Only idiots perceive that consultancies hire "the best" - the best are off doing other things.
> project work that is not known in advance, you need very versatile people
No, you need a load of dimwits you can throw at a project and make some apparent effect.
FWIW, the most effective colleagues I've worked with all scored really high on standardized tests. They're a great predictor imo
likewise, new grads with a story of upward trajectory & energy > new grads who coast on what their parents/school setup
the bet being made is they'll put in the hard work and achieve the personal growth to progress quickly, and they'll roll with the uncertainties of startups. grades do hint at the hard work, and youth suggests dealing with uncertainty, but not as well as succeeding at difficult and fuzzily-defined projects. if they've done that before, better chance they'll do it again.
outside of startups, priorities change. big orgs need people who won't risk the cash cow. consultancies need people with better credentials than their customers. etc.
most good cs programs have significant project components, and students not putting in their project time there are often doing so elsewhere.
if not, they may have the potential to be good at projects, but tbd. without other strong signals, probably fewer startups are in a good position to take that bet.
also, going beyond students, the top programmers I've worked with have a history of great public and private projects - papers, $100B companies, top frameworks, launched top products, record breaking results, news articles around their impact, etc. The main exceptions are 'lifer at apple' types and 'works at secret bank', but most hop jobs enough that it's not an issue. A top group I see that really struggle a lot are 'lifer at secret gov agency x', which gets many of them stuck in the defense contractor round door.
we may have different experiences for what top means and what they help achieve. Who is this silent majority of top 1% programmers that don't have any referenceable projects? And more to the point, top intern candidates?
if they don't have impressive projects.. maybe not so good?
when i think of the best cs ugrads i've known, and would be great at startups:
* cool projects outside of classes, especially self-initiated, like doing their own startups
* cool libraries or algs that got popular or, not quite as good, published
* hardcore mode attempts at class projects, e.g., well beyond extra mile for OS's + graphics, or took grad-level courses for the same (=> w/ accompanying projecs), or new to CS and are proud at winning some class competitions despite that
it changes outside of cs
lol, you realize that for I'd say almost all projects the interesting part/core is small % of the whole, meanwhile the rest is just boring code that needs to be done?
ofc it's not the nicest thing that you arent completing your side projects and just doing the interesting stuff, but you may have experience in industry, so you know how to do that boring ass stuff anyway
Startup conditions are chaotic and every new person takes management + training overhead. Internship applicants who have well-done and challenging projects have shown the energy, self-management, know-how, & self-learning to get projects done in mini-versions of these conditions. So every hour spent on them goes a lot further, and both sides benefit more.
Conversely, if someone can't get their projects done, the projects are too low quality for where it matters, or their skill are on too-different of a thing, at best, it's non-evidence. So you'll have to fall back to evaluating weaker signals like grades. At worst, lacking or failing at projects is a red flag that they'll struggle on the adult-sized projects as well.
For 'interestingness', probably more relevant is 'tied to the mission', but I think being youthful covers 80% of that for intern-level folks.
Failure to figure out fit may mean everyone loses. Interns are more about recruitment pipeline for companies, and I'm not sure that's the wisest way to solve that for a lot of startups if that's the goal. Likewise, startups not ready to invest in their interns (management overhead, training, etc.), or fail to screen for a good match in skills, can easily be a bad experience and opportunity cost for the students, who may have had a more pleasant, productive, and rewarding experience at a more mature company.
people who were the best at my year were mostly focused on jobs / real world software development and just wanted to get degree, so just pass the exams and projects effortlessly
but I've been studying at weekends, so I may be biased.
I've only been asked for grades once in the previous 12 years where at which point I withdrew my application.
If you recruit at Brown, you’re going to get a different candidate than some CUNY school. They all tested well in high school or have parents with good networks, and they tend to look and quack alike.
HR from my company has explicitly told all interviewers not to use "culture fit" as a reason to disqualify a candidate presumably to avoid potential lawsuits.
Don't hire recent grads.
Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms Lauren A. Rivera
This article presents culture as a vehicle of labor market sorting. Providing a case study of hiring in elite professional service firms, I investigate the often suggested but heretofore empirically unexamined hypothesis that cultural similarities between employers and job candidates matter for employers’ hiring decisions. Drawing from 120 interviews with employers as well as participant observation of a hiring committee, I argue that hiring is more than just a process of skills sorting; it is also a process of cultural matching between candidates, evaluators, and firms. Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles. Concerns about shared culture were highly salient to employers and often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity. I unpack the interpersonal processes through which cultural similarities affected candidate evaluation in elite firms and provide the first empirical demonstration that shared culture—particularly in the form of lifestyle markers—matters for employer hiring. I conclude by discussing the implications for scholarship on culture, inequality, and labor markets.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000312241246321...
The book
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691155623/pe...
> Drawing on scores of in-depth interviews as well as firsthand observation of hiring practices at some of America’s most prestigious firms, Lauren Rivera shows how, at every step of the hiring process, the ways that employers define and evaluate merit are strongly skewed to favor job applicants from economically privileged backgrounds. She reveals how decision makers draw from ideas about talent—what it is, what best signals it, and who does (and does not) have it—that are deeply rooted in social class. Displaying the “right stuff” that elite employers are looking for entails considerable amounts of economic, social, and cultural resources on the part of the applicants and their parents.