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I'm an engineer who spent a few years doing recruiting for top Bay Area startups. For the kinds of companies, I recruited for, if your school is top-tier, havi
by leeny 11y ago
I'm an engineer who spent a few years doing recruiting for top Bay Area startups.
For the kinds of companies, I recruited for, if your school is top-tier, having that brand on your resume is going to open doors. If it's not, then you might as well go self-taught and save some money because at least then you'll look a bit unique and like someone with grit/initiative. Resumes from n-tier schools very rarely make it past the gatekeepers, unless you have some really salient projects or come in as a referral.
This is all rather silly, of course. I wrote at length about it here: http://blog.alinelerner.com/silicon-valley-hiring-is-not-a-meritocracy/ http://blog.alinelerner.com/silicon-valley-hiring-is-not-a-m...
- dikaiosune 11y agoInteresting read. It is, indeed, rather silly. re: "doing recruiting for top Bay Area startups. For the kinds of companies, I recruited for..." What about the other 90% (or whatever it actually is) of software jobs out there? People like me, who have dropped out of college multiple times, come from families without money or connections, and don't want to live in the Bay Area or SV, will be applying to a whole different class of company and will probably face a much different hiring environment. Personally, that's what I'm more curious about in the context of educational certification.
- Test-Grave 11y agoJust out of interest, what is usually considered "top-tier"? Where is the cutoff after the obvious choices? Georgia Tech? UT Austin? University of Florida? etc. etc.
- Spoom 11y agoMy impression is, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Waterloo, full stop.
- fapjacks 11y agoFor CS? Add Carnagie Mellon and Caltech. THEN full stop.
- leeny 11y agoI concur with this assessment.
- WalterGR 11y agoUC Berkeley.
- aaronchall 11y agoWaterloo? Full question mark.