<p>Having been a hiring manager for a Fortune 100 company, I first and foremost looked for success in the ability to solve problems. Unfortunately I did not usually hire anyone right out of college, there were other groups that did, so I can’t say specifically if a major would have influenced it a that point. But the major was irrelevant until the upper levels when an MBA or related masters was favored but not mandatory. </p>
<p>So what I looked for in a candidate was someone who was articulate, an effective communicator, someone who could read and comprehend detailed information and one who could solve problems. I looked for someone who “leaned forward” in enthusiasm, confidence, and interest. I looked for someone who could relate their accomplishments, no matter what field, to the skills I was looking for. Not just a list of what they could do or had learned , but what they had done. These could even be from a part time job, handling customers, solving issues, it did not matter. </p>
<p>So to me it was more important that you have a major that you enjoy and do well in. That you get some experience in the world somewhere, that you learn good communications and problem solving. And I do know that the company looked at the higher GPA candidates for interviews. So doing well in whatever you major in a very important.</p>
<p>Diito: good communication skills, personable, enthusiastic but not over the top, evidence of some tangential skills relative to the position, some sort of successful work history: part-time job, internships, etc.</p>
<p>Majors aren’t all that important unless it’s an entry level engineering or IT/IS job where specific skills or software knowledge is required, but there are some benefits when your major relates to the functional area. I like to hear a good “team” story" that illustrates teamwork and problem solving that also relates. “We had an assignment to do xyz and the results were abc.” I also like to hear stories where young people have had real world experience through campus activities or activites in the college town.</p>
<p>For several years I was part of a first round interviewing team after the recruiters had done the cuts from the initial resumes.</p>
<p>Being a hiring manager for a quite few times, I like to see candidates being intelligent, having good personal skill and being a team player with can-do attitude.</p>
<p>Communication and team-participation skills, and the ability to integrate insights from multiple sources in order to create new understandings. It’s also crucial that our employees recognize that their own political views, cultural views, religious views, sexual orientations, etc. are each just single vantage points among a whole spectrum of human differences, and that others who are different do not constitute failed attempts to be like them.</p>
<p>Fortunately, most don’t care. But there are certain companies in certain industries that recruit for entry-level candidates only at a small number of schools, and those tend to be highly ranked schools.</p>
<p>As an owner of a very small company, each person we hire has to be able to do a variety of tasks and have no ego about it. Everyone answers the phone; everyone makes their own copies. I look for relavant job experience, ability to get along with others, ability to communicate effectively, and most of all, desire to work hard. I like to think liberal arts educations prepare people for a variety of jobs, but we don’t hire exclusively from liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>I work in engineering and many of the personal attributes aren’t much of a problem. I’ve worked with people with big tempers, egos, poor communications skills, etc. We work with people in Asia frequently and you basically have to work through the noisy communications.</p>
<p>What we look for is technical ability, the ability to work through very difficult problems over a long period of time, understanding of the industry, interest in the industry. Communications and people skills are a bonus but technical skills and problem-solving ability are much more important.</p>
<p>Much depends on the hiring manager. I worked with a (small) company where all six department heads interviewed each new candidate. You could easily tell which manager wrote each assessment. The most autocratic manager wanted “a good team player” (his euphemism for someone who wouldn’t rock the boat), the engineering manager wanted good technical skills, the sales manager wanted enthusiasm, etc. The underlying message here is actually a good one … there’s a place for everyone, so don’t try too hard to be something you aren’t.</p>
<p>Someone who can not only do the job technically with the proper skill set but someone who will also work hard and have a can do attitude and is creative about getting tasks accomplished. They need to have a personality that will get along in the dept that they are assigned to and with the clients who they interact with.
From recent grads, I look for someone who does not need heavy hand holding and can work somewhat independently. I also need someone who communicates well in emails and more formal correspondence - this is surprisingly not always the case.</p>
<p>Grace under fire…I look for people who could think calmly and make decision when things go south. When things blow up, it is usually accompanied by people screaming: When is it coming back up? Do you know how much money we are losing? Someone’s head is going roll. The ability to quickly assess criticality of a problem, to come up with a fast implementable solution, and ability to calm users down, are all important qualities I look for in a candidate. I usually assess that by asking some tough and unexpected questions, and see how they react.</p>
<p>Good communicator, confident, tactful, hard working, mature, and can do attitude. Worst attribute is someone who doesn’t responsibility for anything and always do finger pointing.</p>
<p>I have been a hiring manager (of engineers) at a large aerospace company working in the space program. We used to have a list of the top schools and we were encouraged to hire from those. You could hire outside the list, but the candidate went thru a lot more scrutiny.</p>
<p>I would look at what kind of projects the student worked on, any summer job experience. I would cull out the relevant engineering classes and see how they did in those classes.</p>
<p>I would then call and talk to the candidate. Since most of our customer contacts weren’t local, you’d spend a fair amount of time on the phone with them. Good communication via phone was important. You’d also want to see how well they had researched your company. Did they do their homework and really want to work here or was it just a shot in the dark with no idea what they were getting into. </p>
<p>If all was well over the phone, I’d invite them in them in the an interview in the plant. We’d really look to see how well they could communicate and get along with others. They’d talk to several people. There would be some technical discussions and we’d evaluate what we thought was their technical knowledge. Later, we’d get together and discuss the candidate and make a decision.</p>
<p>Interesting story: Had a candidate that had all the right classes, good school, great GPA. During the interview there was a launch involving our hardware. The candidate was pieved that I wanted to pause the interview and watch the launch on TV (ie. about 10 minutes). Made up my mind about him right there. If you can’t get excited about what your going to be working on, then how do I know you’ll put the effort in to do the job well?</p>
<p>My employer does not care the tiniest bit about the major. We do take note of the college, but there are all kinds of majors (like trumpet performance) that have nothing to do with what we do. I’ve never seen it matter.</p>
<p>Being able to work with other people is absolutely the most important thing for me. Anyone who seems withdrawn, shy, unfriendly, obnoxious, stuck-up wouldn’t have a chance. Next is experience as documented by personal reference. I think education/major has an impact on me like “wow, this girl must be smart” but I wouldn’t see going to a lesser known college/easy major as a drawback if the candidate had a great personality and references.</p>