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Comment by kradroy | Hacker News Reader

Dear trend-following worrier,

For all the effort you're making know this: you'll eventually be evaluated by a Gen-X or Millennial hiring manager. We largely don't care where you went to college. We've learned that name recognition means very little. It'll get you a job, but if you're one of those kids who "does nothing" on an extracurricular team, it'll show through on the job. You won't get promoted. We fucking hate micromanaging Ivy League grads who are too scared to take initiative and possibly make mistakes.

Sincerely,

An engineering manager who went to one of the "second-tier" schools you listed.

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Parent worrier has some funny notions, to boot. Like, Cornell _is_ an Ivy League school by definition. It just isn't Harvard or Yale.

On the hiring front, undergrad school can sometimes tell you a bit about who a person thought they were in high school, and about their penchant for overachievement. Some schools might help instill different perspectives on engineering and the role of technology. But if you're not hiring right out of school, I'm with you on focusing on demonstrated ability to get things done.

I think your comment has good intentions by trying to let parent comment know their hiring prospects may not being as daunting as it currently seems, but the immediate social and parental pressures are going to make it hard to see the forest through the trees... I feel for these kids.

> you'll eventually be evaluated by a Gen-X or Millennial hiring manager

This is actually a really amusing thought. Yeah I could be a manager in 5-10 years hiring current high school kids when they're older. I barely made it through school(failed out at my first shot at engineering) I could realistically be hiring at one of the companies New grads stress out about getting into. I couldn't tell you about ivy league schools without looking it up lol

I mean, you might not care but where they went to school, but the Goldmans and McKinseys and Cravaths of the world still do.

Those places do care about school name to the same extent. You'll get a junior position there, if you have a Harvard/Yale/Princeton degree, but you're not advancing unless you come from a well-connected (and likely wealthy) family. Attending a top-tier school is often just a proxy for wealth and connectedness. The companies you mentioned keep the prestige of the company high by hiring from the Ivy League, but the unconnected hoi polloi end up doing shit work for a decade until they figure out they're in a dead end.

That's really not true at all and I don't know why you've convinced yourself that it is. Obviously having connections can give you a leg up but most successful people in these industries don't have family in high places and it's not a prerequisite to ascend through the ranks. Why would so many people enter finance and consulting if they thought it was a dead end? Are you arrogant enough to believe that it's because they are dumber and less enlightened than you, and unlike you they don't know what they are doing with their lives?

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