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

Hiring manager perspective: Nope. Glad you finished. If you're a new grad without much experience outside of internships (meaning you didn't work in the relevant field while obtaining your degree), I will care more about your GPA. As a general matter, I often don't even look at or ask about GPA because it matters very little to me, but if you took 6 years to get a bachelors I'd prefer to see good grades. After all, when everyone else crammed 15-18 credits per semester, it's fair to expect that the person doing 8-12 per semester for a longer period of time should have better grades. Of course, if there are external factors beyond wanting/needing more time to do the coursework, that's taken into consideration as well.

Be prepared to talk about why it took you longer. It's not a bad thing to be asked, in the same way that other hiring managers asking about my law degree/legal experience isn't bad either, it's just out of the norm for someone working in fintech. Be honest - you can say there were family reasons or whatever without getting into the details. If your interviewer is anything resembling a human, they'll understand. If they don't, you're avoiding a shitty work-life balance situation and/or a shitty boss.

If you don't have other experience, though, or don't need/want to illustrate that your degree happened while you were doing other relevant, career-path work, you could just put the graduation date on your resume.

It depends. If someone discloses to me on their resume that it took 8 years to get a bachelors, meaning they put 2000-2008 next to that line item, it's fair for me to ask about it. Besides, professional or not, you want them to ask it if they're inclined to ask it. Not because it's information for them, but because it's information for you. A candidate interviews the company as much as the company interviews them, and from my perspective as a candidate I want to know if these things matter to them and why. For instance, there are qualities I appreciate about non-traditional students - people who started college late, worked full time through, etc. I'm not trying to figure out if you're 45 or not. I'm looking for positive qualities, not trying to shake out the negative. I can distill the negatives when we talk about experience, and those have nothing to do with age or anything else.

Beyond that, when I'm interviewing someone, I know I can't or shouldn't ask certain things, and I don't want to make people uncomfortable or break any laws. So I will often casually mention that I'm married or have a kid if the opportunity arises while we make small talk. I never tie it to a follow up question either, because that's too close to the line for me. But I'm not trying to figure out your situation there either. I'm just putting it out there that I have a life outside of here, that I'm probably going to sneak out (very) early every so often, work from home sometimes to get some other non-work stuff done too, etc. and that I won't hold it against you for being a normal person either.

Yes, exactly right. Good answer :)

I mean, I would probably naturally start with "There was a lot going on," and then explain. You know, being that I am human and all, so I have emotions.

Hopefully in an interview you would actually be able to have a conversation, rather than it just being a series of questions where they write down the answer and move on. I suppose you would need to gauge the style of the interview. If it really is going to be that formal, yes, you would need to have precise response like that.

It's hard to imagine an interviewer who wouldn't automatically ask the follow up question when someone gives a vague answer.

Sometimes responding to comments it seems like I am arguing a counter-point, but really I am just continuing the same line of thought from a different view.

As someone who's done a lot of hiring both at a large investment bank as well as a small startup (grew from 5->80), it wouldn't even occur to me to ask about duration spent in college.

I don't know anything about interviewing at large tech companies, but from my perspective, the best thing anyone can do to prepare for an interview is to be able to talk, in detail, about work you did that you are really proud of.

I can't imagine this even coming up in an interview. Any company that did care is probably a sweatshop so feel lucky if they decline you for that reason.