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If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

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Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#151

Post by dangerlibrary »

skybrian wrote: post #136
eropple wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Based on the other comments here, it sounds like he got a thoroughly average one.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#152

Post by hyperhopper »

vthallam wrote: post #71
Manishearth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"stringent requirements" like "oh, one of your parents was a student here? here, you're in". Harvard is one-third legacy[1]. > at five Ivy League schools, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown, as well as 33 other colleges, there are more students from families in the top one percent than from the entire bottom 60 percent. stringent requirements, sure, but certainly not the right kind. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/…

That alone doesn't get you an admission. When 2 students has equal test scores, GPA and everything else, your family association definitely helps. This doesn't mean, they accept not so smart people because their parents went to the same school.

Exactly, the argument is that it shouldn't matter.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#153

Post by wolco »

dominotw wrote: post #87
drewg123 wrote: post #37

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 why stop here though, couldn't you just extend this argument to people who go community colleges or online schools or even people don't go any school ?

Yes and google would be better off. I would employ a community college programmer over an average harvard grad. More experience and more focused brings better results.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#154

Post by mathattack »

CalChris wrote: post #110
rsynnott wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked for startups where nearly all of the early employees were from one university, because it’s easier to recruit that way for a small startup. But they grew out of it after a few years. It’s stranger to be still doing much the same thing decades down the road.

Another variation is when a significant cohort comes from another company. Similar to how people from the same school speak the same language, people from the same previous company speak the same language. This is neither good nor bad. It makes recruiting and onboarding easier early on. But it is a thing which a company will eventually grow out of.

This "hire a batch from one company" works in small cases but doesn't scale. A great manager can cherry pick 5 or 6 top talents, but a B level manager won't. It also can create cliques in the company.

I suspect the same exists in making the wrong first hire from a school.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#155

Post by nnd »

eropple wrote: post #65
drewg123 wrote: post #37

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…

From my personal experience, Google recruiters appear to range from absolutely horrible to incredible, so are the interviewers.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#156

Post by throwaway713 »

dionidium wrote: post #34
naturalgradient wrote: post #10

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.

As a data scientist living in the South, I have no problem relocating to San Francisco or San Jose, but how do I signal this without letting my existing employer know? Changing my LinkedIn location from to San Francisco would raise some uncomfortable questions.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#157

Post by gumby »

This article is about first jobs out of school (interesting to me b/c my kid just started university).

How much does it matter after that first job? I couldn't tell you were any of my co-workers went to school -- in hiring the work a candidate did previously and what people I know say about their work matters.

However I am quite conscious that people give me the benefit of the doubt based on where I went to school (I hope it's obvious I mean people who can look me up on LinkedIn, not random people). I've had some absurdly far-fetched ideas, some of which turned out to be quite lucrative and some of which turned out to be stupid. I doubt I would have gotten the time of day without that brand name.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#158

Post by wolco »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

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…

Why give special treatment to a big firm over smaller firms?

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#159

Post by tdeck »

mjevans wrote: post #129
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

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…

If you can find a student organization for Computer Science / Software Engineering students (like an ACM chapter), they might be able to help you set up a recruiting tech talk. We did this when I was an ACM officer at WUSTL. As did Engineering Council.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#160

Post by mathattack »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #77
drewg123 wrote: post #37

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…

I’m a current UB student. There are some more visits from the top here, but only Bloomberg has any real recruiting events... I think google and Facebook appear sometimes but more to give talks and in smaller/tucked away areas. It’s quite hard to get seen by anyone.

I would think one benefit of hiring there (vs say CUNY) is it isn't hard to convince people to move.
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