Alumni discrimination
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I can't prove it, but there is a pattern and it makes me angry and disappointed. I haven't finished particular college and I am kind of screwed. I have skills and experience, but I have diploma from less prestigious institution. Most of the time I end up in selected few and interviewers always give me positive (and rather direct) response, but in the end it seams like school crest is what matters! Sometimes my skills and experience is completely ignored and on a base of prejudice I feel like I am labeled as dilettante or worse... It is hard to express the bad taste I have in my mouth. X|
I've been there. I don't have an engineering or CS degree even. I'm a senior dev now. I had to prove myself at my first job and take on as much development tasks I could. Your experience will quickly outweigh your crest after a few years. Just try to get a job where you can kick ass. Places like Google and Facebook probably still won't interview me from lack of degree, but I probably make as much as I would there. Best of luck.
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In my experience (in the US), the school you graduated from matters to many companies, at least when they consider more junior engineers. Sometimes a company is enamored with a certain school's reputation, but more frequently it is simply their experience that they tend to get good people from a certain school so they stick with it. - My observation is that bigger companies tend to be more school-prejudiced than small ones. - Simply being further from your school may help. If they do not know your school, they cannot be prejudiced against it. - Try turning this to your advantage. Seek out a company where graduates from your school already work. Your degree will be a known and respected quantity there. Many schools have alumni offices which can help. As you get later in your career, your experience (and reputation) matters more and your school matters less. I hope that helps. Edit: Colin's suggestion of getting a master's degree (preferably from a more favored school)is an excellent one. Your most advanced degree tends to matter a lot more than the earlier ones.
Roy from Detroit wrote:
Seek out a company where graduates from your school already work. Your degree will be a known and respected quantity there
Where I live this can actually and probably work the opposite... People from the damn diploma mill where I went are by and large incompetent fools(that passed due to said school being a diploma mill) who ruin the schools reputation and make it harder for me. I certainly have to prove that I'm not one of those aforementioned fools. Not disagreeing with what you said by any means, just offering another side to it as well that you have to watch out for.
Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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I've been there. I don't have an engineering or CS degree even. I'm a senior dev now. I had to prove myself at my first job and take on as much development tasks I could. Your experience will quickly outweigh your crest after a few years. Just try to get a job where you can kick ass. Places like Google and Facebook probably still won't interview me from lack of degree, but I probably make as much as I would there. Best of luck.
One of the most effective programmers I have worked with had a Geology degree. Some of the best code I have worked on was a huge software package written by a guy with a degree in Physics and no CS training at all. He sometimes did really strange things...but I typically come to value those as learning experiences. In some ways, learning the "proper" way to code things can be limiting. Lacking training, this guy would find ways to twist the language to get problems solved using language features which would never have occured to a CS grad. His code ended up being quite elegant.
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Because they're not allowed to say that. Universities should be a factor in valuing someone's degree – whether you like it or not, a degree from Harvard, St. Andrews or Cambridge is worth more than one from the local poly or community college, and I'm sure the equivalent is true in your home country as well. But they should never be a blocking factor: if you can show that you are as good as people with the paper from the approved universities, then you should get a chance. Working on an open source project, publishing articles, presenting material at meetings or conferences ... all of these will give you an extra advantage on your CV. The first two cost nothing but time if you publish on a free site like this one. Edit: also, if you got to interview, it is extremely unlikely that the company had already decided not to hire you. Interviews cost a company quite a lot, as they have to spend many hours of admin and supervision time to prepare for the interview and manage you on the day.
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I can't prove it, but there is a pattern and it makes me angry and disappointed. I haven't finished particular college and I am kind of screwed. I have skills and experience, but I have diploma from less prestigious institution. Most of the time I end up in selected few and interviewers always give me positive (and rather direct) response, but in the end it seams like school crest is what matters! Sometimes my skills and experience is completely ignored and on a base of prejudice I feel like I am labeled as dilettante or worse... It is hard to express the bad taste I have in my mouth. X|
Oshtri Deka wrote:
but in the end it seams like school crest is what matters!
Could be a cultural thing either where you live or the business domain(s) that you are seeking out. If so you choices are - Find a different culture/domain - Get the degree - Take a less position with the hope that you can move up. Last is risky since companies could explicitly require credentials even within the company to move up.