How important is which university you went to in getting an IT job?

[microsoftsam]

Hello,

 

Say you are an employer at an IT company and you have 300 people applying for the same IT job in Australia. You have 50 candidates from the University of Melbourne, 100 from Monash University and the other 150 from RMIT. The candidates from RMIT have 3 years of experience working in an entry level IT job. The candidates from Monash have 1 year of experience in an entry level IT job, and the candidates from UniMelb are freshly graduated in a degree that requires a 90+ ATAR. You go through the process of interviewing all of them. Which candidates will you email saying “we have found a more suitable candidate for this position” and or ghost? Would you choose a candidate called Jyothibasu Mukherjee from Monash or someone called Oliver Brown or Jack Smith from RMIT? Disclaimer: These are fictional names produced by my imagination and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental. 

[SupaKomputa]

I will look for ones with frameworks experience.

Don't have time to wait for them to learn it from zero.

 

Jyothibasu Mukherjee looks like a cool name to be put in the company rooster. just kidding.

[Kilrah]

100% depends on what you need them to do.

[Brennan Price]

I would look for experience over anything. Apprenticeships are probably the best way to go when it comes to IT work compared to uni. 

It's the reason I did not go to uni, uni simply would not help me in my progression for my line of work I want to go into.

 

As you might tell already, I took an apprenticeship and I am already a qualified IT technician at the age of 19. 

[Chris Pratt]

College only matters for entry level. If it's a junior dev position and I've got my pick of a candidate from a top tier school or one from a less renown school, top tier wins.

 

However, once there's real world experience on the table, that's all that matters. 

[Rybo]

I went to Phoenix University.  For those outside of the US, it's currently one of those institutions under heavy scrutiny for fleecing its students out of money.  

I've been employed in the tech industry for *checks notes*  a bit over 10 years now.  I've switched jobs 4 times and I've interviewed dozens of times -- which is to say, even with my attendance at that student mill -- I got past the Great Filter.  

Furthermore, I've interviewed hundreds of candidates for positions at the companies I've worked at.  I never even looked at educational attainment.  

Thus, in my experience, I can come to no other conclusion that educational attainment barely registers as necessary to enter the tech industry.  

[GDRRiley]

where you get it really shouldn't matter for IT.

[bondoao1]

On 7/8/2020 at 6:37 AM, Brennan Price said:

I would look for experience over anything. Apprenticeships are probably the best way to go when it comes to IT work compared to uni. 

It's the reason I did not go to uni, uni simply would not help me in my progression for my line of work I want to go into.

 

As you might tell already, I took an apprenticeship and I am already a qualified IT technician at the age of 19. 

My son took community college courses, working towards his goal of becoming an IT tech, then he landed a job that brought him in as an apprentice,  and paid for any further schooling through the community college. He now is the top IT tech under this boss for a national corporation, after starting his apprenticeship at the age of 19. 
He is 26 now btw, and he worked his butt off for the entire 7 years including many 7 day / 80hr work weeks plus school.