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This would be a legitimate critique if Bock were saying "Here's how I screen through 100,000 resumes". Your interpretation would serve as a good heuristic. Bu

This would be a legitimate critique if Bock were saying "Here's how I screen through 100,000 resumes". Your interpretation would serve as a good heuristic. But that's not what we're talking about: he implied that, all things being equal, he would hire a B student majoring in CS over an A student majoring in English because of "signalling" when comparing two candidates he had to choose from.

tomp 12y ago
But that's exactly what "signalling" means - and Bock has decided (presumably based on experience and statistics) that the positive signal of CS is and B student is stronger than the positive signal of A student of English.
dkuntz2 12y ago
Define "all things being equal", because unless the CS major and English major have both taken exactly the same courses (in which case, why aren't they both double CS/English majors?), things aren't equal. If you've got your two students, and they're both applying for a software development position, wouldn't you rather have the person who's taken formal CS courses? Even if the English major has worked on some software projects on the side, the CS major probably has some experience with data structures and algorithms, and being able to think about those. I'm not saying an English major can't do the same things, or that because someone studied CS they're better than anyone else. What I'm trying to get at is that your average B student who studied CS is probably a better candidate for a technical position than your average A student who studied English.
gefh 12y ago
I'm assuming this is about engineering hires. If they both interviewed well they'd both get hired. Of course, getting past the resume screening is not equally likely, but I'd expect an English major applying for an engineering role to have something more than their not-entirely-relevant degree on the resume to make up for it.

tomp 12y ago

But that's exactly what "signalling" means - and Bock has decided (presumably based on experience and statistics) that the positive signal of CS is and B student is stronger than the positive signal of A student of English.

dkuntz2 12y ago

Define "all things being equal", because unless the CS major and English major have both taken exactly the same courses (in which case, why aren't they both double CS/English majors?), things aren't equal. If you've got your two students, and they're both applying for a software development position, wouldn't you rather have the person who's taken formal CS courses? Even if the English major has worked on some software projects on the side, the CS major probably has some experience with data structures and algorithms, and being able to think about those. I'm not saying an English major can't do the same things, or that because someone studied CS they're better than anyone else. What I'm trying to get at is that your average B student who studied CS is probably a better candidate for a technical position than your average A student who studied English.

gefh 12y ago

I'm assuming this is about engineering hires. If they both interviewed well they'd both get hired. Of course, getting past the resume screening is not equally likely, but I'd expect an English major applying for an engineering role to have something more than their not-entirely-relevant degree on the resume to make up for it.