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Comment by Eeko | Hacker News Reader

> Half a mil so that when you apply for a job at $MEGA-CORP or in government the hirer says "Oh you went to %SCHOOL%, same as me" welcome to our management fast-track program, followed by promotion and VP-dom.

Do companies really work that way? I think trying to max-out your competitiveness and money-making skills by hiring the right guys would make more sense than hiring via secluded grapevine.

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It does work that way, although more subtlety. More like "Oh you went to %SCHOOL% and we know some people in common. Welcome to a solid entry level position with decent pay and opportunity for advancement."

Yes and no. You have to remember a lot of jobs in $MEGA-CORP don't need much more than a warm body that can open a spreadsheet and mail it out. I deal with these idiots everyday and they often have titles of Project Manager, although I've recently been dealing with ones that have VP titles. The thing is, even in a giant company there are very few people pushing the boulder forward so to speak. So when hiring for non-boulder pushing position it's easy to hire someone with the right credentials because even if they are not the greatest hire ever they can still do the simple job they are given.

The reason you hire from elite schools has nothing to do with the schools themselves. MIT and Harvard don't have substantially different curricula than anywhere else, and for undergrads it really doesn't matter if you have N Nobel Prize winners. But you want to hire someone who was smart enough to get in to MIT or Harvard.

In terms of hiring people because they went to the same school you went to... I've never seen it, though I wouldn't be surprised if that happens with Ivy Leaguers.

The one time I saw it work ("Oh, you went to Columbia, too!"), the manager who made the "hire" decision fired the employee about six months later.

From one point, a curve, right? :-)

I can't imagine this working out well on the average, though.

competitiveness only matters when you have competitors.

So if you are an engineering company and you work like this you will be destroyed by countries with more meritocratic hiring systems.

If you don't have any competitors because you work for government or in a sector like banking where you are protected from foreign competition and all you competitors hire on the same system - then you will do fine (for now).

Can we spot any English speaking countries which might be an example of this?

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