Inching Towards Meritocracy

Coursera made the world a little flatter today. They sent me an email advising me that they have established a Career Services department, which will "Help Coursera students find great jobs."

This is one more step towards a true meritocracy, brought to you by the Web and a cadre of entrepreneurs unafraid to challenge authority and convention. My question in a previous post was whether employers would be willing to look past credentials and hire people with demonstrated skills. Coursera has given employers an easy way to do this, in a guise they will be familiar with: "Career Services."

I imagine some corporate director sitting with an HR manager, saying, "We need someone with a background in sales, but who also knows Instructional Design and network security." The HR manager searches Coursera's Career Services database. "How about this sales team leader who's taken "Fundamentals of Online Education" and "Information Security and Risk Management in Context?" And voila, you have an interview.

The benefit of a system like this is that it prioritizes the skills you've learned. So much of getting a job is knowing somebody and being in the right place at the right time. Coursera's system - and Udacity can do something similar - will make the market in which workers are matched with jobs much more efficient, reducing the influence of social networks and charisma. Of course, whether or not you get the job will depend heavily on these things, but their role in matching candidates with opportunities will be greatly reduced.

This will be a boon for both individuals and organizations. For individuals, it will open up new job opportunities and could aid in changing careers. Also, people will be better matched with jobs they like, because recruiters would be contacting them based on their participation in courses that they chose to devote their leisure time to, indicating that they really enjoy the field. For organizations, it could reduce turnover and improve productivity (by finding people who love the subjects they're working on), and also reduce the nefarious impact of cronyism. It will also allow organizations to create a truly diverse workforce, as they focus recruitment efforts on people with demonstrated skills rather than pedigrees from expensive universities or membership in the field's in-group.

All of these things will conspire to make the job market more meritocratic. We're a ways off from perfection, but we've made some giant steps towards democratizing education and creating a more level playing field for everybody.