^ What’s even more frustrating is when some automated process filters on a buzzword or an acronym.
Gosh, I don’t know, looking at them as they come in and looking a EXPERIENCE or something beyond a name and numbers game? Like I said, though, not my world.
It is not about our world, it is about out kid’s world, whatever that may be. My job is to give my kids as many options as possible, even if it means to make some tough choices (like the weather).
Well, then, @oldfort, what hallowed schools should all us feeblebrains be sending our children to? That will guarantee success with one or two glossy labels?
1000 resumes for 5 jobs… if you spent only 2 minutes on each, it would take you 4 days to go through them and your brain would melt and leak out of your ears.
“Ain’t nobody got time for dat!”
You have to apply some wide filters to get the pile down to a manageable number or you’ll never finish. Filtering on “Colgate” has worked well for oldfort in the past, so why not?
There is no magic list, because everyone has their own biases.
There’s a thread with hundreds if not thousands of replies about “stupid reasons why our kids rejected a school”. But all these kids wind up somewhere, and most succeed and will get a job. Will give you a boost in certain locations for certain jobs? Probably. Is that boost worth an extra $150K if you are full pay? Some might think so.
Personally I think “7 feet of snow” vs. “70 degrees in the winter” is not a bad reason.
Op,
I am from So Cal, so don’t really know a ton about either Colgate or univ of South Carolina except that I do know that Colgate is a pretty good small LAC and USC is a large public. I think that the decision must be made together, but if a parent is paying, I think a parent has veto power but should really listen to their kid’s opinion and also take into account their kid’s personality and everything else they know about a kid.
Weather can hugely impact some people. It surely does to me and would be huge impact on any decision that I made, so I could understand your kid’s POV, if indeed that was the REAL reason for kid’s desire to attend USC. Additionally, LACs seem fantastic, but my kid #1, after visiting LACs along with a ton of other colleges said that their is no way that would want to attend a LAC, so didn’t apply to any. Yes, USC will provide all of the big fun stuff of college that is often portrayed in films, and maybe kid is drawn to that, or maybe it is merely marketing influence. But at some point in kids and your college search and apps, you guys must have discussed this kind of stuff, right? Maybe a medium sized private research uni would have provided the best combo. And Colgate would probably have more connections in the NE and USC might have more connections in so Carolina and in the south.
In the end, I support your veto power right, but please don’t underestimate the effect of weather and only you and your kid know if this would cause a permanent rift in your relationship, or merely a semester of getting upset and then realizing that maybe you were right.
Well, it seems like this thread has given a lot of parents a forum to “talk”. Is any of this discussion going to matter or have ANY relevance in the final outcome? I really don’t think so…!
Well, it’s a thread … not a research report. Most of the points being debated are pretty much the same ones always debated on CC.
@limbo,
Well supposedly the op’s kid has not committed yet, so this thread may impact outcome.
@YoHoYoHo The kid is NOT the OP’s, but a friend’s kid.
“When I get 1000+ resumes for 5 positions, why would I need to think outside of the box? What could I be possibly missing by not going to an “lower ranked school”? Do I think top performers from lower ranked schools would be able to do the job? Absolutely. But when I have top performers from higher ranked schools applying why wouldn’t I use those schools as filters for me?”
Inbreeding? Maybe, just maybe, thinking outside the box will get you people who thing outside the box.
This is not the op’s kid?
Well then, to the op, I’m sure that the family has this covered and may not be traveling true reasons to you, except for venting and blowing off steam.
But again, I personally would absolutely factor weather into my choice of college.
D has realized that months of rain make her depressed and lose her “spark”. Having been to parts of the country where winters are not like that, she’s decided to look only at colleges where it’s temperate and sunny much more often than in Seattle between October and May. Having moved here from the northeast, I understand completely. I tell her I will be happy to visit anytime she’d like.
“1000 resumes for 5 jobs… if you spent only 2 minutes on each, it would take you 4 days to go through them and your brain would melt and leak out of your ears.”
Interesting discussion. Right now I am in a very similar situation interviewing for two position, both requiring some experience, but generally considered junior-level. My company is one of the best in the field, so we get the top applicants and can choose pretty much anyone we want. Even with a lot of help from HR, and a searchable database, it takes tremendous amount of time to review applications, however I try to consider each one, usually spending several minutes per resume. My top filter is a good position fit, meaning that applicants’ skills, training and professional credentials must meet position requirements. Good resumes have a concise top-level summary, which is easy enough to “scan”. I also consider overall resume and cover letter quality, including their content, style, layout, ease to navigate etc – it is extremely difficult and time-consuming to write a good effective resume, even with professional help, so this is a good predictor. School name is also important, but not the decisive factor for me personally, however name recognition certainly helps, and the top schools get a more careful look. I would, however, strongly favor applicants with high GPA, cum laude, rigorous course work, etc from schools known for high academic rigor or from reputable programs in my field, especially for the recent graduates. That said, hiring practices and criteria are different between industries, and each manager has their own biases. Interestingly, another colleague is now hiring for a very similar position in his group, yet I noticed that we choose completely different resumes from the same pool.
“Inbreeding? Maybe, just maybe, thinking outside the box will get you people who thing outside the box.”
Screening for people who think outside the box happens during an interview. We usually receive and review hundreds of applications, screen up to 10-12 over the phone, and invite the top 2-3 for on site interviews. It rarely takes more then two rounds to hire someone.
One place we’ve had the same 2 schools represented over and over is the Supreme Court. All nine of the justices currently on the court are from Harvard or Yale. Six are Catholic. Most are from the North East. Can’t we have some other views? Other experiences? Other thoughts?
Most companies will recruit from the same school where they’ve had good experience. I introduced few Cornell Engineers (for obvious reason) to my old firm. They turned out to be excellent analysts, so now the firm recruits there.
If I am recruiting for a more junior level (few years out of college), one of many questions I would ask is why did you choose to go to your college. It is often the biggest decision a young person had to make, and it gives me a lot of insight into someone’s thought/analytical/decision making process.
There is no need to get sarcastic with me. If your daddy owns a car dealership or belongs to some hoity-toity country club, then you probably won’t have to worry as much about getting a job. Whereas for us lowly working for paycheck people, I worry about my kids getting jobs some day. If you think by having good credential it would guarantee success then you are as silly as some people think money can guarantee class.
I, too, am a recruiter and have been for 20 years. I work for an executive search firm that places mid management and above in the Midwest. ($100-300k salaries). I VERY rarely care where the candidate went to undergrad and occasionally care where they went to graduate school. Especially at this level. And we are placing VP’s of Sales, Engineering, CFO’s and COO’s on a regular basis. Sometimes I do recognize a “faster track” because a candidate came out of a “good school” but there are plenty of candidates on a fast track from STate U’s.
I personally have two friends in their late 40’s. They are both happily married men with wonderful families. One went to MIT and one went to a directional state u in Ohio. The one that went to a directional state u (with a degree in communications) is vastly more successful in his career and the MIT’s grad’s house could fit in the garage of his house…BUT I repeat…they are both happily married with wonderful families so in the end …who cares where they went to school???
BTW - my daughter goes to University of South Carolina too ;). In the honors College and is thriving!!!
I’m not sure why this type of “decision making” even requires a human being. A simple algorithm could draw the same conclusion.
And plenty of hard-working people–professional and otherwise–have kids of average intellect or smart kids who are willing to pass up pricey privates for a good state school. Fortunately, there are lots and lots of state school graduates out their making HR decisions, so life is not over for these kids. And a good chunk of them will start their working lives without a lot of debt because of the college choices they made.
I love all the pricey private LACs and am a huge proponent of them, but for the student who cannot afford to attend one without amassing a lot of debt (and, let’s face it, a lot of middle- and upper-middle class kids can’t), they’re just not a viable option. These students choose the affordable school and wish their friends heading off to pricey privates (most of whom are either very wealthy or of modest means and the recipients of generous FA packages) good fortune.
But don’t kid yourself that every kid at a selective private school is automatically superior to even the average graduate of a state flagship. I know plenty of recruited athletes and legacy kids who attend elite privates and, while they’re great kids for the most part, they’re not any more impressive in terms of work ethic or brain power than plenty of other “average” kids.
Some of you haven’t ever hired people, it seems.
If you find a pond with good fish, why not keep fishing in it?
If your company goes to schools x, y and z to recruit and is happy with the results, why would you be inefficient and open it up to more schools? Every single major company in America picks certain schools to recruit at. It may be due to what’s local, what the hiring manager thinks is good, what a particular exec’s pet place is, whatever … But that’s how you sort things. You don’t have the manpower to travel everywhere and interview everyone who might, potentially, be a good candidate. I bet Google misses out on bright kids who go to college in Maine because they get plenty of bright kids at San Jose State so they don’t need to fly someone to Maine to interview there for an entry level position. So it goes.
When you apply to colleges, and let’s say you apply to 7 colleges, you are not “making a statement” that all other colleges are inferior, the people are stupid, whatever. You’re just culling down a list of options in the way that works for you.
My business partner has a very soft spot for her alma mater in hiring. So? It’s a good school, she gets good people, we are satisfied with the results, and it’s her company and she can set whatever criteria she likes. What’s the problem?
It’s more than a little ironic that there are threads about “who has the best alumni networks” and then objections to alumni actually being receptive to fellow alumni. Uh, that’s the point.