[daeken]

I don't have an education section on my resume, as I'm a high school dropout myself. Last year I was looking for a new job and shot my resume to probably a dozen different companies. Of those, the only company who asked about the lack of an education section was Bloomberg (of the ~8 people I had in-person interviews with, at least half of them asked me about it, in fact, which told me a lot about what the company was looking for). I'm not sure if it's indicative of the tech market at large, but no one else batted an eye at my lack of an education section and focused purely on my skills and experience.

[gaius]

I always ask this, but not for the reason you think: it's so that I, as an interviewer, can adapt the interview to you. Recent example, one candidate had no idea what I meant by "principle of locality", but I probed a bit, and he understood it perfectly well: but lacking a formal CS education, he didn't have the vocabulary. Same with big-O notation, some guys have never heard of it, but show them a code snippet and they'll tell you straight away how efficient it is.

[natrius]

I always ask, not because it's required, but because the answer is often enlightening. Judging companies for asking isn't reasonable.

[daeken]

For me, interviewing with a company is as much about me judging whether or not the company is a good fit for me as it is them judging whether or not I'm a good fit for them. If it's clear from the interviewers that they're looking for someone with a college degree and a CS background, then not only am I not a good fit for them, they're not a good fit for me. With the ability to choose to work for the vast majority of tech companies, I'd rather err on the side of being very picky about who I spend my time with. In the case of Bloomberg, those who asked me about my education were clearly biased (not in the question itself, but in the context, tone, etc) against those who are self-educated, and that's not at all the environment I want to work in.

[natrius]

Ok, that makes plenty of sense.

[tptacek]

In the mid-90s I got reasonably far down the road with an interview at DE Shaw / Juno and stopped it cold when they demanded school transcripts.

I guess I'm unreasonable, but, if you're looking for data points: hi, I'm a candidate who will turn you down cold if you require school information from me.

For a long time, I thought this was a New York thing, but, no; I got an offer from a very excellent NY tech/finance company a few years before we started Matasano, and nobody there was dumb enough to want to see my report cards.

[awj]

There's a bit of space between "there's no education listed on your resume, what's up with that?" and "give us every ounce of data there is to be had about you being in school."

The first one is reasonable. The second one isn't, and in my opinion is also a waste of time.

[tptacek]

I'm really trying to imagine where the "what's up with that" would even come up in any of the good interviews I've had. Who has time to waste with that? The best interviewers I've ever dealt with had me on my ass with algorithms, distributed systems, and concurrency questions moments after starting.

I agree, asking "where'd you go to school" isn't particularly offensive.

[awj]

It seems like your education only matters up to a certain amount of experience. If someone has been out of school for ten years, I don't give a damn what happened back then.

When all I have to go on is education and a one-year failed startup, I'm going to ask at least a few questions about school. Even then, the startup is more useful.

[lurker17]

Maybe you are a better founder than employee, and everything worked out for the best for both sides, so the transcript policy is optimal.

[bane]

Transcripts are a bit much. You should after all have some level of trust in the people you are hiring. Sounds like you dodged a bullet.

[Daniel_Newby]

I read that Google asks for it, but they are a bit, er, happy when it comes to statistical analysis. IIRC they were not impressed by the statistical power of transcripts.

[lurker17]

And yet they require transcripts (or did a few years ago).

Maybe they've learned from past mistakes? Or their model can't handle NA values on some features?

[jarek]

Google still asks at least new grads for transcripts as of this month.

[Daniel_Newby]

The source I read said he never got around to chasing down a transcript and nobody complained.

I think it reasonable to require a transcript for new graduates.