Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
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Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
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Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#2Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part.
A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#3This is stupid. Do people really think Thiel is personally managing every job opening at every company he's associated with?
Non-sequitur "gotcha" reporting at its worst. I expected better from Yglesias.
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#4A bit more context is available here: http://www.businessinsider.com/busted-hypocritical-peter-thi...
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#5Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part. A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.
Turning away a qualified candidate isn't the bad outcome for a hiring process - hiring an unqualified worker is. So if the trade off for avoiding the latter is some of the former, it is arguably worth it (and Thiel is likely in a good position to know what the appropriate ratios are)
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#6This brings up an interesting point. Are there jobs where a degree from a "top-tier university" is more highly-valued?
Being an entrepreneur--even a successful one!--doesn't necessarily require a college degree. But are there jobs (perhaps this one?) where college classes are useful enough to warrant this bullet point in the job description?
I'm not sure--I wasn't a stats/math major. But I'd be interested in hearing some informed opinions on this matter.
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#7Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part. A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.
Perhaps they feel that being admitted to a top-tier university is indicative of the quality of a persons upbringing and work ethic? I would not agree, but perhaps that's an assumption in play here.
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#8Ridiculous. To say that a top-tier university produces a better employee, or business leader, is to say that a person's individual personality, upbringing or work ethic plays no part. A high GPA - that's an understandable requirement - but to base it arbitrarily on a 'top-tier' university is depriving qualified, talented employees from consideration.
Actually there is a difference: Employees from Top Tier universities make better slaves .i.e. They have been trained to "Do as you are told" (no creativity allowed), and "Wait for your turn"
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#9Using GPAs is so silly, as scales vary widely between universities, and even countries.
In French universities, you get marks between 0 and 20 (you need 10 to pass a class, and in some cases you can pass a class with 8 if it averages out with certain other classes). In some universities (classes préparatoires), marks superior to 10 are extremely rare, with a class average at ~6-7 being common, as professors want to push students to the max.
A student having an average of 15 would be a very, very strong student (the top student in my university, whom I was friends with, had an average of 14.5 or so at graduation).
So would employers just divide that by 5 to get an American GPA? That would barely be a GPA of 3 for top students— I doubt they would get any consideration from such employers, although they're probably much more competent than a top-tier student with a GPA of 3.5+ (I'm not too familiar with undergraduate studies in the US, but it seems that as long as you show up and do the homework, you pretty much get an A in the class).
Re: Peter Thiel's unexpected job requirement
#10This brings up an interesting point. Are there jobs where a degree from a "top-tier university" is more highly-valued? Being an entrepreneur--even a successful one!--doesn't necessarily require a college degree. But are there jobs (perhaps this one?) where college classes are useful enough to warrant this bullet point in the job description? I'm not sure--I wasn't a stats/math major. But I'd be interested in hearing…
Ive studied a lot of math in school (including financial mathematics) and I think its hard to learn that type of stuff on your own. Its easier to learn how to code on your own since there are plenty of resources on the subject - but its harder to learn math. Maybe we have a business opportunity here?
One should also remember the Hedge Fund Long Term Capital Management who hired 2 managers who had won the Nobel prize in economics - and they blew up (so math skills is not everything) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management