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What is the value of a higher education?

Why do people with technical education tend to underestimate the value of their work and what they do?

  • The question is very general. The problem affects people of all ages, from students, the graduates and experienced professionals from around the world. From my observation is that people with a technical education, especially IT  tend to underestimate the value in many cases. They easy to agree to the first offer. They often have a tendency to underestimate the value of their work.What is the source of the problem?

  • Answer:

    Valuing work is a skill. It's different than doing the work. Think about the building you work in. You know it intimately, and you've seen plenty of other buildings. What's your building's market value? You very likely have no idea, because those are different sorts of knowledge. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect means talented individuals are likely to underestimate their value. The way people get really good is by having very high standards. Because they have the most observational data about their own performance, they are aware of all of the flaws in their work, but less so of others. They will tend to underestimate their own relative competence. They just want to do the work. To be good in a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race field, you have to really like the topic, or you won't keep up. As with artists, a lot of STEM people just want to do the thing they're really interested in; everything else is a distraction. Negotiation is also a skill. That skill is rarely part of a technical education. Highly competent people tend to be uncomfortable doing things they're not competent at. So when an offer comes along, the easy thing to do is just to take it.

William Pietri at Quora Visit the source

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Intense global competition and implied commoditization We know they exist even if our client does not. It is difficult for many IT professionals to express themselves because being good at this profession requires character traits that are less common with sales professionals. In other words, we are more comfortable talking to computers. :) Differentiation is a problem. I am one of world's top experts on disaster readiness for small businesses, but every one of my unqualified competitors is saying the same thing. Well, few IT professionals would even consider saying "I am one of world's best" and that is part of this problem. But my unqualified competitors still list the same bullet points as I do. The difference is in execution. I can demonstrate that my strategy works and not by a silly "satisfaction guarantee". When you go to IT websites and you are not an IT professional, very often you will find a wall of text liberally sprinkled with technical jargon. I have a creative strategy to address that and there are no hints about it on my website at all. ;) What about the hourly rates? There are hobbyist rates and professional rates. They are very different. Prospects get conditioned to hobbyist pricing and are shocked when they see quotes reflecting professional pricing. Finally, this is not perceived a problem. We want to get past the negotiation stage as quickly as possible and get to work. Negotiation is a chore, work is fun! Contrast that with sales professionals for whom the thrill of closing the deal is the ultimate high.

Leonid S. Knyshov

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