Many have come across the PHD debacle many a time - PHD graduates are turned away from obtaining junior positions. This does not result from the lack of ability to grow and learn, which, is usually one of the key traits that set apart a candidate from others. No - these candidates have turned away because some companies are under the assumption that they cannot afford to keep a well-educated person in a junior position for too long. As much as this makes a ‘profit’ sense, it fails to make an objective and ‘operational’ sense.


How do you expect people to obtain a position that will match their academic qualifications if you refuse them an opportunity to obtain the necessary practical training? Are we saying that people should lower their greatness so that they can fit in properly with our company cultures? Are we saying that we are not capable of grooming an individual who has more degrees than we do? Are we saying that we are no longer interested in training those whose IQ levels are higher than the 99% of the individuals in our companies?


Maybe we should raise the bar. Maybe we should recruit more of these so-called overqualified individuals. Maybe we should create a new employment standard that, in return, will force individuals and companies to aim higher. This will force students to want to achieve more and acquire more knowledge. We need a new standard that will say that a Diploma on its own is totally unacceptable, an undergraduate degree is no longer acceptable, an honours degree is no longer adequate, and a masters degree is no longer enough. We need to build an economy that is focused - not on what’s been done - but on what can be done.
We need to create a new world that is filled with high expectations and high levels of achievements. We need to start creating Job Specs that have “PHD” as the main requirement.

We have been offering millions and millions of cash to people who have experience that is accompanied by only a diploma for so many years, and discarding those whose knowledge could, indeed, turn the companies’ standards around. But of course, the fist step we would need to take would be to provide programs that focused on training PHD graduates with no working experience.

Now, imagine a business world that is led by individuals who have the highest education obtainable and the adequate training that is most suitable for the job - which was provided by those same companies to those same leaders? High achieving companies!