How About A 3 Year B.A. ????

I have spent an embarrassing amount of time this year trying to hire an exceptional recent college graduate for an entry level sales position. I focused on upper tier colleges and universities, placing ads with their career centers. (Amazingly, about 2/3 of colleges  in this job market still charge businesses to post an ad) I've had tremendous difficulty finding exceptional candidates who have presence, poise, and who possess exceptional verbal and writing skills. I would advocate that any business or liberal arts major take 2 years of English and one year of public speaking. Great communicators rule the world, and even from very good schools, I've interviewed a lot of kids who appear to be 13th grade when it comes to vocabulary and presence.
 
I have spent an embarrassing amount of time this year trying to hire an exceptional recent college graduate for an entry level sales position.
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Have you considered that "exceptional" recent graduates from "upper tier" schools might not be interested in an "entry level sales position"? Because that sounds like a pretty crappy job, one with a long, flat, dull career trajectory, and perhaps better suited to a mediocre student from a middling tier school, or one with an associates degree or perhaps even a high school diploma. Maybe there are entry level sales gigs that require an Ivy league education but from your bare description this doesn't sound like one of those and anyway the skills that make a good salesman - which are chiefly people skills - they don't teach in school and probably couldn't anyway.

Which is itself part of the reason that the university system is in crisis. You think you need an over achieving graduate from a prestigious school to do a job that a generation ago any shlub was qualified for. Meanwhile recent college graduates - and not even exceptional graduates from upper tier schools, all of them - have been led to believe that their degrees entitle them to salaries both commensurate with the amount of money they've borrowed to purchase them and generous enough to maintain the lifestyles they've grown accustomed to while attaining them. Whereas the fact is that most professions do not require any particular training and certainly not a rigorous and expensive course of 4-year study that most people are too stupid to learn from anyway.

Here's an old saying I made up a few months ago:

Even the stupidest mule will learn to pull the plow if beaten righteously enough.

Freaking beautiful, right? A hundred years ago they'd have put me in the aphorism hall of fame for that one. Nowadays, bupkis. The fact is that it probably doesn't matter who you hire, as long as it isn't a uniquely stupid person or one with some sort of genetic malady. And from what school they graduated is important only to your own sense of ego. What really matters is how good you are with the whip.
 
 
 No way you can do a 3 year BA. These days a 4 year BA is nothing to achieve...for some even grad school is necessary and the minimum standard let alone a 3 yr BA. The first year of college you are taking all different courses to see what you want to major in. So that leaves you 2 years to actually do work in your field with the first of those 2 being mainly intro classes. Basically that leaves you with 1 senior year of post-intro classes. That's not enough.
 
The first year of college you are taking all different courses to see what you want to major in. So that leaves you 2 years to actually do work in your field .
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Perhaps instead of taking a year of college to figure out why you want to go to college you should figure out why you want to go to college before you go. Kind of like how you don't go to McDonald's and then try and figure out whether or not you're hungry and then if you decide you are you eat a bunch of stuff off the menu to decide what you want to eat and only then place your order. Conversely, if you need to go to college for a year to figure out why you want to go to college maybe they should make deciding what you want to major in a 4-year major and then you can take the intro course as a masters student and then the core work to get a PhD. That way everyone would be a doctor.
 
 Fun is right. Willy Lowman had an entry level sales position. I'm not sure if he went to Harvard or Yale? ;-)
 
 I think you can certainly cut out fluff. Tell me what I learned in Opera. I love the opera, but did I need to take a fluff course and waste 3 months and $3k on it? I feel the same way about grad school. I am wrapping up at Fordham in 2 weeks. It was a 23 course MBA. They easily could have cut out some of the electives. It actually bugged me that I was limited in the number of upper level finance and account courses. I'm there to learn for my career, why would they not let me take all the electives I want in Finance instead of making me take some BS electives like History of Business. I love history, but I could have spend $60 on the three course books and read them on my own time. I would have much rather taken a course on fixed income analysis or mergers and acquisitions, something that would have helped me much more in my career.
 
I have spent an embarrassing amount of time this year trying to hire an exceptional recent college graduate for an entry level sales position. I focused on upper tier colleges and universities, placing ads with their career centers. (Amazingly, about 2/3 of colleges  in this job market still charge businesses to post an ad) I've had tremendous difficulty finding exceptional candidates who have presence, poise, and who possess exceptional verbal and writing skills. I would advocate that any business or liberal arts major take 2 years of English and one year of public speaking. Great communicators rule the world, and even from very good schools, I've interviewed a lot of kids who appear to be 13th grade when it comes to vocabulary and presence.
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I agree with Fun, sounds like you are fishing in the wrong pond for your opening. Why didn't you post something about it here? I'm sure plenty of people on the board know young kids looking for jobs.

I do agree about the public speaking. I have sat through awful presentations in grad school. One of the best courses I took was on speaking in business.
 
The first year of college you are taking all different courses to see what you want to major in. So that leaves you 2 years to actually do work in your field .
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Perhaps instead of taking a year of college to figure out why you want to go to college you should figure out why you want to go to college before you go. Kind of like how you don't go to McDonald's and then try and figure out whether or not you're hungry and then if you decide you are you eat a bunch of stuff off the menu to decide what you want to eat and only then place your order. Conversely, if you need to go to college for a year to figure out why you want to go to college maybe they should make deciding what you want to major in a 4-year major and then you can take the intro course as a masters student and then the core work to get a PhD. That way everyone would be a doctor.
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I agree with you in theory and I made sure I knew what I wanted to do before I went to college so I had a plan, but honestly the overwhelming majority of teens don't have any idea what they want to do the first year of college, sometimes even into the first semester of their soph. year. You can't just demand that someone pick a major when they honestly need to think more about it and take some different classes to find their niche. It's like demanding that a go-kart go 200 MPH...some things just are not capable and need some tweaking before it can do things or in this case make a decision. Again, I agree with you in theory and I knew what I wanted to do but that's the exception not the rule. Pressuring people to pick a major hastily is likely much more detrimental than benificial.

By the way, your avatar always makes me laugh for some reason...gets me every time.
 
I literally knew what I wanted to do since I was in 3rd or 4th grade. No joke. I really did. Kind of wierd since there isnt anyone in my family who works in finance.

I think 3 years is doable if you eliminate some of the fluff. Or have 2 programs. 1 for people who havent found themselves yet and 1 for kids who know what they want to do in life and want to go direrctly to that in college so they can get out in 3 years. If you had a 3 year program I suspect a lot of kids would kind of figure things out beforehand or their parents would make sure they did 
 
 There is tons of fluff in most college bachelors programs. Look at the typical pre-med track. Takes 4 years to get most of it done for some reason, wi all the other nonsense courses tied in, but it's really just math, bio, chemistry, organic chem and physics. Most programs don't even tie in other useful classes.

I was pre-med first and then transferred to SJU which had a didactic portion prior to P.A. School which was great and loaded with the important courses. In the first two years at SJU prior to P.A. School' your doing about 22 credits per semester-worth of work. Almost the entire pre-med track is crammed including aforementioned classes into two yours as well as courses in medical ethics, medical terminology, Pathology, Microbiology and two semesters of Biochemistry. The only course not required is Physics, but I took many more useful science courses for my field of study. The first two years of P.A. Studies crams in 4 years of pre-med classes as well as the first year of med-school into only 2 years.

The Pre-P.A./ P.A. School progrsm has enough credit-hours for a Masters degree in 4 years. I have no doubt that there could and should be a 4-year track to many standard B.A. Degrees. In addition, SJU has offered a Doctorate of Pharmacy in 5 years as well as a 5-year Masters in Accounting which my sister completed.  
 
 Didn't realize that was a serial killer...I was born in 1989 not 1960 remember?
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I wasn't either. I'm not that much older than you. I was just reading how the current crop of HS and college kids know nothing about the things that happened before then. My GF is in her mid-20's and it blows my mind when she doesn't know what I'm talking about. I said Biz Markie and Slick Rick are playing around the corner soon. She said who? Kind of scary.
 
I have spent an embarrassing amount of time this year trying to hire an exceptional recent college graduate for an entry level sales position.
Click to expand...
Have you considered that "exceptional" recent graduates from "upper tier" schools might not be interested in an "entry level sales position"? Because that sounds like a pretty crappy job, one with a long, flat, dull career trajectory, and perhaps better suited to a mediocre student from a middling tier school, or one with an associates degree or perhaps even a high school diploma. Maybe there are entry level sales gigs that require an Ivy league education but from your bare description this doesn't sound like one of those and anyway the skills that make a good salesman - which are chiefly people skills - they don't teach in school and probably couldn't anyway.

Which is itself part of the reason that the university system is in crisis. You think you need an over achieving graduate from a prestigious school to do a job that a generation ago any shlub was qualified for. Meanwhile recent college graduates - and not even exceptional graduates from upper tier schools, all of them - have been led to believe that their degrees entitle them to salaries both commensurate with the amount of money they've borrowed to purchase them and generous enough to maintain the lifestyles they've grown accustomed to while attaining them. Whereas the fact is that most professions do not require any particular training and certainly not a rigorous and expensive course of 4-year study that most people are too stupid to learn from anyway.

Here's an old saying I made up a few months ago:

Even the stupidest mule will learn to pull the plow if beaten righteously enough.

Freaking beautiful, right? A hundred years ago they'd have put me in the aphorism hall of fame for that one. Nowadays, bupkis. The fact is that it probably doesn't matter who you hire, as long as it isn't a uniquely stupid person or one with some sort of genetic malady. And from what school they graduated is important only to your own sense of ego. What really matters is how good you are with the whip.
 
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Thanks for your reply, and I think there is merit in it. The reaso I am looking so high for entry level sales, is that we sell entirely to c-suite executives, and the products we sell are in the million dollar plus range. We aren't selling widgets - we produce sophisticated products that require an in depth domain knowledge, plus the potential to become a persuasive seller of them. It's a tall order, but I'd prefer to begin with someone talented and less experienced, than someone who has picked up bad habits over the years.

I coudl care less about the school they graduate from, HOWEVER, having interviewed from many local schools in this region, the pool of talented candidates is rather shallow from middle and lower tier schools. If you are ever going to influence a CEO, CFO, COO, or CIO to buy from you, you need poise, presence and a significant knowledge and vocabulary. If you know of any such younger candidates, you can contact me privately.
 
  In addition, SJU has offered a Doctorate of Pharmacy in 5 years as well as a 5-year Masters in Accounting which my sister completed.  
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Pharmacy was a 5 year bachelor's degree, but consistent with all other pharmacy schools in the US, is now a 6 year entry level PharmD.
 
3 year degrees would water down further the value of a college education. There is something to be said for liberal arts core classes (ie, wasted classes to some) to round out one's education. Perhaps thee college level should be more clearly divided between pre-professional courses of study, and the liberal arts. It's amazing what things kids today don't know, that used to be standard knowledge. But, I'm a relatively old fuddy duddy.
 
I agree with you in theory and I made sure I knew what I wanted to do before I went to college so I had a plan, but honestly the overwhelming majority of teens don't have any idea what they want to do the first year of college, sometimes even into the first semester of their soph. year. You can't just demand that someone pick a major when they honestly need to think more about it and take some different classes to find their niche. It's like demanding that a go-kart go 200 MPH...
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It's actually nothing like demanding that any sort of motor vehicle do anything. What it is like is like demanding that a human being who has attained legal majority act like an adult instead of a child. It's just as easy and probably easier to find your niche while digging ditches or hitch hiking to British Columbia. The difference is that instead of the citizenry subsidizing the adult's extended adolescence in the latter case the adult is taking responsibility for his own choices. Which is what maturity comprises and what you don't learn when you have a meal plan.

College is not a place where 18 year olds should go to decide what they want to be when they grow up. It's a place where grown ups should go when they know what they want to be, should what they want to be require specialized training. Most things - like entry level sales positions - do not.

Universal higher education - the idea that everyone needs to go to college to succeed - is the biggest racket foisted on the American public since prohibition. Government support allows students freedom without responsibility and turns out yearly a herd of entry level job applicants with few marketable skills, wisdom comprising an arcane knowledge of esoteric facts, and no practical experience. Tenure rewards incompetence and buffoonery. And what passes for scholarship outside the sciences in the main consists of a bunch of under-achieving civil servants peer-reviewing each other's ordure while indoctrinating their charges in government mandated propaganda. They should get someone with a PhD to blow the whole thing up. 
 
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