[Penny]

I just followed one of those google ad's, "Download free term papers" I was just curious as to what the website offered.

Pretty much if you have an assingment on anything you can get a paper for it, when you select one, you get this piece of information.

While DueNow.com Inc. in no way condones plagiarism, we do take extraordinary steps to ensure that the paper you are about to purchase is an original and is not included in any online anti-plagiarism databases. This paper, and all of the papers on DueNow.com are under the legal copyright of DueNow.com, and, as such, are not available for use for any other organization without our express written consent. None of our papers may be used, in any form, by the staff of any educational institution. If you are concerned about someone else using the same resource as you, we recommend using our 'lock this paper' feature below.

OMG! How lazy are people now days, these papers are expensive too, it was $48 US (I assume US$) for one paper, plus $5 if you wanted to use their "lock paper" option so noone else can download it for 7 days!

[Sparklechick]

Ah yes, but now schools have the means to check if someone has downloaded a paper or not. They send them off to some website checker type place and they come back with bits highlighted if they've been taken directly from a website.

Not good for cheats. I think we talked about this in another thread somewhere.

[Penny]

Yeah I thought it rung a bell, I wasn't sure if it was here I had talked about it or with someone else. But also this site says

We do take extraordinary steps to ensure that the paper you are about to purchase is an original and is not included in any online anti-plagiarism databases

so it probably wouldn't turn up in any of those other databases.

[Sparklechick]

So how can you trust that people with University degrees actually earned them if it's so easy for people to cheat?

I think I'd rather hire someone with work experience ...

[Penny]

well exactly, it does everyone even the ones that have earnt their degrees, they will all be devalued. When you think about how much you pay for a degree also.... that would be hard to stomach.

But you can't only hire people with work experience, becuase how does one get work experience if only people with experience are hired?

[Sparklechick]

That's true Penny, very true. Fortunately for me someone gave me a break coz that's exactly what I was sick of hearing .... "you don't have any experience" and my reply "how can I get experience if nobody will hire me".

BUT, I think nowadays, if you compare someone who has been in the workforce for 10 years against someone who's been at Uni for 5/6 years and has a BA in something ... I would probably hire the person who has work experience.

[Penny]

Yeah, Experience is everything.

When I was looking for a job I had a really hard time becuase I had practically NO work experience. As a teenager I earnt my money by Baby sitting. That doesn't really count apprentley. I had starting wishing I'd gone and been a checkout chick or something. But you can't go and change the past. So I did every job I was offered, to gain this "experience" stuff.

Then I was given a break through someone I know, and I am still here. Not sure if they are happy or regretting it now though! haha

[Sparklechick]

I got a job as a receptionist when I was 18 (had dropped out of Tech). I had done typing/computer courses/accounting and economics at school and had pretty high grades with all of them so that helped I think. I was earning a measley $16k and I had to pay back my student loan too. The interest on the loan was more than my payments were!

I've worked my way up from there. Won't tell you what I'm earning now but it's a hell of a lot more than $16k!

[Penny]

When I got my job here, that was the first one where I earnt enough to sersiouly worry about what my Student loan payments. I was the same the interest each month was more than what I was paying off, so I increased my payments so I was paying off just the interest each month. Now my Salary has increased allot like You Sparkley Gal I don't need to worry. Just extra tax.

[edshuck]

Hi penny and sparklechick

I have work experience and no degree. But, depending on the task and the duration of the job at hand, I would give strong consideration to the degreed person.

Here are my positives.

I am experienced in analog and digital telephony. Including transmission design and traffic engineering. I am experienced in Satellite and microwave transmission. Signal conversion R2, R1 (North American) and CCITT5. Loop, Ground Start, Revertive Pulsing, and E and M signaling. DS1, DS3. I have done engineering on each of the above. I managed sys engn of a digital telephony mfg. I was an advisory engineer for IBM on CallPath. I am a member of mensa. I write mysql, php, css, html, xhtml.

negatives.

No degree. Poor eyesight. Balance a bit off. Hearing needs work. And 61.

I would give consideration to a person with a good degree and aim for the future. Who said, "The past is prologue" (assuming I spelled prologue right.)

An aside, that fits here.

I used to carpool to ROLM with a guy named Dave Ring. This was back in 82 or 83. Dave had a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. Quite, unasuming. Had been hired to run a storeroom. To explain, Storerooms at ROLM did kitting for auto insertion tools. He would drive to work on weekends and work on a little project he had going. About 6 weeks after starting at ROLM he introduces a whole new supply system from his storeroom that saved many millions and he was promoted to "Special assistant to the VP of mfg".

A couple of months later IBM bought the company.

Some of the guys took their stock options, now worth millions and started Cisco. They ask Dave to move with them and he did.

So when you are looking for the new employee, remember to really look at the applicant. His request for a storeroom was not well accepted. Kind of like, "What the ****", "This guy wants a retirement" and much worse.

Rolm had lots of Stanford and Harvard grads and checking was simply a couple of calls.