[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.