<p>Ummm, that was the point – using school name and GPA screens on those who graduated decades ago may not have the effect desired by those who use the school name and GPA screens.</p>
<p>This thread is confusing. Why wouldn’t you expect engineers from highly competitive well known programs to be, on average, better than those from unknown programs? In what field would that not be true? With no other information available, if undergoing surgery, would you rather the surgeon was trained at Hopkins or University of Pikeville? I’m sure that there are plenty of great surgeons trained at Pikeville and there may even be specialties at Pikeville not available at Hopkins but, given a choice, I’d choose Hopkins. Admissions to Hopkins is far more competitive so those selected for training are probably smarter, and, as a group, simply better.The faculty at Hopkins are probably better too so the training they provide is probably better. No, not always but if my life depended on it, I’d be disinclined to select the guy from no-name U. The reputation of Hopkins has sustained over the years because they generally live up to it. Not always but usually. The reasons highly ranked programs are highly ranked are not simply that they are hyped. Even if it were the case that the highly ranked programs have only better students, the fact that better students are trained together makes them a better bet then those trained with less strong peers.</p>
<p>@hebegebe-</p>
<p>I know where you’re coming from. In the past, I too have filtered applicants by school/gpa when looking for a NEW graduate with LITTLE or NO job experience for an entry level position. When there is a stack of applicants, it’s a great first line filter. Although potentially great graduates of mid to lower tier schools exist, it really is about PROBABILITY. Obviously, there are other factors such as compatibility, goals, attitude, references etc that come into play during the interview process. It’s not like school/gpa are the only criteria for selecting a new employee that many seem to think.</p>
<p>For a NON-entry level position, experience trumps school/gpa.</p>
<p>My advice is that IF a person has the MEANS, he/she should strive to get into a top notch school and program. It’s no guarantee for success, but there will be more opportunities available to get that FIRST great job after graduation.</p>
<p>
Because the years in industry will have been a much bigger influence. This may surprise you, but the skills required to succeed in industry are often not the skills required to succeed in high school and college - I have known “top tier” engineers who have been underwhelming professionally, and “mid tier” engineers who have done great things. Indeed, if a “mid tier” and a “top tier” grad both have similar accomplishments, I will wonder why the “top tier” guy hasn’t done more?</p>
<p>When you apply to college as frosh, they care about what you did in high school, but not what you did in middle school.</p>
<p>When you apply to a job at graduation from college, they care about what you did in college, but not what you did in high school.</p>
<p>When you apply to a job after years in the work force, they care about your work experience, but your college is usually not as big a factor (maybe not at all). Of course, there are exceptions, but they are the exceptions.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus,
Well said. 100% accurate!</p>
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<p>Now, this is a good question. </p>
<p>My perspective is that the job market is highly inefficient. By that I mean that for various reasons excellent workers can be significantly underpaid relative to their contributions. Reasons include the restrictive salary bands described by GLOBALTRAVELER, workers getting stuck in an underperforming company or industry with depressed wages, brilliant people that like to work on lower level problems rather than move up into more of a managerial role, inability to move for family reasons, and many more.</p>
<p>I think a key to finding an excellent worker for reasonable compensation is to search in ways that most others do not. maikai does this by looking at the single mom with good grades, or the veteran who took web classes. Completely valid strategy.</p>
<p>What I think is a very mediocre strategy is to filter out candidates that do not meet all listed job requirements. The employees I hire in my small company are not cogs in a large machine, but important contributors to the success of the company for ideally 10+ years. I need innovative thinkers that can influence how we do things, as opposed to engineers that simply do a single specific job well starting on day one. </p>
<p>So I start with a wide net. I work in the finance field, but I will consider hiring a medical researcher that has worked on big data, an aerospace engineer that worked on the thermodynamic properties of jet engines, and people that have done innovative things in the computer storage industry. For these people, I need a cover letter that demonstrates that they are not just applying at random.</p>
<p>But I still end up with a very large list. Then I sort based upon criteria that includes school and/or GPA. But other things can also pique my interest. For example, a few of the candidates won national or international awards in math or science contests while back in high school level. One is an exceptional poker player. One is a Fulbright scholar who worked in restructuring South American banks. </p>
<p>I called 15 candidates, who I thought were relatively equal, even though only a few met all my initial criteria. My initial phone screens can take up to an hour. I currently have six candidates that I am considering bringing in, of which only one has extensive experience in the finance industry.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing that hebegebe; very helpful. I don’t work in engineering but I do think that even years out the fact that someone made it through a selective academic program stands out on a resume. And it’s easier for an employer reviewing dozens of resumes to understand and verify “Bachelor of Science, MIT” than a paragraph description of previous job responsibilities.</p>
<p>Ahhh finance, now it’s all clear. Then the advice to go to an affordable ABET accredited peogram still stands for people who actually want to be engineers. For a while you had me worried.</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-I535 using CC</p>
<p>Well, given that I hired the same way when I was in hi tech, does it become less clear?</p>
<p>In my first management job, when I was 24, my first hires were from MIT, IIT, UCSD and CMU. They were outstanding.</p>
<p>I will give my slant on why you may have some hiring managers who still would factor in academics even after years of experience. I think some hiring decision makers want to make the selection based on “lifetime achievement” instead selecting for the actual job. Here is the kicker…I kind of understand that. I do think I would feel a little “slighted” if I put in the work for good high school grades and put in work to be accepted to Top-10/Top-15 colleges and even maintained a high GPA…only to see myself starting my first day of work with 10 other new grads from Top-100 schools, or 2+2 programs, or some 2nd-career person or God Forbid, some person with some “flavor of the month” certification. Even if there is a starting salary difference (based on previous academics), what is $7000 more a year when my school outranks others by 85 ranking slots??</p>
<p>Even I can see that…which is why many of my posts have the “play the game…not what looks right” theme to it. I am not jaded (because I have certainly benefited) but I would be if I was from a top engineering school. I’ll say this also, employers SHOULD take into consideration when someone obtained a M.S./M.Eng (if the position calls for it). Well all know that graduate admissions are more relaxed for experienced engineers compared to the just-graduated-undergraduate, but in hiring, it becomes:</p>
<p>M.S./M.Eng + Experience = Experience + M.S./M.Eng</p>
<p>Which (to me) is a little unfair to the folks who maintained the grades during undergraduate years…but I benefited since I was one who is did grad school AFTER experience.</p>
<p>So I can understand having a mindset to include the “total body of work”. It’s bad if you work in the Federal contracting business, where degrees, experience and certifications are just “check the box” items. By the way, I did not think of all of this alone, I have heard the under-the-breath mumblings from engineers over the years. While U-Maryland or John Hopkins grads did not say it to me directly (probably because of the abuse I take from Ohio State and U-Michigan grads, lol), they sure whisper it when it comes to some of the local colleges (UMBC, Towson, etc).</p>
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Yes, yes it does. What you are describing makes a little more sense if you are talking about small companies - the smaller the company, the more emphasis on “talented” and the less emphasis on “skilled”. My department (composed largely of very senior engineers, most of whom have some hiring/firing experience) has been reviewing hiring and promotion practices in the current fiscal climate, and the issue of GPA or matriculating school has literally not come up once - including discussions of new people to bring into the company. I think the only time I have ever seen such as a factor in ANYTHING has been for PhD’s, and that is only because we list their doctoral program on proposals.</p>
<p>I think that your practices are in the distinct minority in the engineering industry.</p>
<p>I think we’re straying a bit from the context of this thread. I thought we were talking about how much a “big name” school benefits the recent graduate over a middle of the road school. </p>
<p>Personally, I find filtering and interviewing experienced people for senior positions a bit easier than picking a recent grad. If we’re looking for a senior designer with X number of years experience working with particular tools or cores we licensed, nothing else will matter if that’s not on their resume. Therefore the number of resumes to go through tend to be smaller. Unlike a new graduate, very rarely will there be something else on their resume to pique my interest. Their work history is typically very full, therefore there is less “filler”.</p>
<p>Getting back to the context of this thread…</p>
<p>You don’t need to go to a top notch “rarified air” type of school to get a great job. Maybe I’m guilty of thinking most people are like me, but I think most will NOT filter out applicants with good grades, but from middle of the road schools. </p>
<p>Good grades and relevant internships / CoOp expeiences are the key to getting an interview. The closer the experience is to your target career, the better. </p>
<p>A cover letter telling something the resume can’t is also important. Don’t just restate what can be read in the resume. You need to somehow let a hiring manager know there is something that makes you unique. They don’t need (or want) the full story in your cover. Just enough to get curiosity going. You can tell them the details in person.</p>
<p>Again, I hope I’m not just thinking everyone is like me, but I look more for a good “fit” for our department and our company over where you came from. We want bright, self motivated people. IMHO, those don’t ONLY come from rarified air universities.</p>
<p>GLOBALTRAVELER,
Yikes! It is certainly understandable why sentiments like that are “under-the-breath mumblings.” If said within my earshot, my knee jerk reaction would be to think this guy is a prima donna.</p>
<p>There is no place for that on our team.</p>
<p>Somehow the recent posts have all ignored the OP’s intention for MIT grad school, “I would also like to keep the door open to be able to apply to (and have a chance at getting accepted to) MIT for graduate school …”.</p>
<p>In this regard, she would have next to zero chance to be accepted into MIT if she attends, say, Cal State Long Beach which actually has an ABET ChemE. This is just the simple reality.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Cal State Long Beach, but MIT and other elite schools admit plenty of grad students that aren’t from the top programs. </p>
<p>Even from the “middling” state flagship that I attended for undergrad, just about everyone I knew well (the honors group students) was admitted into an elite grad school program either right after undergrad or after some years of working in the industry. </p>
<p>Taking California as an example, I think that graduating from any of the University of California schools would not preclude attending MIT afterwards.</p>
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On that we agree. There is no place for that on any team.</p>
<p>Wow…I really love this “Shouting Match” on this forum…carry-on. And let see how far y’all wanna go.</p>
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<p>Well since I now have permission, I think that cosmicfish, maikai, GLOBALTRAVELER have most inane hiring policies that I have ever heard of. What are they thinking?</p>
<p>Just kidding.</p>
<p>But seriously, I think that cosmicfish has made an astute observation, in that talent matters a great deal for small companies. I have joined companies when they had anywhere from 5 to 250 people, although a couple of them grew into the thousands by the time I left. I will always choose talent over skill because in many cases skills can be learned quickly. For them, choosing skills over talent might be the right answer.</p>
<p>All of you, thanks for the info based on this discussion…and it is very good for me, personally. So, when I finish my school then at least I have the rationale behind the hiring managers and their LOGIC being based upon hiring…so, I am being prepared to answer tricky, probing and curve ball questions being thrown at me during interviews, etc. More importantly, I will know how to tweak my Resume to get their attention.</p>