[supran]

I have a CS degree from CMU, and I've only run into that sort of attitude once. The interviewer nit-picked my solution to some character array manipulation question. I didn't get an offer. The interviewer wrote some snarky comment on his Twitter the day after my interview; something about "the difference between a computer scientist and engineer". Six months later his company was bought and chopped up. He got laid off. Karma's a bitch.

Conversely, I've been hired, without a formal interview, twice merely for having gone to CMU. I guess it can work out either way.

In senior positions CS knowledge is less relevant day-to-day, because your experience overrides a lot of that theoretical stuff. However, whenever I apply to companies, the questions about basic CS usually result in me turning down interviews. It would be a poor use of my time to memorize that stuff again only to not use it beyond the interview.

[pm90]

I guess it depends on whether you want to agree to that stupid system. When I interview now, I rarely ever prepare, and I'm completely honest with the extent of how much I remember and don't with the interviewers. If, on learning this, they think of it as a deal breaker, I think its a good thing for both of us to not be working together. However, if they don't judge me, but are willing to provide that information and work with me on the solution, I am fine with it.

I had a really bad experience with this recently, where I had a final interview which went really well in 3 out of 4 interviews. In one of them the interviewer was expecting a very specific solution, and I believe that I said something like, sorry I don't exactly remember how tries work, and I believe that is what resulted in no offer.

At first I was disappointed greatly, since it seemed like a great opportunity, and I had a great interview and experience with the other 3. But in hindsight, I realized I would really not enjoy working with this person every day.

[radicaldreamer]

It’s a loss for any interviewer to let pedigree bias them one way or another. If you’re willing to be interviewed, then they’ve got a pretty good opportunity to make a much more informed decision than letting their bias do it for them.

[roguecoder]

I'm not sure I'd want to work at a place that was hiring me based on just the school I went to. Similarly, I don't want to work at places that screen on irrelevant "CS fundamentals", because some of my favorite developers to work with would never be hired there.