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

blog.interviewing.io

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

#161

Post by gaius »

noobermin wrote: post #139
gaius wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, "success" includes "passing the interview by wearing the right school tie" oh and the interviewer's boss plays golf with your father. But Silly Valley is no less nepotistic, it just is more subtle about it.

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

#162

Post by mathattack »

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 think you encapsulated the issue if you flip your statement: half the students equal the top 5% at your undergraduate. Much harder to find the needle in the haystack.

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

#163

Post by gaius »

mathattack wrote: post #150
humanrebar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here.

I can't find the link but I recall reading (via Freakonomics or Jeff Selingo?) a study that showed that once you control for SATs and income, attending an elite school doesn't confer as much benefit as merely applying to one.

Dropping out of an elite school carries as much if not more social cachet than graduating. "Harvard dropout" is an archetype for a reason.

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

#164

Post by sndean »

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…

> Career services at non-top tier schools are shit.

Doing my undergrad and PhD at an average large state school, I was really lucky to get an internship (and now job), essentially by word of mouth and my PhD advisor.

Now that I'm doing a part-time Masters at an elite-ish (top 10) school, I'm realizing how amazing career services can be. They send out weekly emails saying:

"James Dimon is coming to speak." "Dir. of Engineering from Exxon will be taking questions." "Bring your resume and chat with recruiters." "Women's Society will be hosting Barclays tonight."

My state school had nothing. All of the leg work was done by individual students.

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

#165

Post by brlewis »

maxsilver wrote: post #79
notyourday wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are building a CRUD application. You need him or her being +7 on 0 to +100 scale. You are saying that you only start at those who are +70.

Good luck convincing Google (or Netflix / Amazon / Microsoft / any other major company) that anything they do is 'just a CRUD application'. Even when it's true, they'll never admit it.

All computation can be described as CRUD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Informal_descri...

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

#166

Post by [deleted] »

wolco wrote: post #158
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?

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by stale2002 »

rhizome wrote: post #19
leeny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why we're really proud of what we do at interviewing.io. All students have to go through a series of practice interviews, so by the time they talk to companies, we know they're great, and so far, most of the students we've presented have gotten offers, independently of their backgrounds. With our model, we free up companies from having to worry about exactly what you described because we incur the vetting.

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?

Interviewing.io is mostly for interview practice. You pair with other people on the platform and interview each other.

Of course, all "practice" interview companies make their money by referring their top users to companies and getting the referral fee.

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

#168

Post by wolco »

wlesieutre wrote: post #25
chk_ur_autism wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your argument here. If we cut through the clutter, you're essentially advocating that you hire people on an individual basis and shouldn't weight at all what school they come from. No?

The argument is that if you're hiring a student from Stanford you can assume some baseline level of competence (only approximately true, I'd bet). If you're hiring from elsewhere, maybe you have to interview 10 people to find someone with similar knowledge/skill/misc. It's a bigger time investment in the hiring search, and gauging technical skill in a job interview is still an unsolved problem. If you find an efficie…

It is the same groupthink as no one ever got fired for buying IBM.

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

#169

Post by dionidium »

madamelic wrote: post #138
dionidium wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wouldn't recommend lying (or imagine you'd ever have to). If anyone asks, just be honest about your current and preferred locations.

There's nothing weird about signalling that you'd prefer to live/work somewhere else. ("I'm currently still in St. Louis, but want to field offers in New York," seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.)

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

#170

Post by cynicalkane »

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…

Google's interviewing process is incongruously uneven compared to the rest of the company, which is top-notch. I recommend giving it another thought. (Disclaimer: ex-Googler.)
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