This article strikes a particularly strong chord with me. I am a student, probably in between the second and third examples, and it is so unbelievably hard to get an interview. I wasn't even aware it was so easy for students at top schools. This is frustrating because college admission for many essentially comes down to the first year or two of high school. That can't be a good indicator of developer performance.
Maybe we need better career services for students at mid-level schools or lower, or maybe we need a company to step in between the gaps. Either way the system is broken right now.
Isn't this one of the primary reasons why those particular schools are "elite". Because of the alumni base and "connections" you can make at these schools? It sucks but I feel like most students enter college knowing how this system works and therefore try their darnest to get into one of those elite schools. I went to a school that had career fairs with 50 kids standing in every line waiting for their resumes to be…
I went to a major state research university for engineering. During career fairs, the big companies would always have huge lines for hours and the unknown, smaller companies would be doing their best to grab every uninterested kid walking past. The big companies were usually a waste of time to talk to (and waste of time waiting to talk to). They would sort resumes by GPA and pitch the bottom 90%. Then you would still be competing against everyone at every other school in the region. Unless you are just looking to name drop your previous employers, the experience is really what matters. I would usually go right to the smaller companies and be able to have actual discussions with an engineering manager or even a VP. Those companies would almost always call you back and be interested for an actual interview.
Do I understand correctly that on the candidate side the person can go through a sequence of interviews without the possibility of actually meeting a hiring company? Also that you only work with students?
We have 2 pools: a practice pool and then a pool where you get guaranteed interviews with employers. If you do well in practice, you can book real interviews with any number of top companies who've come to trust in the quality of our users. This goes for both senior engineers, and more recently, students.
Do you have stats on how many of your customers are in their 30's and 40's? I would think that demographic would find practicing very useful since they have been out of touch with algorithms for a while.
This is a good idea in theory, but the problem in practice is that for every Emily or Anthony, there are a hundred students at 2nd and 3rd tier universities who, partly through their own failures and partly due to the unfortunate circumstances they’re in, are completely incompetent. I often find that those who are so keen on “hiring broadly” have never worked in a company that hires primarily from Podunk State - your…
"there are a hundred students at 2nd and 3rd tier universities who, partly through their own failures and partly due to the unfortunate circumstances they’re in, are completely incompetent." I find myself wondering at your definition of "2nd tier school". If you mean community colleges or something, I'd understand. But there's plenty of "tier 1 schools" for learning computer science outside of the "same five schools"…
I find myself wondering at your definition of "2nd tier school".
Any school lower on the perceived status hierarchy than the school they went to, most likely.
It really isn't that expensive to send a couple of engineers to a school if you're hoping to hire a couple of talented students, and maybe some interns. You really only need one event a year.
Except that there are hundreds of schools that fit this description. Sending recruiters to any one of them isn't that expensive, but sending recruiters to all of them is quite expensive. Which isn't to say that there aren't students there worth recruiting.
What about putting those schools in a pool and selecting from them randomly, eventually weighting them by historical success if/when you have enough data?
If recruiting is a competitive advantage, why not be innovative and data driven about it? If it's not a competitive advantage, then why spend time and energy on it?
When I was at Google, I was asked if I wanted to make a recruiting trip to my alma mater. I was excited until I found out they were talking about my grad school where I got my MS, and not UB, a large state school where I got my BS. I told them I'd be happy to take a trip to recruit at UB. I got mostly crickets back from that reply. However, I ended up getting signed up for a series where they had a panel of a few HR…
> They just don't understand that some people like me, who can get into the (mostly private) elite schools choose to go to a "long tail" school for a variety of reasons (financial, family obligations, etc). Agreed--I was accepted everywhere I applied save one and I ended up going to the University of Maine. I've never hurt for work and I paid off my student loans by the age of 25. Google sniffs around now (aside: rec…
A Google interviewer definitely shouldn't be doing that. Sounds like you got a bad one.
I went to a non-top tier undergraduate school. I made efforts--at big companies as well as the one I founded--to recruit from my alma mater . I ended up defaulting to NYU, Harvard and Stanford. Career services at non-top tier schools are shit. Once, as a personal favor, I offered to help a company with a well-known CEO recruit from my state school. When I brought it up with a dean I knew, career services got mad. The…
Is there any way you can think of for working around this? Some actual method of recruiting outsiders of the system in a realistic way? I've always assumed that open source would be one of the places to go for such telemetry, but have never known where contributing would actually furnish that kind of benefit. It would be good to know if there were projects that are actually fit that criteria, instead of merely being…
I was an undergraduate at a no-name university for various personal reasons. A Google, Microsoft and other big tech co offices were nearby. Throughout my undergrad, not a single event, talk or recruiting opportunity emerged. I understand this: the top people are the same everywhere but it does not economically make sense to do events to potentially hire 1-2 people. I am now at a world famous grad school and there are…
I recently moved from St. Louis to New York City. The number of recruiting emails I receive has probably quadrupled (or more). In all things, it helps to be where the people you want to find you are looking. Also: protip for people in the South or Midwest who are open to relocation: change your online profiles to say you're in the new location.
Oh hey! I did the same move after undergrad.
I would second this advice, and be ready to "put up" when people ask you to fly out. Be prepared to have a plan to get to interviews if you plan on fibbing about your current location.
Isn't this one of the primary reasons why those particular schools are "elite". Because of the alumni base and "connections" you can make at these schools? It sucks but I feel like most students enter college knowing how this system works and therefore try their darnest to get into one of those elite schools. I went to a school that had career fairs with 50 kids standing in every line waiting for their resumes to be…
The secret of elite colleges is to only admit those who would succeed anyway, then take the credit. In the UK Oxford very heavily favours privately educated students from well-connected families for example.
That sounds more to me like "perpetuating the dominance of existing classes" than "those who would succeed anyway." So much for SV meritocracy.
When I was at Google, I was asked if I wanted to make a recruiting trip to my alma mater. I was excited until I found out they were talking about my grad school where I got my MS, and not UB, a large state school where I got my BS. I told them I'd be happy to take a trip to recruit at UB. I got mostly crickets back from that reply. However, I ended up getting signed up for a series where they had a panel of a few HR…
Didn't Jeff Dean come from a 'long tail' school for undergrad?
If you consider the University of Minnesota to be "long tail", then sure. I wouldn't, though.