The process you described at least makes sense. If you have a huge group of applicants, use credentials and/or experience to winnow the field and then interview to verify fit for the position. For this same reason, the approach that selective consulting and finance companies use also makes sense.
In the scenario I described, it made no sense whatsoever. It is a fairly small niche, with perhaps 100 people nationwide with the right set of talent, seniority and specific experience they were looking for. My friend and former colleague is one of the 100. I was not, but they were willing to throw him out and consider me due to pedigree. Bizarre.
College name is far from the only way to weed through the large number of resumes. Earlier in this thread, I linked to a survey that compared how hiring managers in different industries evaluated resumes of new grads. Among the 56 surveyed who worked in education, their average rankings of the relative importance of different criteria were as follows. A similar pattern occurred in other industries, with employers emphasizing having experience doing something relevant to the position.
Internships
2 (near tie with #1). Employment During College
College Major
4 (near tie with #3). Volunteer Experience
I did find from my own experience that I did end up getting interviews from many companies just based on the Ivy college I attended. However, once they found out my GPA, the interview kind of turned silent and did not go so well. lol What I am saying is the name gets you in the door, but after this, it really depends on your character, ability and whatever. Because I realize now days that the prestigious name of college alone is not enough to get a job, I tried to help our kid learn as many languages and be familiar with many cultures as possible. So, in the post above, I would add multi-language skills to the list.
For me, when I hired workers to work in my own office, I always offered positions on 60 days conditional offer depending on what I observed of their abilities and character during interviews. I never considered low GPA or school name when I decided to make this conditional offer, which was based on my impression of their abilities. There were some with high GPA cases/prestigious college names I found to be not good workers on the job. I did this because I myself had bad GPA from an Ivy college but I am sure those who had good GPA from Ivy colleges looked for similar traits.
If you want to work in the financial service sector with just an undergraduate degree, then going to one of the most prestigious colleges is almost a necessity. In many cases, your resume won’t even be looked at, unfortunately.
I got my MBA from my state flagship years ago. I still remember applying to a local company in the same state and received in response, sorry, we don’t consider applicants from that school. I was stunned.
My oldest attended a large fairly prestigious state university. Majored in anthropology. I’m really glad I didn’t pay a fortune for her education as she is now in grad school. Middle child is in a small state school getting her teaching certification. Given how much teachers make, again, I’m glad I’m not paying a fortune. Youngest is a STEM kid. I have an easier time shelling out money for his “name” school because I do believe the name will open opportunities for him.
Internships - definitely good to have relevant experience.
2 (near tie with #1). Employment During College - working as a barista won’t help but it can show work ethic.
College Major - can’t hire a history major to design buildings. Duh.
4 (near tie with #3). Volunteer Experience - this goes to character.
Extracurricular Activities - again time management and some outside interests.
Relevance of Coursework - again need to hire someone with the right education. Really finding it interesting that this is behind volunteer/EC's. In some non STEM disciplines I can see it but certainly not for any STEM.
College Reputation - guess what, you will have better opportunities at all of the above at a more prestigious college.
So college reputation makes the top 10 things that a hiring manager is looking for, I can definitely see that. In the end hiring managers look at the whole package including ALL of the above, the order will be different for different companies, but you have the basics.
There were only 8 things listed in the survey, so everything made the top 10. College reputation was 7th out of 8 for education, and 8th out of 8 overall. College reputation’s average importance rating across all 704 surveyed employers was 5/100. Most surveyed employers said reputation had an influence, but gave little distinction between regional, national, and elite colleges. For example, 56% said they were more likely or far more likely to consider an elite college grad, 57% said more likely to consider a national college grad, and 56% said more like to consider a regional college grad. However, there was a large difference between all of the above and unknown colleges, as well as online colleges.
@shawbridge Thanks for elucidating the finer point of my argument for @Data10. As his moniker suggests he is very data driven, but needs to dive a bit deeper.
What is the CC preoccupation with IB and consulting jobs? Do folks realize what a small part of financial services those two career paths make up? Most undergrad business school students aren’t even interested and most of the small percentage that are and that make it don’t last but 1-2 years. If that’s all you have on why prestige is important, you don’t have much.
Suppose the bulk of employers follow policies largely consistent what they report in surveys, suggesting employers as a whole place a strong emphasis on experience and place little emphasis on college prestige, when evaluating resumes and making hiring decisions for new grads. Are they likely to flip their hiring behavior upside down and instead focus on prestige for employment during school?
School name can have notable influence in chance of relevant expeirnece, but just focusing on prestige is misleading. Things like encouragement/presence of special internship/co-ops programs or connections, quality of advising and career center, … all can vary significantly and can vary among both more and less prestigious colleges. For example, GeorgiaTech has the largest voluntary co-op program in the United States. More than 1/3 of students do 3 semesters of a full time job while students, generally working in a relevant field. If a student chooses to attend GeogriaTech over a more prestigious HYPSM… school…, he/she likely has an increased chance of having strong work experience due to such programs.
Note that the same survey found that only 1% planned to go in to consulting as a career, and the rest hoped to be out in a few years. The most popular first destination was the least popular among the surveyed career industries. Similarly only 5% planned to go in to finance as a career, making it the 3rd least popular… Many of this minority are likely short-term two-and-out type positions (see https://www.vox.com/2014/5/15/5720596/how-wall-street-recruits-so-many-insecure-ivy-league-grads ). Instead the most popular career goals were health, education, and technology/engineering.
True, but both are an easy, well paid entry point, typically with benefits such as exposure to multiple industries and cities/countries, before you settle down and specialize in something for a “career”.
It’s not surprising that few want to stay in either long term, given the workload (or even understand what a consulting “career” might entail), but the benefits of starting there (potentially enabled by having attended a “prestigious” university) can be significant. I’m sure parents are aware of those benefits too.
@Twoin18 For one, IB doesn’t occupy the finance space. Second, the elites also make up a very small percentage of graduating seniors entering the work force each year. So again, IB and consulting is important to so few that overall it’s unimportant and doesn’t support the argument for prestige. So while for the very few hung up on IB or consulting careers, their best bet for breaking in will be from a target school (though some will get in from non-target schools), for the overwhelming vast majority of students, prestige isn’t going to be important in the short term or long term and they are much better off focusing on fit.
“IB and consulting is important to so few that overall it’s unimportant and doesn’t support the argument for prestige.”
Surely it’s the opposite way round? For the few (parents or students) who consider prestige important, IB and consulting are disproportionately likely to figure in their thoughts about potential first jobs (whether or not those sectors are viewed as a long term career).
That is where the money in the economy increasing gets concentrated in, and the current trend toward growing economic inequality (which some politicians try not-very-successfully to slow down while other politicians try to accelerate) may cause some upper-middle-class to upper-class people to think that they or their kids “need” to find such a pathway to the plutocrat class to avoid downward mobility.
I actually think folks on CC are pre-ocuppied with Pre-Med (as in- “my 16 year old is Pre-Med”) and PhD’s (as in- “My kid got an A in junior year physics so we are only looking at colleges which “place” students in top doctoral programs”).
Overall, I think that “grownups” in general have a weak understanding of the actual labor markets in the US (assuming that everything that was true in 1985 is true today) and therefore, their kids have a weak understanding. And it becomes an echo chamber- you have to major in premed to become a doctor; the only suitable career path for an ambitious kid who is good at science is to become a physician, the earlier one starts to focus on becoming a doctor, the greater your chances of getting a top residency.
Which of course is bunk.
If you want to help your kids- encourage them to take a walk to career services at their college at some point prior to April of senior year of college (which is too late, even for a late bloomer). There are some colleges where the career services team is truly top notch; others where I’d give them a B-, but it’s still better than relying on something which was true eons ago. And every single kid can benefit from the interview prep and coaching, resume writing, etc.
Do you know how many college kids start their interview with, “So like, what exactly do you guys do?” And do you know how much restraint it takes to maintain professional demeanor with those kids?
“It is not just IB in finance that considers college prestige. Many other finance jobs do so as well.”
Big 4 Accounting firms are similar. They tend to recruit and hire from very specific colleges. Some of the colleges targeted are based on prestige but mostly they’re colleges that have solid records of turning out graduates who can pass the CPA on the first try. Wake Forest is a good example of a target school. Not a school that’s necessarily known as being hugely prestigious, but the accounting program’s CPA pass rate is usually at or near the top of all accounting programs. So Wake accounting grads are heavily recruited by Big 4 firms.