Dropbox (YC S07) looking for Android Developer(dropbox.theresumator.com) |
Dropbox (YC S07) looking for Android Developer(dropbox.theresumator.com) |
I always hated this requirement. I'm sorry if I don't have the right pedigree to satisfy people like this. I'm sorry I didn't go to the "right" school, wasn't born into the right family or just a failure in their eyes.
I didn't go to a "top-tier" institution, for reasons I'd rather not discuss here. I have worked with a few graduates of these kind of schools, and I can say that their coding and problem-solving abilities were not any greater than my own and others who didn't have such prestigious names on their diplomas. In my experience it makes no indication whatsoever. In fact, I generally ignore the specific undergraduate school when I look at a resume.
This is simply a statement of extreme and irrational elitism, and it stinks.
Interviewer: So, what was your favorite course? Interviewee: Oh.. probably Data Structures. Interviewer: Ok, great. Let's start with a question about that. What's the running time of a hash table lookup? Interviewee: Oh.. uh... <stares blankly>
The rest of the interview continued along those lines. By contrast, another guy we interviewed who had earned his CS degree at Oregon State was a brilliant programmer.
Your bachelors degree institution also isn't just a pedigree. You can't perpetually argue that 'everyone is equal'. People aren't equal, and where you went to school is a useful signal.
Beyond all this, the Dropbox guys are predominantly MIT, and expecting applicants to be from a similar environment should be seen not as insulting, but natural.
What I am saying is that it is almost but not quite discrimination. I can't control with total fidelity what school I get in no matter how good a student I might be -- ie, if I'm good enough to go to MIT I can go to MIT. They can't let in anyone who is good enough to go to MIT because there is only so much space. And besides, I don't have the money to go there nor did I have the money for the right college prep school[1]. I got handed some cards by life that meant I had to slowly work through a state university at my own cost.
I'm not mad at you or people who went to Ivy league schools, it's just that I get a little tired of people immediately shutting me out (parties, interviews, life in general) as soon as I mention that I went to some Unknown State university. Maybe it's just a SV thing but it gets old. Really old. So when I see it in a job posting I can't help but to take it personally. It's something you'll never have to worry about since you yourself are an MIT student.
I realize that they don't have to make me happy and they're free to hire from whatever school but they don't have to say it out-loud.
1 - Whether that prep school was an actual school or it was a parent who could stay at home screeching into the ears of their kids to motivate them or both, it means that they had the money for that school or one parent could stay home.
In short: no, not everyone is equally skilled, but you're going to miss a lot of gems if you only hire from MIT's peer institutions. I'm sure Dropbox will have no problem finding someone good to fill their position, however, so I guess that isn't such a big concern for them.
If you're Google and have tons of résumés to sort, then fine; but in this case it seems a good way to miss a great hire.
hi guys,
google falsely blacklisted the entire domain as a result of some users hosting malicious files as public links. your files are safe and nothing about dropbox is malicious. this happened as a result of the switch from getdropbox.com to dropbox.com. the dropbox.com domain hadn't earned a positive reputation and thus a single user hosting malicious content resulted in the entire domain being blacklisted. we're working with google now to resolve this ASAP.
These postings are just written by other poor saps, on deadline, who generally just pull them out of their ass. They're not set in stone. (None of this applies to huge companies with rigorous HR screening of course.)
I personally filter on "has made major contributions to interesting projects" and "speaks two or more human languages". That discriminates against a lot of people too. My tertiary filter is "ignores my filters but is impressive enough anyway".
To me it's a question of reality. Within any interaction each person has a different version of reality. In order to interact, the participants have to agree on a common version of reality.
In this case - The applicant's reality should be that it is not a requirement. The company's reality is that it is a requirement. If the applicant can convince the company that the applicant's reality is the right one to use for the common ground, then the requirement is not a requirement.
You are correct, but that doesn't matter. Hiring filters are intentionally excessively restrictive because a bad hire is much worse than losing out on a few good individuals.
Remember that in our industry (and probably others), even a full-day interview tells you very little about a candidate and their ability.
It is a form of exclusion based on past education and experience. Are you implying that it is unethical to do so? I say no. Past performance is the best predictor of future performance. Getting accepted into and performing well at a top-tier university is past performance. This will undoubtedly exclude many great candidates. But the reality of hiring is that there's always a time constraint and bad hires are incredibly disastrous to an organization.
Is it legal?
In the United States, it is certainly legal to judge candidates on their education and experience. I'd also wager it's legal just about everywhere. Otherwise, as tsally said, employers would be forced to interview just about anyone that applies for a position.
Actually it's better if they do, that way it wastes less of your time if you know up front that you don't have a chance because of your lack of pedigree as you say. I don't like it either, but I would rather know up front.
They can't let in anyone who is good enough to go to MIT because there is only so much space.
Not quite. You have to be the diverse of the best (if I may mutilate English to make my point). Horror stories come out every year of the kid with perfect test scores and GPA who gets rejected from [insert prestigious school here]. It's not enough (and rightly so) to be the best of the best. You've got to have something different. Some distinguishing factors that come to mind are:
* Socio-economic background
* Athletic and musical ability
* Ethnicity and gender
* Unusual, proven talent in some rare area
I just fail to see how being an expert viola player or a state ping pong ball champ or a <gender,race combo> is going to help someone write superior software or conduct excellent science.
And I mean in a real, verifiable way, not some unconvincing, weak collection of anecdotes.
Of course, I'm not saying I can write super-superior software.
I think the trouble in this case would be the recruiting company that are reading them and only passing on the ones that tick all the right buzz word boxes ..