Ask HN: Do employers care how long it took you to finish a degree?

Disagree. Especially with entry level positions, it's a real nice bonus for me when I'm reviewing applicants. It gives me something to look for when there's no work experience to try to craft what this person has worked on.

What you need to understand is that employers don't care about anything other than whether you will be a good fit for the position you are applying to. Your CV is just a way to try to assess your skills and character, just like in-person interviews are.

So yes, an employer might take into consideration how long it took your to finish your CS degree but ultimately it likely won't matter much when all the other factors are taken into consideration. It's one tiny factor that may be very important for you right now but doesn't actually provide much useful information to the employer.

EDIT: Just to make my point even clearer: taking slightly longer than expected most likely won't stand out at all. Taking significantly longer may be a negative factor, or it may be a positive factor, but either way it will most likely not be even close to one of the most important factors an employer might consider unless you literally submit a slip of paper with only that piece of info on it.

In your case, it seems unlikely to be an issue. In most circumstances, I think it would result in a few extra questions.

Generally, a degree that comes after years of professional experience indicates a career switch, and those employees often need to work harder to find a good fit – usually, an organization that can make use of the skills they learned in the previous phase of their career. The reasons for this mostly come down to being very junior in skill level but having difficulty working under the same circumstances (low pay, trained by a 25 year old, potentially long hours...) of the typical junior hire.

There are exceptions to this, and there are many career switchers that navigate this well, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind.

Hi all,

I'm reading Hacker News pretty regularly but didn't bother to register since now that I saw this question from JxGZV.

I come from really small EU country that was formerly communist and I'm also an CS student in my final year:) With that being said, I want to share my experience that I had recently with a pretty well known big company which is in the business of software engineering and was merged with another company in 2012. Because of various reasons I'm studying longer that it is expected, but nevertheless my CV is outstanding, since I have many achievements as an undergrad (participating at conferences with posters, winning hackathons etc....). To make long story short, I was asked what was I doing all these years and if I was "doing drugs or what?!".My answer was "No I did not". I didn't get an offer after this interview and was really happy because of that.

For anyone reading this, if you are in a similar situation, do not stress yourself with such questions. Just send the application and CV. If they ask questions like these, you can find a better employer and you probably don't want to work for them anyway. Believe me. I experienced it.

I can answer as someone who has done hiring.

Legally, no they don't care. There will be hiring policies that dictate complete independence of non-relevant factors

Truthfully speaking, as long as you're under 45 and you've done something with your life during your non-working time, you're okay. It really helps if you can have a steady employment history, or at least proof you've been given money for doing something related to your degree, but my experience is that 45 is the first age where questions start to arise.

For traditional businesses in the US, longevity and dedication to the company are big. 5 years at a traditional company is considered a short time - the closer you get to retirement, the less you can give the company, and the closer you are to having age related ailments, etc. Age discrimination is very real, especially in tech (and doubly so in programming specifically), but you're well under the limit for most employers. A few start-ups might go cock-eyed at the graduation dates, but start-ups are a different beast entirely.