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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

#301

Post by throwawayjava »

kafkaesq wrote: post #124
w1ntermute wrote: post #5

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…

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. So your implication is that the ratio of "competent" : "completely incompetent" for students coming from these schools is roughly... 2:100? I know you can't possibly mean…

> So your implication is that the ratio of "competent" : "completely incompetent" for students coming from these schools is roughly... 2:100?

the parent can be correct with a ratio closer to 1:10 or 1:20, assuming the top schools churn out many more students than 2nd/3rd tier schools. Which is certainly the case depending on how to define 2nd/3rd tier.

For ex parent's observation is probably spot on if you're comparing MIT/CMU/Stanford/Berkeley to an arbitrarily chosen regional state campus. But is more absurd if you're comparing those places to Michigan/Wisconsin/North Carolina/Washington/...

> Which is exactly what the original article was advocating

To be clear, the original article is a long-form advertisement for a product. What the article is advocating is giving interviewing.io money :)

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

#302

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

samstave wrote: post #275
viewtransform wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a recruiter contacted me for a position at Google in 2012, I happened to be also taking Daphne Koller's Coursera class on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGM). I was puzzled why the recruiter wanted to know my SAT score. He also wanted to know the college and high school I went to and my GRE score and my undergrad GPA ... Keep in mind that I have a BS, MS, Phd in three different engineering fields and over a dec…

Its like a real-life implementation of that life-score episode of Black Mirror (and what the chinese government is looking to do to their entire population. When I first interviewed with google, it took three-freaking months of panel interviews. Then they said I scored really well, and that I'd have an offer the next day. I got the call the next day and said, in fact, no offer was coming. No reason given. Then they a…

Warms my heart to know that I was not the only person/startup given this treatment.

I was invited to pitch my startup to google startup team twice (For their launchpad AI studio and Gradient ventures).

Got an email two months later that I made it to the next round and requesting more information about the startup.

I sent the emails and then... crickets. Followed up via emails and linkedin and there is just no response. No negative, no waiting, no request for more information. Just a cold dead silence. Very demoralizing.

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

#303

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Did that change recently?

I interviewed with them recently and I didn’t get any condescending comments about my SUNY education like I did a few years ago — from a recruiter who was reaching outbound to me!

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

#304

Post by Chathamization »

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).

And how about people who couldn't get into an elite school at 17, but end up learning a lot at the state school? It seems odd to be so preoccupied by what someone's capability was when they were in high school, rather than what it is now.

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

#305

Post by erichmond »

gonehome wrote: post #112
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 agree - and this is even more true at state schools than the slightly more selective schools (like RPI that I went to). State schools have people that got into MIT, but didn't go for financial reasons or family reasons. Nobody at RPI got into MIT because if they did they would have gone to MIT (maybe some rare exception exists, but this is generally true). School admission is obviously not a perfect indicator of ab…

Meh, I got into CMU SCS, and chose Tufts, because I was equally interested in comp sci and music, and Tufts had a much superior music program.

Early on in my career I'd get questioned about my CS degree from Tufts, and I'd jokingly mention "I'd gotten into CMU SCS, but I preferred to be a well rounded individual. I can send you the acceptance letter if you'd like."

I think people choose schools for all manner of reasons.

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

#306

Post by adamnemecek »

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.

I'm guessing that "Career services are shit." is more accurate.

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

#307

Post by Spooky23 »

KGIII wrote: post #195
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…

I wonder if there is a competitive advantage to be had there? UMaine is a pretty good system. When I retired, I taught math at UMF for a little while, so I got to see the system from the inside. UMF has one of the best teaching programs in the country. They even have a CS path that is judged well. Maybe recruiting at the small State universities is a potential edge?

Please don’t. Our hiring pipeline is almost completely from these schools.

You get great talent that big tech companies won’t interview!

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

#308

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dragonwriter wrote: post #280
dba7dba wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the diversity angle, considering many smart students of minority groups choose to go to public school because many come from families that cannot pay for tuition of the top 5. Very much a diversity issue.

Top 5 universities (and elite private schools more generally) are usually much cheaper than public universities for students with limited means because they have deep pockets for need-based financial aid while public schools have little if any additional campus aid. Now, awareness of this fact may be not widespread enough, skewing the applicant pool toward the outcome.you describe because of perceived cost, but it's…

No. They're cheaper for people with nearly no means.

The people with some means (aka the "middle class") can stretch their budget to afford state school.

Most states also have transfer programs that let you go from a 2yr at a CC into the equivalent 4yr at state school which takes a huge chunk out of the cost.

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

#309

Post by kobeya »

tomtang0514 wrote: post #299
kobeya wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the top schools prepare their candidates for the test. I think I’m a pretty decent coder, thank you very much, but I suck on those blackboard interviews. I could see that being fixed with practice though, and maybe the big schools format their classes and labs such as to practice for that?

I graduated from a top 5 CS program, and no we don't do that.

I don’t mean explicitly. Small team group work and revision sessions with the TA might be sufficient. Non tier 1 schools don’t have this luxury.

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

#310

Post by hexane360 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #209
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't see how adding bias to your recruitment is a solution to the problem The goal isn't to add bias. It's to seek out the source of a bias we think might exist and then remove it. For example, if we find 5% of top-tier schools' CS grads are women while 20% of mid-tier schools' CS grads are, and find similar quality in both pools (keep in mind, when you interview graduates you get to select for quality), th…

> we find 5% of top-tier schools' CS grads are women while 20% of mid-tier schools' CS grads are I agree with the sentiment, but isn't the situation exactly the opposite of that? Top-tier schools work to balance gender distributions, and many of them succeed well above industry averages. Other schools spend less effort, and get predictably thinner results. Compare, say, RPI and MIT. (I know RPI is uncommonly skewed,…

Using this data: http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N47/women/tables.pdf

MIT's computer science program is 31.7% women. MIT's school of engineering is 39.87% women. I think even comparing tech school to tech school, non-tech majors have a significant impact. MIT especially has a surprising number of non tech majors.

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