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Interesting sentiment and maybe well intentioned. But regardless of whether you like it or not, the university provides a strong filtering mechanism on the qua

Interesting sentiment and maybe well intentioned. But regardless of whether you like it or not, the university provides a strong filtering mechanism on the quality of your applicants. It is highly correlated with successful application. So they may try this, but quickly back off at having got rid of a very highly correlated screening input.

miander 11y ago
This is the premise they are betting against. "Quality" is not a one-dimensional value, and a team full of Ivy League graduates are going to have similar biases and weaknesses that could hard a team. I think that's what the focus is shifting towards.
6d0debc071 11y ago
> It is highly correlated with successful application. Almost axiomatically so if you make it a hiring criteria. The real question is whether it's correlated with good KPIs, (and the secondary question of whether your KPIs express your business needs.)
- supernova87a 11y ago
  It can be, so you have to guard against it. But what is for certain is that anyone attempting to follow this example will be flooded by applications of lower qualification in general -- making it difficult for any small sized company to deal with. Just imagine if you had to conduct the search for applicants with a 10x larger pool of candidates. The sheer work involved is sure to cause problems of their own nature. Balance that against how much you really need to find diversity.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I don't think it's a particularly big problem. Honestly, I'd be happy to have a 10x larger pool of applicants, as that means I'd get sooner to the ones I want to hire. I think the trick is to structure the hiring process so that you can quickly weed out the people you don't want. Currently the trick I'm trying: I have candidates write 1-2 sentences in response to one of five hopefully interesting questions: http://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs/chime/ http://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs/chime/ So far there's been a very good correlation between "can write a useful short answer" and "is worth talking to". Whereas there hasn't been a good correlation with "prestige level of school".
  - 6d0debc071 11y ago
    > Just imagine if you had to conduct the search for applicants with a 10x larger pool of candidates. The sheer work involved is sure to cause problems of their own nature. You can reduce the size of the pool of applications that you consider essentially arbitrarily. Shuffle the applications and throw a certain percentage of them into the bin without looking at them. The composition of the set of applications that you consider matters, but the number of applications, past a certain group size that ensures a reasonable cross-section of the application set, isn't particularly relevant. Unless you know that university graduation is a good indicator of future work success, you may as well do that and get the diversity for free. You're under absolutely no obligation to consider a thousand applicants for one position or anything like that.
flashman 11y ago
"Having attended a specific university" isn't as strong a predictor of performance as you might think. Even "having attended university" isn't a particularly strong filtering mechanism, as E&Y recently dropping the degree threshold shows: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-drops-degree-classification-threshold-graduate-recruitment https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-dr...
- gambiter 11y ago
  As an aside, it's funny that both articles use the same stock image.
gambiter 11y ago
Granted, it's anecdotal, but I've personally seen university graduates that seemingly aren't capable of reading basic instructions or submitting a useful CV. Conversely, I've seen applicants with zero university who wowed during the interview, and went on to wow everyone as a very skilled employee. I think the 'filtering mechanism' you speak of is vastly overrated, and I'm excited to see things like this happening. People should be hired based on ability and skill, not a piece of paper that they somehow acquired.

miander 11y ago

This is the premise they are betting against. "Quality" is not a one-dimensional value, and a team full of Ivy League graduates are going to have similar biases and weaknesses that could hard a team. I think that's what the focus is shifting towards.

6d0debc071 11y ago

> It is highly correlated with successful application. Almost axiomatically so if you make it a hiring criteria. The real question is whether it's correlated with good KPIs, (and the secondary question of whether your KPIs express your business needs.)

supernova87a 11y ago
It can be, so you have to guard against it. But what is for certain is that anyone attempting to follow this example will be flooded by applications of lower qualification in general -- making it difficult for any small sized company to deal with. Just imagine if you had to conduct the search for applicants with a 10x larger pool of candidates. The sheer work involved is sure to cause problems of their own nature. Balance that against how much you really need to find diversity.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I don't think it's a particularly big problem. Honestly, I'd be happy to have a 10x larger pool of applicants, as that means I'd get sooner to the ones I want to hire. I think the trick is to structure the hiring process so that you can quickly weed out the people you don't want. Currently the trick I'm trying: I have candidates write 1-2 sentences in response to one of five hopefully interesting questions: http://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs/chime/ http://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs/chime/ So far there's been a very good correlation between "can write a useful short answer" and "is worth talking to". Whereas there hasn't been a good correlation with "prestige level of school".
- 6d0debc071 11y ago
  > Just imagine if you had to conduct the search for applicants with a 10x larger pool of candidates. The sheer work involved is sure to cause problems of their own nature. You can reduce the size of the pool of applications that you consider essentially arbitrarily. Shuffle the applications and throw a certain percentage of them into the bin without looking at them. The composition of the set of applications that you consider matters, but the number of applications, past a certain group size that ensures a reasonable cross-section of the application set, isn't particularly relevant. Unless you know that university graduation is a good indicator of future work success, you may as well do that and get the diversity for free. You're under absolutely no obligation to consider a thousand applicants for one position or anything like that.

flashman 11y ago

"Having attended a specific university" isn't as strong a predictor of performance as you might think. Even "having attended university" isn't a particularly strong filtering mechanism, as E&Y recently dropping the degree threshold shows: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-drops-degree-classification-threshold-graduate-recruitment https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-dr...

gambiter 11y ago
As an aside, it's funny that both articles use the same stock image.

gambiter 11y ago

Granted, it's anecdotal, but I've personally seen university graduates that seemingly aren't capable of reading basic instructions or submitting a useful CV. Conversely, I've seen applicants with zero university who wowed during the interview, and went on to wow everyone as a very skilled employee. I think the 'filtering mechanism' you speak of is vastly overrated, and I'm excited to see things like this happening. People should be hired based on ability and skill, not a piece of paper that they somehow acquired.