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Comment by time_management | Hacker News Reader

The one that always makes me laugh is when a job spec asks for a "PhD from an Ivy League university". Apparently, no one only told HR that:

(1) "Ivy League" means absolutely nothing in the context of graduate programs, as the rankings are discipline-specific and many Ivy League grad programs are mediocre. For example, Harvard's computer science program is strong, but not remotely in the same league as CMU or UIUC.

(2) In any case, "Ivy League" is not a synonym for "elite college"; well-regarded universities such as Stanford, MIT, and Michigan are (surprisingly?) not Ivy League.

(3) Related to (2), emphasizing "Ivy League" pisses off nearly everyone who went to a good college. Those who went to non-Ivy elites (like me) consider themselves excluded when they see these ads. Those who went to Ivy League colleges generally dislike the snooty, stuffy connotations of "Ivy League" and don't like the sorts of people who emphasize "Ivy".

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Eh, I never feel excluded when a job ad says "Ivy League" (I went to a top liberal-arts college). If I like the company, I'll just apply anyway. Most job ads are more like guidelines, anyway.

Perhaps I was exaggerating the sentiment, as one generally applies to a company and not HR. :) I find it amusing rather than vexing, seeing as it's socially quite gauche to make any reference at all to "the Ivy League" among educated people (regardless of whether or not they attended Ivies).

What college did you go to?

Amherst College.

Also, I use the degree requirement as a filtering mechanism on the jobs themselves. I figure I don't want to work for anyone who cares more about titles and appearances than ability, so if that's a disqualification, I don't want to work there anyway.

There are plenty of startups around - more than there are skilled developers, actually. And if you are a skilled developer, you can always start your own.

I'm the complete opposite. If I think a job looks interesting and see that the company has elected to limit their candidate pool by putting a lame qualifier like, "a degree from a top-tier university," I don't waste my time. It shows that the company is more concerned with how their employees are perceived than what they can accomplish. Pass.

I sometimes have similar reservations about companies that list arbitrary experience requirements too, especially when they're clearly just going off some industry norm. That's just me tho. YMMV.

That's how I feel if, given an obviously qualified candidate, they then reject him.

But I try to give them the benefit of the doubt on the initial job application. They have to put something down, and as spez pointed out on the Reddit thread, it's an easy way of disqualifying people who like to complain instead of do something about it. It's an unfortunate filter that probably turns off a few well-qualified candidates, but nobody's perfect.

The Ivy League is an athletic league consisting of private schools in the Northeast. It was created for the purpose of playing sports! I wish people would stop using the term for other purposes.

Except that nobody uses the term in that sense anymore.

I'm not going to deny that there are filtering systems out there that are crazy.

Also: The Ivy League typically doesn't have great CS programs... ;-)

ps, see my other comment -- as much as a top CS school is nice, this was essentially a typo on our part.

Those of you saying the Ivy League doesn't have strong CS programs must have never heard of Cornell.

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