Respect the Diploma and Utilize the 1%
“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act”
-André Malraux
Objective: Find the 1%
My thought is the goal of any company is to hire the top 1%. They want the candidates that have proven to execute at the highest level of consistency and quality. They want the candidates that when thrown into a room, with clear objective, they prove themselves to be the best. They want the candidates with the highest capability to learn. The truth is, most of the people you hire, you do not know them personally. However, you attempt to understand them best through metrics and history presented on a resume. Lets investigate one common resume item.
Interestingly enough, there are a lot of other parties that have the same vested interest as a business. One of them being College institutions. Universities take great pride in their admission systems. Prestigious and competitive universities have created intense screening strategies and systems to maintain the integrity and validation of their institutions. They want the best people with the highest potential to succeed. These admission systems grade high school students on all the performance indicators they can gather from the past 18 years of a students life. At the forefront, they attempt to measure academic success through analysis of coursework, GPA, and rigorous standardized testing. Other metrics for consideration to include: extracurricular activities, personality, diversity, and application execution. This system is not perfect, however it is the best available at organizing academic success. Possibly the only experiment that goes on for the first 20+ years of someones life. The amount of time, money and vested interest circulating to get these decisions correct is extraordinary.
To highlight the seriousness of this system. You may have heard of the recent College Admissions scandal that caught many celebrities and wealthy individuals bribing college entrance approvers, testing agencies and more to get their children accepted to highly accredited universities. Paying for Acceptance. The penalty for this mistake resulted in prison time.
You may have personally, or if you have a child, experienced the rigor and possibly heartbreak of the college application process. It can be demoralizing to get “rejected” or told “you are not smart enough. The system has no emotion. It feeds on results.
Example of this system at work and its intentions: If somebody told you they went to Harvard at a bar, what would your immediate reaction be?
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Let us restate the Objective.
The Objective is to find the 1%
Strategy: Weed-Out the 99%
Growing up I was told to do well in school. So I could go to a great college and eventually get a great career. I think most people hear this advice from a parent, guardian, teacher ect.
High School --> College --> Prestigious Career
People accept and recommend their kids to do well in school because they understand the system laid out above. I think when you ask them “why” the answer is most normally “Because thats the way it is”.
So be it. Lets take a look.
Personally, I graduated from a High School of 650 Students ranked 18 in my class. Took all the honors courses I could normally with the grade senior to me. I was the person that everyone cheated off of. I was the person normally doing the whole group project for the team. I say it like this because everyone knows who those people were in school. I took things seriously in school, but I was always labeled “gifted”. If we look at Figure 1, I would’ve been considered a bright green student amongst that population.
I took it seriously because I was told it was really important to go to a great school and get a great degree and I was very obedient to that thought.
I studied Electrical Engineering. I have/had especially "gifted" abilities in math and science. If I ever took one of those "what career should I choose?" tests. They always pointed at engineering. Additionally, engineering is considered a highly prestigious and difficult degree. Math and Sciences are known to be skills that best reflect high success in a business setting. These are valuable skills.
The intent to study engineering was never that I was incredibly interested in the movement electrons, it was more so that I was of the caliber of people that could actually do this. I have a twin sister, I watched her get frustrated doing high school physics (To be fair she is a much better athlete than me. She is a 1% in that regard). Relating to Figure 1, my twin sister was probably right on that bluish-green (80th percentile) for academic success. Highly technical and abstract courses (like physics for example) often get the best of a lot of this population. I chose Engineering because it was a degree that was going to challenge me. It is a degree that is known to challenge even the most “Green” students. I remember my dad always said BME or Biomedical Engineers —> Business Majors Eventually. It was a joke, but it was highlighting the difficult nature of engineering and the hierarchy or degrees. Highlighting that “those who are not smart enough to study engineering, study business” To me growing up with a dad that would spit jokes like that, going into business felt like I was selling myself short academically. I would not have been pushed at my limits. Studying engineering was a way to continue to push how “Green” I was. I also love a challenge.
I don’t think this is new knowledge to anyone. If I ever tell anyone I got an engineering degree the first thing they normally say is "Oh wow an engineer! You’re smart". This was my motivation, to continue being smart. I did not know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be challenged. So, I chose engineering. When talking to lots of my engineering classmates this was a very common answer. The very common flow.
Smart People —> Engineering
I always say the bigger stamp of approval for my resume should be "I got my Engineering degree from Ohio State". I studied engineering for the same reason I attended Ohio State. It was a competitive challenging school. Ohio State is now a highly competitive academic school. It is of the hardest public universities to get admitted into. If the Ivy League schools are Tier 1 for academics, Ohio State would fall into Tier 2. To compliment that, the Ohio State Engineering program is also highly renowned (top of many rankings).
There are plenty of other majors, schools ect. that are highly difficult and could prove the same result. STEM as a whole is very well respected. Personally I understand the OSU Engineering system. I know what it took to get an Ohio State Engineering degree. There is bias. With that said, let us dive a litter deeper into Ohio State Engineering and what it tells us.
Tactics: 16+ Years of School
Figure 1: In statistics you learn the most anything is best represented as a Normal Distribution. What academic universities attempt to do is organize students within this distribution upon the admission process where the top percent of candidates would be best represented in the bright green (The Harvard Students). Restated: Where the area under the curve is the total population, the green region is those of the highest academic achievement.
So what does this actually mean. I wouldn't say the education is better or worse at Ohio State than any other school. But, I would say it is as competitive as any school in the country. The Ohio State football team calls it “Best on Best”. The best defensive players in the world are training against the best offensive players. It makes everyone better. Due to the high selection process laid out above, Ohio State is a collection of kids that were probably the smartest in their respective high school because the barrier to entry is so high. Going back to Figure 1, Ohio State is on average a collection of bright green students from all around the world (We are actually Scarlett and Grey, but for this application we will accept green).
Then after getting pooled into Ohio State there are series of filters that can be applied to “weed out” the weaker students amongst that group. Finding “The best of the best”. We will say this is an attempt to get even more precise at finding the top 1%. Find the brightest green students among the already green population (It is a little barbaric. Social Darwinism at its finest). Here we use the tactics of degree intention, degree execution, timeline, GPA. The system works as laid out below supported by Ohio State public data on the 2016 Admission class (my admission class):
Figure 2: Here we see that the Average ACT score for an engineering student in 2016 was 30.55. The Average ACT Math Score being 31
( High School -18 Years of Life )
Gate #1 - Intend to Pursue Engineering at OSU - Top 5%
If you passed Gate #1 meaning you intend to pursue engineering at Ohio State. The average statistics would say you are in a collection of the Top 5% of academic individuals. You have not taken an engineering course. You are a freshmen and you have said “I plan to study engineering” at every high school graduation party. So what does this probably say about you:
Assumptions/Checkpoints Passed:
Admitted into Ohio State and had the money to pay
Smartest kids in their high school
Average student at OSU scored in the 95th percentile of acceptance testing (Figure 2, 3)
Very involved in extracurriculars
Took High school very seriously/nearly zero slip-ups
Holds themselves in high regard to even pursue STEM
Smart in the Math and Sciences
Somebody probably gave them this nod of approval
Figure 3: ACT recorded data would then say the average student in Ohio State engineering tested in the 95th percentile across all categories and in the 96th percentile in Mathematics.
Gate #2 - Accepted into the OSU College of Engineering
If you pass Gate #2 this means that you actually are studying engineering at Ohio State. The first two years of pretty much every degree are pre-requisite courses to get accepted into the actual College of Engineering. At Ohio State this is often an unknown barrier upon attending the school. It is an incredibly difficult one to get passed. Getting the best of many students.
Assumptions/Checkpoints Passed:
Passing the “Weed-out-courses”
These are 100% the hardest (what felt like unfair) courses I took. You are graded against your peers. Averages are typically in the 60% of a lot of exams. These are your physics, calculus, chemistry, coding courses that every engineer has to take. Lots of work.
*Applied and Accepted into an Engineering Program (High Barrier Gate)
This is surprise gate for a lot of Ohio State freshmen. There are only so many spots within the programs. Each program has a GPA cutoff point. The hard part about this GPA cutoff is that most programs are only taking the GPA of your “weed-out-courses” into account. So getting an A in theatre isnt going to help you. You need to get A’s in Physics, Chemistry, Calculus ect. Typical Cutoffs are near 3.4 GPA. It is HARD to get accepted into one of these programs.
*This is where lots of folks ring the bell as seen in Figure 4. Also the trigger for lots of 5 and 6 year degrees. Retaking classes. Changing majors.
Gate #3 - OSU Engineering Graduate - Top 3.4%
Assumptions/Checkpoints Passed:
Held GPA to a Standard
Met all degree requirements
Took Advanced Coursework in Engineering
Took Graduate level Coursework
Ohio State University Graduate
Figure 4: This diagram is best describes Filter #3 (I call these the “ring the bell” stats). The key takeaways here: Of all the students that intended to pursue engineering only 67.8% of them graduated with an Engineering degree (32.2% Rang the Bell). Only 53% of those engineering graduates completed the “4 Year Degree”
Filter #1: “Four Year Degree” - Top 1.8%
What the four-year-degree takes into account at Ohio State is a lot of the people that changed course. As talked about in Phase #3 getting into a major in Engineering is extremely hard. Specifically the one you want. Often times students fail at their first attempt making it into their major or they change tracks. This is what results in the 5 and 6 year degrees. It is extremely hard to graduate in 4 years. As Figure 4 shows, only 53% of students in engineering graduate with a “4 year degree”.
I would be just as interested to see this split out by semesters. “4 years 8 semesters” . If we are talking from a money optimization perspective, that is the most ideal (That is what I managed). Some people can do four years, but they take summer classes. In this case, you are still paying for extra semesters. A Four Year Degree Symbolizes somebody that managed their plan well and executed with high degree. In a business setting you would say this project executed with zero slip. There were no mishaps to the critical path. A 5 or 6 year degree would symbolize a delayed project that still completed. A degree of 4 years 11 semesters would be “paying for expedition” or paying to maintain zero slip.
Filter #2: Engineering Specific Degree - Top 1%
Figure 5: This is linked in Degree Specific. It is just one quick google search website of the Hardest Engineering Majors.
We still haven’t even broken down into the exact degree specific majors at this point (Do not tell civil engineers I said they are not engineers😜). Certainly some are harder than others. Ohio State unfortunately does not report the data for degree specific. I just did a quick dumb google search and Electrical Engineering and Chemical Engineering are almost a Unanimous 1st and 2nd for the hardest engineering majors.
Biased as an Electrical Engineer, I always thought it was one of the hardest because of the level of abstraction (you cannot see electricity). For somebody that has not studied it, it might as well be magic. Chemical is in the same world. So that delineation agrees with what I would have projected. Those articles I looked at are linked below and another perspective shown in Figure 5.
The Hardest Engineering Majors According To 1000 Engineers (youngheroengineer.com)
The 7 Hardest Engineering Majors of All Time - Academicful
Top 5 Most Difficult Engineering Majors - Salarship
5 Hardest Engineering Major and Why (2023 Updated) - Own Your Own Future
The 14 Hardest and Easiest Engineering Majors Ranked - Big Economics
The Easiest and Hardest Engineering Majors | CollegeVine Blog
All to be taken with a grain of salt as these do not seem to have any regulated merit behind them
Filter #3: GPA Top 1%
GPA is unfortunately another metric Ohio State does not report statistics on. If I was to take a guess I would say the average was most nearly 3.0-3.2 GPA for an engineering graduate. I would say this based on the fact that awards start at 3.5 GPA and I am almost sure a lot of those aren’t given out for Engineering students. I remember reading the brochure they presented for our fake 2020 Covid commencement and the awards list was not extensive.
Personally, I would guess I was above average, but not in the top percentiles amongst Electrical Engineers. I finished with a 3.41 GPA cumulative. My technical (including only my required Major Courses ie. not Theatre) GPA however was a little higher at like 3.58.
Additional KPI’s/Filters
Transcript
Retaking Courses
Summer Classes
Debt
Working a job
Extra curricular Activities
Many more
Reflecting on Universities
The 1%
There are lots of 1% out there. Every experiment or population group has this percentile. The 1% of height, the 1% in communication, the 1% athletes. We are talking about a specific experiment played out all across the globe. Where kids go to school and are taught various subjects from history to math to art. Again this is the flow:
Pre-high school —> High School —> College —> ?
We tell our kids. Take high school seriously so we can get into a great College. Take college seriously so you can get a prestigious career. This is what we have asked of our children, our students, our future leaders. This is the Objective for every kid in university. This is the message being sent to the younger population.
Why are we saying this? What are we trying to do?
People say the value of Universities are to prepare you for jobs you are going to do. This is an absolute lie. If you want to prepare for a job, go get the job. Go to trade school, go get a mentor to train you. Success in school does not mean success in the professional world day 1. School is a skill. The content you learn in school is definitely not best preparing for your day 1 on the job.
The value of University to a recruiter is the measurement of the below:
The Capability to Learn and Consistently Execute at a High Level with a Clear Set of Objectives
Lets break this down…
Capability to learn:
School is learning. Very clear. One that can pickup things quick from a teacher or a text book will most often do well. Possibly a student is great notetaker, this makes them very capable learners. The capability, is best tested by the degree of difficulty of courses that they can pass. Some people are capable some are not. Take the case with my twin sister that got frustrated during physics because it was so hard, while I breezed right through. Some people are just not as capable of learning very abstract things.
Shoveling mulch, painting walls does not require a high capability to learn. That is why we have a lot of DIY painters roaming around. On the other hand, STEM degrees jobs show an extreme capability to learn. These are difficult subjects. Very abstract subjects that not everyone has the capability to grasp quickly or easily. I test anyone to try to DIY an iPhone a solar panel, or Vaccine.
Consistently Execute at a High Level
Part of school is the professionalism that is required. There is a longevity that is being tested. Kids that consistently get A’s or high GPA show professionalism. They do well in all their classes. Everyone gets tired. Everyone has days when they do not want to go to work or do homework. Everyone gets hard assignments. Everyone gets easy assignments. You get a group project and your team is weak. You have a variety of problems to juggle over the course of 15+ years of school. This is the discipline factor. Sometimes you cannot go out for your friends birthday party because you have an exam the next day. That decision of sacrifice and professionalism to the objective is measured during school.
You could say that those in the military are trained heavily in this manner. Everyday you make your bed and follow your commands. They get the job done. No matter how much it sucks or how they must sacrifice to complete the objective.
Executing at a high level is measured consistently by your grades. Getting an A is a high level of work. B is acceptable. C needs work. D, F is failure. It is a measure of quality.
Clear Set of Objectives
This is an add-on to Consistently Execute at a High Level. Arguably this is the most important to utilize University kid’s skills
School is black and white. You get assignments, problems. You are tasked to complete them. “Write this paper, 1000 words on the revolutionary war”. The people that are really good at school. Will execute this at a high level.
You get a rubric, you get feedback to improve, you have guidelines then you are set free to execute. If the guidelines are not clear, normally a teacher would take responsibility as a class full of students would let them know nothing makes sense.
Clear Objective in the Professional World
Why this is the most important when transferring to the professional world?
Every industry and every company is very niche in knowledge and how they do things. In school you do not learn about HVAC units or Nike sneakers and how they are built, or how Amazon organizes trucks. The goal, is actually that nobody knows these things because this is valuable intellectual property. Due to this, the immediate objectives when you enter a company are often foggy. You do not understand how their business operates, how their sneakers are built, why their HVAC units are performing poorly. Additionally every company has their way of doing things.
Example: Your manager says you need to make a presentation to explain the new Lebron sneakers. So you make an amazing powerpoint just as you would during school. Your power point talks about the history of Lebron sneakers and the origin. Talks about the key features of design that set it a part from others. You talk about Lebron and his story and involvement.
Only to figure out Nike actually doesn’t use power point they use google slides. Actually your manager only need a presentation on the laces of the shoe. Additionally, every powerpoint at Nike has to start with a story and end with a safety. You have to meet a certain theme dictated by Nike. Also you will not even be able to use a powerpoint for this presentation, you are presenting it over lunch. Also it was needed yesterday 😉
By school standards. You failed the objective of your manager. However, it does not seem fair. How were you ever supposed to know all that about Nike and how they did presentations. There was no rubric. In school, you get a rubric or a assignment guideline that is well written and clear. All your manager said was he needed a power point presentation on Lebron's shoes. So you executed with A+ effort in that manner with that objective. This is the new world. If your manager, your leader, does not guide you correctly. You are doomed to fail by their standards. You could be the smartest person in the world but if you are not given clear objectives you will fail.
Advice to the 1%, pick a great leader
The Capability to Learn and Consistently Execute at a High Level with a Clear Set of Objectives
Figure 6: It is known in BUD/S training that there is a bell where training is performed. If you are to quit or fail you are to “Ring the bell” on your way out. “Ringing the bell” represents personal defeat and failure to the training. It symbolizes an admission that you do not have what it takes to be a Navy Seal. I often thought about this during my engineering degree. That the school was trying to get me to “Ring the Bell”. If sports taught me anything, I would die before ringing that bell.
Other Applications of the “Weed-out” Strategy
I find the strategy used in academics similar to the recruiting of Navy Seal’s. Everyone knows Navy Seals are of one of the most selective group of people and one of the hardest honors to achieve. They go through the most rigourous of all screening processes with regards to discipline, athletic, performance, mental strength and more. This is known as BUD/S training. The intent is to collect not even the 1% but the .0001%
I think the one thing school tends to test far more vs a Seal Training is the Capability to Learn. Navy Seals are most likely not going to be doing equations on advanced physics. However, Navy Seal Training 100% better tests the ability to consistently execute at a high level under clear objectives. There are other things that make Navy Seals the Top .0001% Candidates.
I think it is important to note, when it is most critical to select the “uncommon amongst uncommon” individuals a “Survival of the Fittest” test is performed.
As highlighted in Figure 6, I would never bet against a Navy Seal on completing an objective. That being said, if you are trying to get the most out of a Navy Seal challenge them to an Objective and wait to be surprised.
Leading the 1% for Dummies
Objective: Get this dog to do Flips. (Tap his potential)
Strategy: Make the Game Clear (Clear the Fog)
Tactics:
Clear direction
Treats
Create postive feedback loops
Challenge it
Give it attention
Maintain its trust
You now have a 22 year old working for your team that just 1 month ago managed to pass advanced solid state electronics at Ohio State. A class that required not only an intense knowledge of the fundamentals of electricity, but also the highest levels of calculus, physics, chemistry, statistics and more. This is class most certainly 99% of the population would have no chance of passing.
How do we get the most out of this kid?
Remember what the kid is good at.
“The Capability to Learn and Consistently Execute at a High Level with a Clear set of Objectives”
My favorite metaphor of this is with a puppy. Realistically we as humans are not that much different. We are both animals. I always say, “If you get a smart dog and a good trainer. That dog will do a flip”. Lets think of this new hire as a puppy.
Sometimes an owner of a dog will be eating. They will tell the dog “get out of here”. The dog wont move. Then they grab a tennis ball and throw it. The dog immediately sprints away, before returning again. These are his tricks.
Challenge Them
Capability to Learn —> Challenge them (Do not underestimate their ability to learn)
The objective for this dog is not for it to lay on the couch. We are paying this dog and spending time training this dog because he is one of the few dogs that is actually smart enough to do a flip. This is not one of those dogs that just runs away from its owner, jumps on people, and will not chase a ball. The Objective of this dog is to get it to do flips. To fulfill its potential. Not only should that be your objective as a manager, that is their objective.
Think of your new 22 year old like that dog. Imagine the trainer handing him over to you and going “This is a smart dog”. The trainer has seen lots of dogs, this dog is extraordinary. (Universities have seen lots of kids, these are the best). This is a new world, a new game for them. But, you know his tricks. You know if you throw that ball he is going to chase it. You know if you push him, give him a clear set of objectives, and a treat every once and a while this dog will learn to do all the tricks. These are smart dogs. They can be taught and challenged.
Give these dogs opportunity. Let them fail and learn, push them. Challenge them.
Treats
Consistently Execute at a High Level —> Treats (Tell them they got an A)
The only way this dog is going to consistently execute for you at a high level is if they trust you. To earn that trust you have to reward them. You reward a dog with treats. When they do a good job your treat them. They will continue doing tricks for you. You can continue to challenge them more. Get more out of them. Tell them they did a good job. Tell them they need to improve. Tell them they got an A. Tell them why they got an F. Give them a raise, give them a promotion or do not and explain why.
Give them a treat!
Define the Game
Clear Set of Objectives —> Define the Game (What is an A?)
Dogs respond to clear direction. “Sit”. Not “Hey chester can you please sit down”. The military actually practices this as well. Their commands are often one word like a dog. You can imagine them chanting “Forward……March……Halt….”
Clear direction.
What is clear direction for someone that just spent 15+ years as a student? Clear direction looks exactly like an assignment from a teacher. Guidelines. A rubric. Training. Lectures. Maybe an example or vision. Even giving them a book of knowledge and saying “there might be constraints, you will have to research them” is better than saying nothing. You are their teacher. You are their coach. These are expert game players, teach them the game. Let them run with it, they are smart. They just proved they could use machine learning to select the best wine given a set of data in school. Why did they do it? Because somebody challenged them to.
Conclusion
Lets not forget the university is your friend when screening for candidates. Just as you are screening for the best people. So are they. Your goals are aligned. That means they are a valuable partner to anyone hiring. The typical age of a graduate college is 21-26. Which means this is an analysis and screening that is being performed by colleges for most likely the first 20 years of someones life. Lets review what is happening during this analysis/screening.
Objective: Find the 1%
Strategy: Weed-Out the 99%
Tactics:
University Admission Programs
Degrees
Weed-Out Courses
GPA
Timeline
KPI’s/Curriculars
While adults go to work every day, kids go to school. They spend majority of their first quarter-century of life in this controlled little experiment. At the end, 22 years later find the results of the experiment. We found the outliers! Just like any experiment just because you are the 1% of one thing does not mean that you are the 1% of everything. So what did we actually figure out from all this?
We found the 1% in The Capability to Learn and Consistently Execute at a High Level with a Clear set of Objectives.
How do we use this?
The value is that you know what you have. You have somebody that you can be highly confident in to have a high capability to learn and consistently execute at a high level with a clear set of objectives. They have proven that skill, based on university, GPA, degree, in a 22+ year experiment with every kid in the country. If you go hire somebody that dropped out you do not know what you are getting.
This is where the large controversy of the current education system comes in. I would advise you to read Leading the 1% for Dummies. The frustration with companies and the education system is that hiring managers say “these kids did not learn anything in school to prepare them for this job”, “Thats great that he knows how to do advanced calculus, I need him to be able to count to 10, and know how an air conditioning unit is manufactured” Let us remember that college is not preparing anyone for their first day on the job. Rather it is testing, and in result teaching, kids to the ability to learn and consistently execute at a high level with a clear set of objectives. This is a very malleable skill. This is a skill representing potential in anything. Not just marketing, or math, or playing volleyball.
Universities gave you the smart puppy, now you have to teach him the tricks you need it to learn
What you just measured was on a body of work of 20+ years. One line item representing the whole life they have lived so far. Over those 20+ years, these are the students that have shown the highest capability to learn. These are the students that expect to keep growing in their career. These are the kids that expect a lot out of themselves and are dreaming big. These are the students that can be trusted and will not flinch under adversity. These are the students that are going to push themselves. These are the students that showed the ability to sacrifice. These are the kids with the highest level of detail. These are the kids with fiercest discipline. These are not your cog in the wheel workers. The are the candidates you take calculated risk on. These are the candidates you give opportunities. These are the workers you should invest in. These are the leaders of the next generation.
If you are looking for candidate with a high capability to learn and consistently executes at a high level under clear objectives, do not overlook 1 line item on their resume.
Respect the Diploma and Utilize THE 1%
O H…
“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act”
-André Malraux
INTERVIEW WITH BILL BELICHICK
In an interview of March 2023
Facing the longest Super Bowl odds of his tenure as New England Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick was asked Monday at the NFL's annual meeting what message of optimism he might share with the team's fans.
He succinctly answered: "The last 25 years."
If you are an employer and you are asking why you should trust a candidate to execute at a high level, do not be surprised when they succinctly respond “The last 25 years”
