So says Laszlo Bock, the guy in charge of hiring at Google.

Parents, you may want to hide this blog post from your kids because Laszlo goes on to note that “the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time – now as high as 14 percent on some teams.”

Five Qualities
OK, that’s still not a very high proportion, and Google still looks for good grades in jobs that require math, computing and coding skills. But Google uses complex interview techniques to test for five other qualities that aren’t necessarily associated with good grades.

1. Leadership (especially in team problem-solving)
2. Humility
3. Collaboration
4. Adaptability
5. Loving to learn and re-learn.

The least important attribute they look for is “expertise” because they believe if people have these five qualities, they will be able not only to solve most everyday problems in most areas, but they will also pioneer new and innovative approaches.

Pros and Cons of College
Given the number of graduates he must interview every day, Bock’s assessment of college is sobering:

Too many colleges don’t deliver on what they promise. You generate a ton of debt, you don’t learn the most useful things for your life. It’s [just] an extended adolescence.

Thomas Friedman, the journalist who reported this, isn’t fully persuaded.

For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers.

But even Friedman wants College students to heed Bock’s advice:

Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

Don’t Rely on College
Friedman’s point is don’t rely on College alone, no matter how prestigious or costly. But how will our kids learn these skills?

Continued involvement in and commitment to their family is a great place to start. Church youth groups are another good training ground. Team sports and hobbies can also be helpful forums. Part-time jobs in tough environments like Macdonalds do no harm either. Being mentored in a trade is also invaluable. And, O, for more innovative High School teachers who will brake the mold, and aim far higher than simply producing and hailing content experts who couldn’t start or maintain a conversation with an adult to save their lives.

Seminary Challenge
But this is also a challenge to Seminary students. These five qualities are also absolutely vital for the ministry and at least three or four of them cannot be learned in the classroom. That’s why previous work experience is usually so important and why ongoing involvement and service in the local church is non-negotiable.

Seminaries, like Colleges, can produce content experts. But what’s far more important is what students can do with what they know. That’s what makes someone a people expert. Or, in other words, a shepherd.

Tom commented that in the interests of balance, I should also give the pros of being a seminary professor. I couldn’t find 21, but what I lack in quantity, I hope I make up for in quality!

1. You will get to study and teach theology as your job! Your daily work is to prayerfully study the Scriptures and the best Christian books. Lots of people would pay to do that. And you can go deeper in your subject than most pastors who have to move on to a new batch of sermons every week. It’s especially enjoyable to teach what you are passionate about – for me, that’s Christ in the Old Testament, holistic biblical counseling, and servant-leadership.

2. You will be mentally and spiritually developed. You can sometimes wing it in a sermon. You can never wing it in a lecture – not with a class full of sharp and eager students who can smell an under-prepared lecture a mile away. Iron sharpens iron, forcing you to study hard, think hard, and write hard.

3. You will be enriched and sanctified by students from multiple nations and cultures. It’s such a blessing to have students and even pastors from all over the world in the same classroom. You realize how little you know, how little you have experienced, how little a view of God you have had. It’s so exciting to see the men God is equipping and calling to go out into all the world with the Gospel.

4. You will work with gifted and godly colleagues. The ministry is often a lonely life. There’s much more collegiality at a seminary with helpful fellow-professors just a few steps of your office. It’s so humbling to see how others’ intellectual and spiritual gifts so infinitely transcend your own.

5. You will see hopeless preachers turned into powerful preachers. In my first few years at Puritan Seminary, I frequently heard students preach their first “practice sermon” and immediately concluded, “Well this guy’s never going to fly. In fact, he won’t even get out of the hangar.” Three years later God has transformed him into a clearly called and equipped preacher of the Gospel. Being proven wrong like this is one of the greatest joys of seminary life.

6. You will be sent lots and lots of books. A publisher recently sent me five separate copies of one book. No wonder they were soon boasting of a re-print! But seriously, hardly a day goes by without someone sending you a book to review, to endorse, or to add to your library. And speaking of libraries, you will have access to thousands (in my case 70,000) of the best Christian books just a few steps away from your office.

7. You will be asked to write books. It’s usually very difficult for a pastor to get a book published. It becomes much easier when you are a professor, partly because the perceived expertise makes it more likely that people will buy your books. In fact, you will eventually have to turn down many good writing opportunities in order to focus on where you believe God has especially called you to write.

8. You will multiply your spiritual influence. A pastor can do a lot of good in his congregation. But if you train pastors, you can do a lot of good in a lot of congregations. From time to time you do hear of your teaching being passed on to bless different congregations.

9. You will  meet lots of neat people. Puritan Seminary is regularly blessed with the teaching and fellowship of the best reformed teachers in the world. It’s  such a privilege to get to meet these men, watch them close up, and simply listen to their wisdom at the lectern and round the dinner table. I also love meeting our donors, men and women from all walks of life, yet all sharing a passionate commitment to investing in the next generation of Gospel ministers.

10. You will gain a bigger view of God’s kingdom. When you’re a pastor you really have to focus almost all your attention on your own congregation. As a professor you get to go to lots of different churches and countries, over time this gives you a much bigger sense of God’s work in diverse peoples and places around the world.

Fair and balanced?
Many, many blessings, but I don’t want to take away from the main thrust of yesterday’s post, which is that younger men should count the cost of the great losses involved in side-stepping pastoral ministry or viewing it merely as a brief stepping-stone to so-called “higher things.”

Pastoral ministry is the “highest thing.” The professor’s position is subservient, it is a calling to serve God’s messengers, to lay down one’s life (and ego) in the great cause of preparing pastors for the awesome work of Gospel ministry.

This film has been made as part of the celebrations surrounding Dr. Al Mohler’s 20th anniversary as President of Southern Seminary. And truly there is so much to thank and praise God for. It is a remarkable story of God’s faithfulness to His church in raising up so many faithful servants to reform and renew His church. As I watched the various interviews, I couldn’t help but praise God for the constellation of outstandingly gifted, gracious, and godly men that He has equipped and sent to serve and support Southern Seminary and it’s worldwide witness to the truth. May He continue to keep these men in His truth and in His love.