Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

huffingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 40 posts

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#11

Post by tonydev »

bane wrote: post #4
tonydev wrote: post #2

What is the point of this article? There are some 2,000+ four year colleges in the US, and "recruiters" are only interested in grads from 3 or 4 of them? I'm a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab, no one I know or work with is even interested in job fairs, recruiters, etc. That said, any company that won't look at me because I'm from MIT and not Princeton isn't the kind of place I would want to work anyway. I'm…

That said, any company that won't look at me because I'm from MIT and not Princeton isn't the kind of place I would want to work anyway. I'm sure this sort of discrimination makes for great internal culture. Would you count Google in that statement -- with their notoriously discriminating hiring practices with respect to schooling?

The handful of people I know at Google are from a variety of academic institutions, ASU, UW, Stanford, and MIT to name a few. Most importantly, they're all passionate, creative hackers who take pride in their work – not riding the prestige of their education.

The answer directly, if google decided folks from Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, MIT were not good enough while those from Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard were - then yes, I would count Google in my statement.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#12

Post by davidw »

tonydev wrote: post #2

What is the point of this article? There are some 2,000+ four year colleges in the US, and "recruiters" are only interested in grads from 3 or 4 of them? I'm a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab, no one I know or work with is even interested in job fairs, recruiters, etc. That said, any company that won't look at me because I'm from MIT and not Princeton isn't the kind of place I would want to work anyway. I'm…

> What is the point of this article?

Trolling for page views.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#13

Post by reader5000 »

maigret wrote: post #6

Why is MIT so underrated against Harvard? I thought the MIT would teach top computer skills that are so valuable today in banking. Is the CS program in Harvard so much better? Also looking at the alumni, MIT has produced quite a few successful people in banking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Massachusetts_Institute... . Of course there are much more Harvard alumni getting at this level also.

Probably the "bookworm" aspect which from the article apparently "top firms" don't like. But honestly, who cares.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#14

Post by gnok »

The abstract of the paper the article quotes is here: http://tinyurl.com/6bgtwu4 [sciencedirect.com link; too long to put here]

There's no real mention of any university names. This line caught my eye: "However, attendance at a super-elite university was insufficient for success in resume screens. Importing the logic of elite university admissions, firms performed a secondary resume screen on the status and intensity of candidates’ extracurricular accomplishments and leisure pursuits."

So it sounds like these 'recruiters' don't just look at what school you come from, but also look at what else you've done outside school during your years. Sounds about fair to me. HuffingtonPost article sounds like it was written in a rather sensational manner.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#15

Post by mynameishere »

maigret wrote: post #6

Why is MIT so underrated against Harvard? I thought the MIT would teach top computer skills that are so valuable today in banking. Is the CS program in Harvard so much better? Also looking at the alumni, MIT has produced quite a few successful people in banking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Massachusetts_Institute... . Of course there are much more Harvard alumni getting at this level also.

These are companies that hire out their employees as powerpoint-generating consultants for x00 dollars an hour and need to be able to say that they all went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton. I'm pretty sure it's the kind of racket MIT students aren't very interested in anyway.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#16

Post by john_horton »

The study (which strangely isn't available on SSRN or the author's website) appears to be about recruiting law and b-school grads.

I wouldn't be that surprised if her results are true. Whenever there are lots of applicants and lots of employer uncertainty about applicant quality, screening on things like credentials that correlate (however weakly) with average ability can still be "rational."

To give an example, assume that GMAT score is a) unobservable by employers and b) perfectly predictive of future performance in the firm. If HBS grads have a mean 1 point advantage over Sloan grads, it makes sense to lexically prefer HBS to Sloan grads, even though slightly less than half the time the employer will make the wrong (ex post) hiring choice.

This dynamic also tends to be self-reinforcing. If credentials are all that matter to future employers (and all schools cost the same), then all students will try to attend the most prestigious school they can. If admissions committees are not pure coin flips, then it makes sense for employers to believe that the HBS/Sloan "distinction" means something.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#17

Post by tomjen3 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

For what it's worth, crew and student government have always been the two most-valued extracurriculars. If you're a good rower then you can get pretty much any job regardless of which college you attended.

As somebody who has never been in the US, allow me to scream from the top of my lungs: why?

What possible benefit would being a rower bring to working in an investment bank? I can see student government, but rowing?

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#18

Post by tmorton »

The recruiters in this article are hiring for "top law firms, consulting agencies and investment banks." In those jobs, your number one priority is selling to the wealthy and/or powerful, so this sort of selection makes perfect sense. The recruiters are looking for a set of social skills and connections, not hard skills.

This has been going on forever, and there really isn't any way to "fix the problem." People - including the wealthy - are simply more comfortable with others who share a cultural background. Sales jobs have always sought people with preexisting connections to potential clients.

Re: Brown, Cornell and MIT Grads not considered good enough by recruiters

#20

Post by gawker »

weel wrote: post #10

The article starts, "Think your Brown, Cornell or MIT degree carries weight in the professional world?" But what on earth is the "professional" world? "Top law firms, consulting agencies and investment banks." In other words, what is being said here is that employers that emphasize pedigree and polish like to hire from schools that emphasize pedigree and polish. Next week, somebody can publish a study saying that emp…

Agreed. And it seems like "professional world" only involves the United States. Last I heard, we have more than 1 country in this world. Pretty sure many other actual world-class firms would take these grads.
Post reply on HN