Want to Be a Search Expert?
November 18, 2011
I saw a story at CBS News’ Web site. The write up “25 College Majors with the Highest Unemployment Rates” was as troubling as it was amusing. I learned yesterday that at some of the top engineering, science, and mathematics recruiting events, US companies were in the minority. In the good old days before Booz, Allen & Hamilton became an azure chip consultant and McKinsey executives donned orange jump suits—college recruitment was a hunting ground for big name US outfits. The idea was to snag the people who were the “right package” for the plum jobs at top line consulting firms, investment banks, and Fortune 50 companies. I did a couple of recruiting swings in the mid 1970s for Halliburton NUS and later for the pre-Daedalus Booz, Allen & Hamilton. I find the brain drain which sucks talent from the US to hot spots like Brazil, China, and South Korea fascinating.
The CBS story reminded me that self appointed experts will probably come to search, content processing, “big data”, and other fields of mass confusion from these disciplines. What will tomorrow’s “experts” bring to the table in terms of subject matter expertise? Here’s the top 10college majors with the alleged highest unemployment rate:
- Clinical psychology 19.5%
- Miscellaneous fine arts 16.2%
- United States history 15.1%
- Library science 15.0% (tie)
- Military technologies; educational psychology 10.9%
- Architecture 10.6%
- Industrial & organizational psychology 10.4%
- Miscellaneous psychology 10.3%
- Linguistics & comparative literature 10.2%
- (tie) Visual & performing arts; engineering & industrial management 9.2%
You will want to digest the entire list at the link provided.
A couple of comments. I got a hearty laugh when I mentioned that my focus in college was medieval religious sermons in Latin. No one laughed when I mentioned that I wasn’t reading the documents. I was indexing them using punched cards. But notice that “miscellaneous fine arts” does leave about 83 percent of those with that training unemployed. The top stop, which surprised me, was clinical psychology. I will not forget my early consulting project for T George Harris, then the publisher of Psychology Today. I recall his describing those with degrees in psychology as “crazy” and then divided psychologists into two broad categories. One category involved psychologists who watched interactions among male and female rats and others who did math.
Notice that unemployment rates for visual and performing arts graduates and engineering and industrial management graduates is “only” 9.2 percent. Presumably some of the most talented engineering people with jobs will be working outside the United States.
What about the azure chip consulting firms and the self appointed experts? My thought is that the work product of these outfits will reflect the talent applying themselves to these disciplines. Ever wonder why so many firms are in financial trouble? Ever ask, “Which management consultancy was helping these folks?”
Ever ask, “Why did that enterprise search project fail?” Ever ask, “Which search or content processing consultant advised that outfit?”
Good questions to ask.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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