Gwyneth Paltrow Rejected by Yahoo! For Employment Because She Isn't 'Well Educated' Enough

[big_dog]

Gwyneth Paltrow was consciously never coupled with Yahoo!'s food blog.
She hit a major stumbling block during her bid to be the next editor in chief of Yahoo!'s food blog: Marissa Mayer. Apparently, the former Google exec does not approve of folks who do not have college degrees. According to sources, Mayer "balked" at the idea of hiring someone without one. Apparently, this is a hot-button issue for the embattled CEO. It has been said that she often asks people where they attended college. Mayer, who has come under some tough scrutiny as of late for her company's lackluster turnaround since her hire two years ago, is only adding fuel to the naysayers' fire by not hiring an Academy Award-winning actress because of her lack of credentials.

Paltrow is best known for her roles most recently as the substitute teacher in Glee and Pepper in the Iron Man series. She is also the owner and operator of a high-profile and often highly contemptible lifestyle brand, Goop. And, let's not forget, the author of best-selling cookbooks as well. But that didn't quite qualify her to write for Yahoo!'s food blog. Instead, Yahoo hired SUNY Plattsburgh alumna Kerry Diamond, who owns three Brooklyn restaurants.

As online writers, we secretly love that Yahoo! is honestly trying to ensure the integrity of their writers and requiring tangible qualifications to write on either a particular subject or have something in their backgrounds, which to write compellingly online about said subject. Yahoo!'s deliberate move toward premium content production to try to compete with Google's search and Facebook's social stronghold is not working yet, but Rome wasn't built in a day. And standing strong in your beliefs might not win you a lot of friends, and other writers might call you a "higher-education snob," but they weren't hired at 38 to run one of the largest online companies in the world. And of course, you always have to ask: Would we even care about this if Mayer were a man?

Now, I am not saying that not having a degree makes Gwyneth Paltrow unqualified to run her company, or that she isn't an amazing actress and inspirational businesswoman, but it also doesn't make Mayer a bad woman or businesswomen for not wanting to hire her because of her lack of degree. Everyone has their standards; Mayer's, apparently, is a college degree.
http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1067829/gwyneth-paltrow-was-rejected-by-yahoo-because-she-isnt-well-educated

[jakeXT]

1. Maybe here

https://es.yahoo.com/

[big_dog]

4. Gwyneth describes the strange hippie school she went to as a child

[SomethingFishy]

2. LOL... A college degree...

I couldn't get a job at Radio Shack because I didn't have a college degree.

Never mind I was an audio and video engineer for 20 years and knew more than any employee Radio Shack has ever hired. I didn't have that piece of paper.

Their loss.

[VanillaRhapsody]

3. I paid alot of money for that "piece of paper" that got me into the IT field....

[Trillo]

5. Perhaps, but why a celebrity, "actress", to run a food publishing business?

I bet an actress would think that bakers are supposed to measure ingredients volumetrically. Before pressing the "Post my reply" button, I checked search for "Gwyneth Paltrow bread recipe" (no quotes), first result.

Volumetric measure?

[TexasProgresive]

14. "there are two kinds of people in the world: cooks and bakers. I am definitely a cook." - Paltrow

Epi: What are some cooking challenges you'd like to tackle?
GP: I would like to get very good at baking. I am not very good at it. I remember in Heat, [author Bill Buford] said that he realized that there are two kinds of people in the world: cooks and bakers. I am definitely a cook. I have to really follow recipes with baking—it's like a science. I am good with pizza dough, and I can follow a recipe, but I am not very free with the pastries.
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/chefsexperts/interviews/gwynethpaltrowinterview

[SomethingFishy]

16. Yeah she wouldn't be my first choice.. or my second

but I had to laugh at the college thing...

[Enrique]

6. she went to the school of hard knocks

[PoliticAverse]

7. But her cookbook received such 'spirited' reviews...

http://www.crushable.com/2013/04/06/entertainment/gwyneth-paltrow-cookbook-reviews/

[joeybee12]

8. More likely it's because Gwyneth isn't a right wing idiot like Mayer...nt

[Xithras]

9. There's been quite a shift on this topic over the past decade.

As recently as 10 years ago, it was still entirely possible to get into IT with little more than a bit of experience and some private certifications. Nowadays, it's not only required that you HAVE a degree, but it needs to be from an institution that is recognized as providing a quality education. I've seen resumes from people with 20+ years experience and an online degree go straight into the round file. Resumes without a degree don't make it out of the initial HR filter and don't even get THAT much evaluation.

At my current employer (a large tech consulting company just outside the SV), our hiring process is relatively straightforward. HR does the initial filter. A five person hiring group is assembled using a supervisor and a couple of employees from the office seeking the employee. That group does a second filter on the resumes looking for applicants with work and experience histories that make them a good fit. They also conduct the first round interviews, and any skills tests are administered at this stage. In the end, the group forwards three recommendations to our senior manager, sorted by preference. That manager performs the second interview and makes the final selection from the short list of applicants. Applicants without degrees don't make it through...ever. Even if an application makes it past HR and looks exceptionally good, nobody wants to be in the position of explaining to some non-techie MBA how "self taught" can be just as good as "college educated". The MBA types see their degrees as having a lot of value, and calling that into question can reduce their opinion of you. Nobody is going to risk their bosses displeasure over an applicant they don't even know.

This is a fairly common hiring model in the tech world.

[DonCoquixote]

10. honestly this is about food

Food is famous for havign people who never went to school becming famed authorties. Many of the chefs that are worshipped NEVER went to school, much less college.

However, to be fair, what is Paltrows experience in FOOD. If she were a Cat Cora, Rachel Ray, Giada De Laurentis, yes, i could see, but she is an actress, not a food person.

[abelenkpe]

11. Wait, yahoo?

The site frequented by hateful right wing bigots? Gee, how horrible for her.

[kiva]

12. Good for Yahoo.

Her cookbooks for the 1% is based on some pretty shaky research: http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/healthy-eating-on-just-300-a-day/?_r=0

[Eric_323]

13. I think it was contributing editor not editor and chief.

Most articles source the NYT magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-when-marissa-mayer-tried-to-be-steve-jobs.html?_r=0

Even though the actress Gwyneth Paltrow had created a best-selling cookbook and popular lifestyle blog, Mayer, who habitually asked deputies where they attended college, balked at hiring her as a contributing editor for Yahoo Food. According to one executive, Mayer disapproved of the fact that Paltrow did not graduate college.

[TexasProgresive]

15. The first time I ever saw Gwyneth Paltrow not acting

was in a food show about Spanish food.

Spain… on the road Again is a 2008 American food and travel series produced by PBS. The show features Iron Chef Mario Batali, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. Each episode covers a different region of Spain as the foursome explore the country's culinary traditions and history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain..._on_the_Road_Again

She was very enthusiastic about the food much more so than Claudia Bassols who came off as screen candy. The show was a lot of fun.

http://www.spainontheroadagain.com/tv_schedule.shtml

[BillZBubb]

17. Mayer is in over her head. She's a shortsighted snob and fool.

Your failing brand gets a chance to have a somewhat popular, well known celebrity attached to your brand for peanuts, and you kill it because she didn't have a degree? What kind of idiot does that?

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. My mother could write a food blog

What a world we live in. The Kardashians are famous because, well, they are famous for being famous. Oh, and a sex tape. People like Paris Hilton won the birthright lotto by picking the right parents (see also: Brothers, Koch). That said, we have people with advanced degree(s) that can't even get hired in their field - and this RWNJ Marissa Meyer, a case study of the Peter Principle, discounts a brand name that could make her millions over it. Up is down and left is right.

No wonder Yahoo! is in the shitter.

[Skittles]

19. people like Mayer confuse education and intelligence