In my last job, I was a Director of Engineering at Box. Every job post we put up, had hundreds of applicants (thanks to job-boards which let candidates apply to jobs like putting in a shopping cart). What do you think we, as hiring managers, are going to do at that point? We'll have to start forming biases. And if we have to start forming one, it's better to start with good schools and good companies. (I'm sure VCs have a more severe problem).

Problem gets worse when you're hiring at scale, and you want to hire before the holiday season nears, because if you miss the season, the company is doomed. At that point, there is almost panic. A resume with brand names on it, naturally gets higher preference.

Homework projects could work well if the hiring requirements are small, but won't work well when a company has to hire say 25 engineers a quarter, which we had to. At that point, the process becomes too long, and it's easy to lose good candidates to a long process.

This method of interviewing has been around ever since, and is going to be around for the foreseeable future. Nobody loves it, including the interviewers, but there just isn't a better way to do it at any sort of scale. Especially when there are much bigger problems to solve when you're running a business.

It's best to take the bull by the horns. I run http://InterviewKickstart.com, which is a bootcamp for preparing for such technical interviews. We do almost exactly what is in the blog post. It works. Spectacularly.

The process of DS/Algos doesn't necessarily find wrong people. It's just the fastest way to find engineers who are good enough.

In some sense, they almost secretly WANT you to succeed, by "standardizing" the process.

I don't go to a top school, but I've spoken with students in similar degree programs who don't do nearly as much as me outside of class to learn. In some cases, my breadth (and depth in some cases) of skills and knowledge surpass what those students have and know.

It would seem unfair to give them a pass simply because they had the chance to go to a "better" school.

Not to judge, but just an honest opinion.

But as soham explained, it's a trade off. You might miss the best candidate, but you will probably find the second or third best candidate spending significantly less time.

It's totally unfair, yes, but it's obvious why it's happening and there's not much that could be done to change it. So while the candidate is losing on this one, the company is (probably) winning.

Should we improve it further? Absolutely, but to pretend that this isn't better than other industries is silly.

Silicon Valley is mostly funded by a few elite institutions, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they fund elite VCs, which then fund elite founders (and hire elite employees).

The funding sources in LA and NY are much larger and more diverse, so the elitism is far more diluted. It's a market opportunity that SV investors are so biased. Crowdfunding with equity might totally upset the applecart at some point.

In my experience it's even narrower than that. In many cases, there is a pre-existing relationship between the investor/founders.

I once met (in a restaurant, because we had kids the same age that were making eyes at each other!) a serial entrepreneur. When we got to know each other he confided that his investors were friends from school (some Ivy league school, don't remember which) that would give him money for some idea, he'd start the company then they'd find a buyer. He'd done this 3-4 times already, and he was about 40.

I know this example is one data point, but I've run across it in other situations, too.

If an elite school is intended to signal competence and brilliance in someone, then those qualities should shine through in a candidate without us having to know where they attended college.

Simply stated: we're hiring you, not your certificate.

At the end of the day, going to a top university or working at an impressive company is always going to be a huge and relevant signal. It's difficult to see a problem with that.

No. Its more like a club.

Join this prestigious institution X, and then you shall enjoy life long benefits of employment, higher than average salary, bonuses, stock, opportunities to travel etc. Even if the person is actually the worst possible employee, or is barely productive. Merely have X on your resume, guarantees you life long privilege.

To know how worst it is you come see how it is in India. There are people who join IIT(Indian institutes of technology), a sort of a chain of colleges which is supposed to be Ivy league. Who says so? They themselves, because saying anything other wise means putting your own career in danger. There are coaching institutes, who train you just to get an entrance. Doesn't matter what you go and do there, in fact from there on you may do nothing in your life at all. The whole purpose of getting into those colleges is to enjoy lifelong privilege of having access to alumni who will ensure you a good career regardless of your performance.

The day you remove the real metrics of merit and put in artificial flags. People will do no real work and try to gather as many flags as they can.

> for a given level of performance on our credential-blind screen

Tech prides itself in being more objective, more rational than other fields but in reality is no different.

In other fields the effects of class and network are openly acknowledged, in tech you to even address the issue you first have to punch through the mythos.

In other fields the open acknowledgment of these issues has resulted in some action to de-bias the system (see: blind auditions for orchestras, residency matching for doctors). These efforts are imperfect, but nonetheless still way further along than anything we have.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

yeah I figured this was how things happened :/

but this is just the reality when you let people feel free to choose and make their own decisions, they are going to find safety in numbers and people similar to them.

This explains the disproportionate lack of African American and Latino Americans in tech and the 'Bamboo Ceiling' that many Asian Americans experience in the corporate and academic world where they cap the number of Asian American applicants in Ivy league schools. Jewish Americans were also capped and barred from attending Ivy league hundred years ago but not anymore so this probably means that change will happen soon (even if it took a fucking century for racist ass mentality to change)