> I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - tha

> I predict cookie cutter projects won't be an issue. If a candidate can talk in depth about their project, the choices they made, the things they learned - that's good signal. I'd argue most capable people will come away with largely the same experience. Like you, I have a bias toward projects and self-motivated individuals. What I'm saying here is that right now you filter toward that, because everybody has a good GPA, so it's not as strong of a signal. If you change the education system so that everybody has great project experience, you're going to swing back to some other metric to filter people out (like GPA/prestige of university/training program/etc.). I don't think you can ever really escape it. In my example, everybody has great project experience and a great GPA. So how do I decide? Well, I start looking at other things like maybe they're the captain of the volleyball team. (speaking for university hires here at least).