from the IV League 33% at less likely only 5% more likely so you could say that's an indictment of the entire education system except when we asked them about public universities 42% said more likely and only 5% said less likely that's an incredible you know it's almost parallel universes where you see a clear shift a numeric shift a real shift from that idea of an Ivy League p agree what's going on now is that a lot of employers are saying I want uh I want folks who are smart hardworking and you know maybe a little hungrier uh and a little less you know feeling special quote unquote which is some of the criticisms we saw in the survey hiring manager said that ivy league grads are too entitled and feel too special well we we did you know we did uh you know Emma wford did such a good job reporting this out but as she was then talking to the that was the anecdotal feedback on the numeric proof that you know right now an i degree from a hiring perspective is worth Le worth less and again I think that also explains to some degree some of this you're seeing what happens you know that when what's going on on campuses across the country and again with you know some of the IV campuses being at the center of it it just creates this idea of what you know what the the product which is the students are you know what you know what's being served up to the employers who want to hire them and again again a lot of this this has nothing to do with the students themselves it's really this entire you know we've seen this and I think what the survey points out is that this has been kind of this trend has been happening for several years not just this week uh employers are are more sour on on the ivys it's that this has been going on for years I was going to say there was a Gallop poll last summer that showed overall public trust in higher ed has been declining is this part of that same story do you think I think I think the dichotomy that when we ask in coming up with this new Ivy list the idea that when we asked about trust in Ivy League way down trust in public universities way up trust in non Ivy universities up well up so it's not I think I think the the ivys are kind of a represented representative of this you know a certain kind of again I think you know you mentioned just the word entitled the idea of school that kind of don't you know they're in their own kind of bubble uh and you're seeing that with these numbers because the trust from hires is mixed it's down for the super Elite ivys and it's up for great public universities and in fact in coming up with our new IV's list the idea was let's look at they were ranked and chosen based on the feedback from people who are hiring their students so these are the schools that the employers are saying are producing smart hardworking the kind of graduates they want this survey has implications for administrators at schools for kids applying to schools and for kids currently in schools let's start with the administrators what do you hope that the nation's College administrators take from this survey I think what we're what we're seeing part of our methodology here uh univ you're seeing a walk back standardized test scores created a lot of this kind of this kind of distrust in some of these graduates I mean if you think about again look at look at the ivy league what it's supposed to mean and then what happened when you know coming out of covid uh a lot of schools did away with mandatory testing and some some systems like the University of California won't even look at it if you do submit it so the you know what what uh that tradition of you using as many metrics as possible to get the class it's most likely to see kind of went out the window what happened was the iys I think admissions directors of the iy League specifically talk about the their desire to have a well-rounded class but that what they meant and they they said this and this was kind of a very pervasive thought was that well-rounded class meant you know people who are exceptional at one thing and together it's a really well-rounded class but what we lost out on was well-rounded individuals and you know what happened to the mirr the kiddos and you it's not enough just to be a a valorian have perfect board scores they the board scores go at the window and there a lot of kids who have perfect school grades now because of grade inflation and so what what happened when schools did away with standardized tests was or mandatory standardized test was they kind of put an X Factor and actually a lot of kids weren't you know it actually disproportionately the the people who were hurt the most were students from under repesentative groups you know there was just a big survey that c came out with very conclusive proof about that and the reason is because the universities couldn't tell from somebody from a different background if they can handle the workload a standardized test is meant to say yes this kid is just as smart probably smarter than the other kids because what he or she had to overcome and so in bringing back standardized testing you saw Dartmouth agreed to do it then Yale followed uh Brown followed what's happening is you're seeing a a a a return to that and while again there problems with standardized testing too uh make taking that away actually would did a lot of damage uh to the repres represent the ivy league now I was looking at admissions numbers and application numbers for the ivy league for this past season and Pen myam moer had 65,000 applicants and yours and yours 65,000 applicants alltime high for school for the school how do you square that you know other IVs had were down a little bit year-over-year but still we reporting their third largest applicant class second largest applicant class kids are still applying to these institutions of course listen these schools you know you know Penn has 275 plus years of brand but as Warren Buffett of course famously said uh you know you can build a reputation over 20 years and it takes five minutes to blow it and maybe for these schools it's 200 years of reputation five years to blow it uh what's happening is again with the Common App uh it's a lot easier to apply to more schools and so you know you're gonna continue to see those Trends there's such a craving for these credential degrees so you know so many of the top schools are up but if you you know again if you're looking at again just you could go this week is the week that students decide and if you just go look on social media you see a lot of people who are actually agonizing between schools that used to be an automatic and and these new ivys that we listed where I think there's a lot of you know there's a lot of feeling that the degree is also prestigious but maybe there's a big better focus in on you know producing the kind of students who then will excel uh when they get out of school and of course financial aid is a big consideration I know I Wasing financial aid packages for sure and if you look at these State Schools they're un they're great schools and they cost half of what the sticker price is on on the ivys but yes the you know in a private school financial aid is everything and IVs also of course have very good financial aids with those giant endowments yes which brings me to my question which is selfish but I just finished paying down my student debt from Penn last year and I'm some someone who wants to see the value of my education increase year-over-year so for alumni of these institutions that are falling out of favor with recruiters and in public eye what should we do how should we think what's your message I think again it's a what's great about and what's different about this survey and different about this ranking of schools is that we're ultimately looking at the people who are quot you know when you graduate what your what Your Diploma is is worth is of course it's worth what you carryed head and it's worth the networks that you make but ultimately the the number one customer is who then hires out of there and so in uh in listening to what these respondents to this survey said I'm sure there'll be follow-ups to this I think schools would do well to understand that that when and again in every field in every sector whether it's hospitals or or startups uh or nonprofits if uh the people who are hiring those great job who have the great jobs and are hiring are happy with your graduates the worth the value of the degree goes up and if they're not it goes down you said you're sure there will be a lot of follow-ups what is your number one follow-up question or Trend that you will be looking for in the months to come on the back of this survey I think again I this is a snapshot and I think it'll be interesting to see especially with you know so much uh you know just what's going on on campuses right now so uh you know I think whether or not this is a snapshot of a time or whether this is something that's more permanent I think will'll be very interesting it's something we're to keep an eye on excellent randan thank you so much for joining us thank you

Channel: Forbes

Views: 3,412

Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, hiring managers, getting a job, whos hiring, media jobs, tech jobs, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, ivy league schools, ivy league graduates, College campuses, College Students, New IVies, The ivy leagues, best colleges to go to, what college should I go to, picking colleges, best colleges for a good job, Harvard, Columbia University, Northwestern University, Rice

Id: LzXeMak50qk

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024