Comments on: Who (Doesn’t) Recruit the Best Computer Science graduates?

By: name withheld

name withheld — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:05:59 +0000

I can’t believe the suggestion that unless you went to a top-ten school, you are only capable of grunt work. What an elitist attitude.

By: Murfreesboro Homes For Sale

Murfreesboro Homes For Sale — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:35:38 +0000

It seems to me they would go where the right people for the job are and not just hit up certain schools because its on their list…

By: BrownWhackJob

BrownWhackJob — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:46:06 +0000

Okay, looky here, just because MS doesn’t take people from the top 10 universities in the world doesn’t mean that they hire middle brows for their “grunt work”. Bill Gates hires from universities that as a whole are borderline mediocre but their specfic programs are stellar, such as University of Waterloo for example. It’s in the world’s top 500, def not in the 100 and its engineering program is only rank 30, but people in UW have higher averages going in and coming out as compared to other stellar schools. Its rank comes from the relatively new conception of the university, but in terms of reputation for its engineering program, its no #1 in Canada. He’s found a couple of jewels in a pile of shit and it’s working out well for him. Look up UW, BG personally hires ppl from there.

By: Farhan Thawar

Farhan Thawar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:43:19 +0000

I don’t agree (disclaimer: I used to work for Microsoft). Microsoft always has recruited from the best schools in the world. Google and Data Connection may have many false-negatives at many schools and hence are missing out on great people.

By: Markus

Markus — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:12:51 +0000

I come from and work part-time at one of the top university in Germany, so I see a lot of these best-performers. And, I have to say, I would not hire any of them. It seems that there is a strong correlation between “being the best” and “having social deficits”.
In my opinion a company can be much more successful having a “real” team that can put their strengths together than to have high-performers that can only work alone.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:30:51 +0000

It looks (from the data you linked to) like this only applies to the UK. What kind of development does Microsoft do in the UK? It might be that the jobs in the UK are, indeed, mid-level jobs, and that the interesting development work is being done in the US (or India, or nowhere, but you see my point).

And, you mentioned this, but targeted != hired. The best students in many programs will have more drive and be more productive than middling students at top schools. It’s not only about raw smarts.

By: links for 2008-03-30

links for 2008-03-30 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:36:32 +0000

[...] Who (Doesn’t) Recruit the Best Computer Science graduates? « Imran On Tech “I think this is basically because quite a bit of the work (in huge software projects) is grunt work. And if smart people are asked to do grunt work, they’ll just give you the finger and leave.” (tags: programming recruiting work management) [...]

By: An experienced mid-teir develop

An experienced mid-teir develop — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:28:38 +0000

My rant:

The justification of hiring on the top tier is flawed. Bill Gate said he will surround himself with the best as he got older. If so, I wonder why Microsoft is not number one is Internet software, financial software nor does it have the best software in areas that does not leverage off Windows and/or Office. It is so bad that they hire people like Ray Ozzie who’s view of the world is old school and who’s company was crushed by Microsoft in the past. Hiring the losers is not the best idea even if they are smart.

In terms of money, Google and Microsoft only offer a job not a means become rich like the past. Their stock prices are so high that their stock option packages are not worth it. When Google was $700+ USD a share, how much higher could it have gone. At one time it was the worth more then companies that make over $100 billion in revenue with less then a 5th of that in revenue. Personally I feel Google is worth less then $100 USD per share. I would hate to have a gotten employee Google stock options with an exercise price of $600+ USD. It is far better for a developer to join a startup or create their own company.

About Google and their Ph D’s, besides their ad platform search, what else have they developed that will make them money as a company. Not much in sight.

All large and growing companies will eventually hire from all tiers. They will start with the top tiers but practically it has to go downhill from there as smart people have multiple choices and the great companies don’t really look that great to work for. Unless I just want a safe job and stay a wage slave.

By: Rob Moir

Rob Moir — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:16:35 +0000

Maybe Microsoft have realised that what university you go to is not the be-all and end-all of how good an employee you might be. Or even how good your degree is?

By: shiva

shiva — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:32:15 +0000

I think this is basically because quite a bit of the work (in huge software projects) is grunt work. And if smart people are asked to do grunt work, they’ll just give you the finger and leave. Better to get some grunts to do that, and let the smart people do the smart work. Plus, smart people are more likely to get good offers from other companies like Google, etc, while grunts will stick around longer.