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Your work experience should say more about you than where you attended.
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<p>It does, once you get beyond the entry level. That doesn't mean that prestige means nothing, just that its value decreases. It won't help you answer technical questions in an interview. But it might catch some HR person's eye as they go through a huge pile of resumes.</p>
<p>Joel Splosky, who has a well-known software development blog, has written a series of articles about hiring, most of which are focused on what to ask in interviews, what skills candidates should have, and other issues of merit. One of them is about sorting resumes. Here's what he says on how prestige factors in when his company sorts resumes.</p>
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"Another thing we look for on resumes is evidence that someone has gone through some highly selective process in the past. Not everyone at Ivy League schools is worth hiring, and not everyone at community college is worth avoiding, but getting into a very selective school does at least mean that someone, somewhere judged you using some kind of selection process and decided that you were pretty smart. Our company criterion for selectivity is usually getting into a school or program that accepts less than 30% of its applicants (there are about 60 schools in the US that meet this standard), or working for a company which is known to have a difficult application process, like a whole day of interviews. Highly selective branches of the military like officer’s training or pilot’s courses, or even just getting into the Marines indicates someone that has made it through some kind of difficult application/selection procedure and all in all this is a positive sign."
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Your work experience should say more about you than where you attended.
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<p>True in theory but harder to substantiate in real life. </p>
<p>The former is not only sometimes harder to quantify but also often harder to verify, whereas the latter is easier on both counts. The same fudge factor that exists in using school name/GPA to judge someone also exists in using what a person's resume claims as their title, responsibilities, and accomplishments.</p>
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Person 1: Princeton Graduate in Engineering 4.0 GPA</p>
<p>Person 2: SUNY Buffalo Graduate in Engineering
Worked as a Engineer in a consulting firm for 3 years.
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<p>If only credentials and names were the bulk of employability. Get into the real world at all and you'll find that people don't only like to hire smart people, they like to hire personable, friendly people. If the Princeton graduate is a jerk, he's not getting hired. Considering Princeton's reputation, he might not get hired on mere suspicion of being a jerk. That might be the reason that every Ivy graduate I've ever known has done one of two things: been a jerk, or tried their best not to mention their alma mater. </p>
<p>Depending on said Buffalo graduates record, personality, and actual ABILITY (you know, something he's had time to prove he has), I might hire him. Or I might hire the graduate from schools with better engineering programs, like Stanford, Berkeley, UM, MIT, Cornell, Purdue, Case Western, etc.,</p>
<p>Prestige is overrated. Personality is underrated.</p>
<p>Um, I'm a Harvard graduate, and even I know that this author is full of {cough, cough}.</p>
<p>They've done studies on this issue, at least from a financial standpoint. Attending an Ivy league school doesn't typically pay for itself. (Getting in to an Ivy league school does slightly correlate with future earnings: but there's no difference over the long term between students who get in to top schools but turn them down, and students who get in to top schools and attend.) My guess is that the same is true in areas of life other than money. </p>
<p>I'm really happy that I went to Harvard because it was a good fit for me and I loved the professors and the social experience. But God forbid that it's prominent in my obituary.</p>
<p>I love this part:</p>
<p>". . . as I watched my former classmates climb to the top of enormous corporations, publish prizewinning books and dream up hit TV shows. . ."</p>
<p>The emphasis on this sentence is on the words "I watched." That's right: from the sidelines. If this author had "climbed to the top" himself, the name on his diploma would mean a lot less to him.</p>
<p>I think you are right lotf629. Highly successful and well-adjusted people do not need trappings to prove themselves. I sense some envy in the writer of his classmates' success and his vicarious appropriation of it. I find it sad that his sense of himself is so undeveloped that he needs to be reassured by others' impressions of his college in order to validate himself. I don't know how old the writer is. However, if he is over 30, I truly feel sorry if that is the primary way he envisions himself. My brother attended Harvard but he is recognized by his colleagues for his performance and contributions to his field. I think only a few people he interacts with even know where he attended college. As time goes by, where you go to college makes little difference. Performance matters. People also generally rise to the level of their true potential no matter where they went to college. If I could speak for my brother, he would say that attending Harvard was an opportunity to learn in an unique and high-powered environment rather than attaining a credential. Sadly, Mr. Kirn views his opportunity to attend Princeton as only the latter.</p>
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Um, I'm a Harvard graduate, and even I know that this author is full of {cough, cough}.</p>
<p>They've done studies on this issue, at least from a financial standpoint. Attending an Ivy league school doesn't typically pay for itself. (Getting in to an Ivy league school does slightly correlate with future earnings: but there's no difference over the long term between students who get in to top schools but turn them down, and students who get in to top schools and attend.) My guess is that the same is true in areas of life other than money.
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<p>I agree on all points; however, I think some people here are getting too distracted by Kirn's apparent arrogance.
It's quite obvious that prestige isn't everything. But contrary to some opinions, prestige still means something. Now, quantifying that "something" is difficult and will be different for every person but just as personality, performance, character, hell -- even PHYSICAL APPEARANCE matters (google for recent studies that indicate that more attractive/taller/fitter individuals tend to be promoted faster or have higher salaries), the reputation (which is typically interpreted to be quality) understandably matters as well.
As it has been mentioned before, when going through a screening process (such as job recruiting), oftentimes certain measures have to be implemented to sift for quality candidates to shorten an already lengthy process.<br>
Requirements such has having a bachelor's degree, graduating with a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and yes, even the quality of academic institution are all imperfect -- yet usually effective measures.</p>
<p>Agree with calicartel. Prestige of college attended is a non-quantifiable asset. Like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. As I said earlier, it may help in gaining job entry but not necessarily ensure long-term success. That is determined by the overall qualifications of the person taking the job, their ability to learn, and intangibles such as determiniation, self motivation, capacity for hard work,etc. I am not disputing it as an advantage but just trying to reassure high school students obsessed with it that it is not the only factor in choosing a college or finding career success later in life.</p>
<p>I also think the value placed on "prestige" varies among ethnic groups and level of education. For instance, many first generation Asian parents seem to place high priority on prestige-overly so in my opinion, and creating a lot of stress on their kids. Likewise, academics tend to focus on the value of education itself rather than obtaining a credential, and one will find that many of the top LACs are populated by children of teachers and professors. I personally am an advocate of "fit" for college, just as I am of "fit" for a job. Fit will mean different things to different people. However, I like to advise prospective students to ask "Where will I get the best possible education given who I am and how I learn? Where will I enjoy doing it?" To me, the "investment" of college is not the cost of the education (although that is important) or the perceived "prestige" of the degree. It is the opportunity cost of spending four critical years of young adulthood with little other responsibilities than to expand one's mind and learn about life.</p>