What Former Employees Say ITT Tech Did to Scam Its Students
npr.org
npr.org
Perceptive, since that's exactly the reason I ask so many questions before I physically drive out to meet someone. On the other hand, refusing to answer questions is pretty much guaranteed to put my guard up, too, which is contrary to their goals.
I'm an ITT graduate. I experienced none of what was in the article. That may have been their tactics at some point, but it wasn't used on me in the early 00's. Perhaps the person who was talking to me knew their job really well and knew it wasn't a good idea.
In the end, I learned nearly nothing (I was self-taught already and mostly wanted the paperwork) and got a 4.0 GPA. I watched others around me struggle with basic programming. Most of them quit, and I graduated with about 4 others in that program.
They claimed that a high percentage of their graduates had jobs when they graduated, but what they didn't make clear was that those jobs weren't necessarily in their field. I didn't have a job at all, most others didn't have a job in IT, and the 1 who did got it on their own at their current employer, Disney. Despite them providing no leads, they blamed my lack of job on me and how I approached it. No attempt was made beyond basic resume and interview coaching. That guy ended up getting fired after my father made a huge stink about it repeatedly. (He wasn't the only one, I gathered.)
When I did get hired, it was by a company that cared more about my skill than anything, and I actually looked worse on paper than the other main candidate. The company paid for BrainBench exams and I blew the other guy away, which got me hired. The paperwork I cared so much about has never been useful. The original estimate was $30k. I paid $23k because I transferred in some credits and tested out of others.
I can say the degree definitely helped me get a job, but now that I have 7 years of experience, I no longer list it on my resume. I'm a systems administrator/engineer.
It never comes up...
My 10+ years of work experience, 15+ years of non-work experience before that, and my title of "senior software engineer" are plenty to make them seriously consider me for a position, even before I list my accomplishments.
In short, my resume is now filled out enough that it can't hurt and still might help, so it stays on there.
Going to school just for the paperwork is kind of a bad idea. Ideally, one should learn something useful when getting a degree. Just pointing out the obvious which seems to be overlooked here.
It doesn't matter that you have 25 years of experience and run circles around people with Masters degrees. You never even make it far enough in the door to show that.
Also if you don't have an "in" at the company you will be rejected by software before a person even has to look at it
Such and such university (2010)
It doesn't lie stating that you have a degree but it gets past auto and human filters and you can explain that you went but found it wasn't for you, you weren't learning anything, you worked better being self taught or whatever, you've got your foot in the door ( or at least as much in the door as people with actual degrees on their resumes)
I'm pretty sure recruiters don't bother to look at your CV anymore these days- I keep being asked for my phone number, which is in my CV, after I've sent it in. So if they're just doing an automated scan-and-screen, I'm sorely tempted to try and game it.
A single year universally indicates the year that you graduated.
A degree would usually include B.S. Computer Science. I always tell them in an interview if it comes up or if they ask for transcripts/proof of degree. I actually have nearly 30 credits more than necessary for a degree but missed an elective requirement for my degree program due to a miscommunication about transfer credits. By the time I figured it out my graduating year I already had job offers and would have had to stay an extra semester to take one class. I figured I would take care of it later - started working - never did and it has never mattered.
Really? For software dev jobs? I admit that I haven't looked at the market much, but when I look, experience almost always seems to trump education.
My software company, for instance, requires "an undergraduate degree in CS or equivalent experience", leaving open door for people without the degree.
I think it's less common now, but it used to be that people wanted to see a degree before they'd talk to you. Many of the biggest companies still use it as a way to weed out undesirable candidates, even if it costs them some awesome potential candidates.
In the end, I generally don't want to work at companies that do things that way, so I don't find it that big of a deal. But when I got my degree, I thought it was a requirement, which is a lot of what drove me to get it in the first place.
Went in 04 with a HighSchool buddy. Neither of our parents went to college so we didn't really know any better. We put forth absolutely no effort and were miles beyond our classmates. Both graduated with 4.0 without ever touching the material. After I got my first position the education stopped mattering as much. I split test leaving education off of my resume and linked profile to see if it makes a difference.
That is bordering on harassment by most standards. Taking advantage of the underemployed has been happening for years, and in tech I remember when MCSE training programs were mostly marketed towards blue collar employees. Many graduated as "paper MCSEs" who were largely unable to get a job.
I hope that bootcamps and accelerated learning programs for developers don't eventually go this route. They seem to be behaving to this point.
That said, if they do it this much, it must work enough for them to pursue this tactic.
He was a smart guy from a background where going to college wasn't on the menu. He managed to learn an impressive amount on his own, but I think that was one of the only times he'd felt welcomed or encouraged in his interests.
The reality is that degrees and certifications will be used in hiring as long as they are a useful indicator of aptitude. HR departments need to eliminate candidates from the hiring pool. At their zenith, the bootcamp programs were useful for recruiters because only the truly dedicated survived the bootcamp long enough to graduate. But with the proliferation of such programs, I think the day is quickly approaching when the market will be oversaturated with graduates and it will cease to be a useful indicator of aptitude.
If I were hiring developers I would pick a college grad over a high school dropout every time.
Hiring is all about filtering. What people are going to be bad news? You need to do some rough filtering to get the resume count down to a reasonable number to look through. Maybe someone mentions his hobby is building bombs. Maybe ok, but maybe it's ok to pass him over to avoid getting blown up. Or in a less extreme example, one guy has a lot of rails experience, and one guy has a lot of .net experience... if hiring for a rails job, you get more experience in hiring the guys with rails experience.
Now is filtering on college graduation always right? No. If you have a lot of patience, totally dig through and look for the gems without a degree. But if I get 100 resumes and I need to turn that list down to 20 to do a phone screen, I will prefer people that pass obvious filtering signals (college education being high on the list).
That is my personal experience to prefer people that made it through college. Obviously not everyone agrees. That is fine.
Like, I remember hearing a story about a college that ran some statistics on the SAT scores of incoming students. They found that math SAT scores for their students was inversely correlated with their verbal SAT score - yet, among the general population, this correlation doesn't hold. What was happening was students with low verbal + math were getting rejected, and students with high verbal + math were going to MIT and the like, so given that they went to that particular school, they had to have lower math scores if their verbal is high and their overall suitability is in a narrow range.
I'm basically trying to make a similar argument here - given that the person you're interviewing accepts an offer there, they've got a certain level of ability-to-get-employed-as-an-engineer. If more of it comes from "having a college degree", then less of it comes from all the other things.
The ITT recruiters are aggressive in getting students into the program. You are referencing agency recruiters (or perhaps internal recruiters at companies)'discriminating against candidates without a degree (or with a Bootcamp cert).
Which standards are you referring to and what border is this approaching?
Interestingly, I remember the same tactics being used by the last Marine recruiter that I talked to. He had little flashcards you were supposed to rank in order, with various ideals like honor and financial security that you were supposed to rank in importance. I thought at the time that it was a pretty transparent trap, but I imagine it works pretty well. However, if we're going to suggest that these tactics and empty promises are immoral, are we to also hold the military accountable?
I would prefer military recruitment to focus on the highest integrity rather than the most recruits. I don't have much of a position about this particular tactic, but I do see these two issues as morally linked and I am interested in others' perspective and analysis of the matter.
That will be secondary to fulfilling requirements to recruit an extra few thousand servicemembers to fulfill a military objective, e.g. The Surge in Iraq. Congress and the Executive will demand results if the military isn't keeping up with recruitment.
I see military service potentially fulfilling all of a person's ideals/goals, but this is primarily based off of that person's willingness to work hard, exploit opportunities, and luck. I could have mixed up the importance of those qualities, maybe luck is the most important.
The occupational field is usually specified in the contract, but often recruiters fail to mention that most Marine recruits end up with the less glamorous job within that field. Many new Marines with the Legal/Administration guarantee end up being Administrative (HR) clerks instead of a legal clerks (a much less common MOS).
This is their tactic more than out-and-out lying, they take advantage of your lack of experience with the rules, regulations and verbiage. And they are your only guide through the red-tape, so you follow.
Similarly they told me the job I wanted (computer programming) was not available because it was full since so many people wanted it and recommended electronics on attack helicopters as it was at least technical. (So I did it.) What they didn't say was that new classes open every week, so while the one he showed me was full, the next one wasn't. (Had I balked I believe a class would have had a "sudden opening".) Or that while there were technically electronics it was really just black box replacement and the real work was on the weapons themselves and involved little to no relevant electronic experience.
Again... not out-and-out lies, but certainly to the military's benefit more than your own.
In that case it sounds like the recruiter barely knew what went into O-level avionics so he or she guessed and said it was electronics-heavy. You now know that it's the I-level or Depot level techs that actually do troubleshooting with multimeter/oscilloscope, but only because you were involved in the Avionics field.
To be fair the 10 month training for 68-J did include classes on circuits, resistors, etc... not that we ever used it.
I totally agree that the negotiation required to get a specific MOS is well above the ability of most 20-year-olds. That sucks about the recruiter lying about the school being full.
Also, my mother (who never has been very good at reading paperwork she is signing) was told she was signing a permission form for my brother to take a test, when actuality she was signing a form giving him permission to enlist. He was 17, but only a few months from turning 18. He would have just joined anyway in a few months if my mom hadn't signed the form, but she was pretty upset that she was lied to about what it was.
Still hardly a statistically strong sample, but it is like 100% so unless we both have Major Sampling Bias... and I never met an officer named "bias".
The key difference between the standard sales techniques when they're used by ITT or by any other organization is that ITT was making promises it couldn't keep. When I get the hard sell about a new car, at least I get a functional car even if I overpaid. If I take out loans to attend ITT, it's likely the training won't help me get a job.
Some of the most remarkable people I've ever met have served in the military. Far from being "suckers" they are people who felt a deep desire to serve the country in some capacity.
I know at least two people personally who signed up in the Army immediately after 9/11 knowing full well that they would likely be sent to serve in wartime. One of them didn't come back. He was in his 20's.
I'm going to suggest to you that you consider your audience much more carefully. I enlisted in the Navy and later graduated from Harvard with a degree in Computer Science. I can assure you that I didn't feel like I got suckered into anything.
I've never been in the military, but from what I've heard from those who have, this is exactly what military recruiters do. They tell people they will get $XX,XXX signing bonus, but the reality is only a tiny portion will pass all the required training and get placed in a specific type of unit to get that money.
Granted, there a lot of real benefits that they can sell recruits on, but recruiters will tell every 18 year old that they can be in special ops when its not the reality.
The military trains you, pays you, houses you, feeds you, and provisions your family. Apparently, these for-profit scams can barely address the first the first bullet, let alone a full-ride-all-expenses-paid program, regardless if it's as bumpy as the Marines make it.
> They're looking for not just any customer ... but a customer who's likely to be kind of desperate to enroll, and likely to be eligible for the highest amount of financial aid
Pushy marketers are all good and well until you start raiding the public coffer while under-delivering. If ITT Tech wasn't dependent on your tax dollars and other legal protections, they'd still be in business today.
It's probably as bad as you imagine. I would take that decision back but I'm also doing pretty well. Some of the teachers really meant well but they had no support at all from the admin. They had a few good instructors with real world experience that I learned the most from.
edit: I remember being recruited. They had a guy that reminded me of Professor Xavier give me an aptitude test. Then they all played up like they've never seen anyone score that high. Looking back, I'm sure that was part of the con.
I remember working night jobs surrounded by that sort of crowd. Everywhere you look it feels like you're witnessing the distressed underpinnings of all civilized behavior disintegrate in the throes of abandon.
To wit: Comes the day that I find out 9 in 10 people found this one particular night job (which shall remain nameless) because they had all connected at narcotics anonymous meetings. A month or two later I'm at the book store reading up on (what else?) computers. I had developed a crush on one of the girls I worked with, and I glance across the store, and there she is, sitting on the floor with a book in her lap.
A nervous compulsion to go say "hi" creeps in, so I consider how to strike up conversation and start in her direction. I see she's with someone. The brain-damaged guy, who sits next to her at work. He speaks slowly, with this lazy, distant gaze, and the hypothesis is that he was in a car accident, since he's physically normal and healthy. We catch eyes, but given his situation, there's no hint of emotion. Just a lost half-sleepy nod hello from him. I'm surprised they're hanging out outside of work. I'm steps away, when she slumps over into the book in her lap, then startled, staggers to her feet with this absurd, slurred giggle. She almost walks into a book case when Damage Case catches her around the waste, and they sort of stare into eachother's eyes. We have crossed into uncharted territory, and I'm disturbed at what's all-to-obvious. I buy my book and leave.
Monday morning. I reassess the situation in the office. Damage Case is brain damaged as usual. A handicapped person. Clueless, and incapable of normal social interaction. At the printer I bump into "It Girl" and ask if she finished that book she was reading. Confused and searching... What book? She does not remember being at the book store. At all. I make a joke, and she laughs harder than necessary, and I notice for the first time that all her molars are gone.
Over time I learn that everyone in the office had lived lives ravaged by a managerie of drug addictions, and "It Girl's" life was in the process of being unravelled by herion. She was a prostitute on the down-low, especially for anyone who had access to heroin.
Thanks to everyone else ruining their lives outside of work at that place, I looked like some kind of wunderkind model citizen. And with that I was promoted well beyond my experience or qualifications, and paid handsomely, all because of the disparity between me and the human wreckage I shared the room with. I made that much work out in my favor, and got the hell out of there as fast as possible.