[zalzane]

At first I was thinking this would be an article where management was upset that they couldn't hire java jockeys anymore because of some rigorous hiring practice - but it turns out that the hiring practice in question is to require applicants to have degrees from prestigious universities.

I think this reflects well on Mayer's distrust of yahoo's HR department. Even though hiring employees from only prestigious universities is a terrible decision when it comes to getting as much good talent as possible, it's the only "solid" solution to force HR to at least be hiring candidates who might almost be good at what they're doing.

The reforms taking place in yahoo are quite interesting. Mayer's probably running under the knowledge that most of yahoo's employees aren't really good at what they do, so it's going to be very interesting to see what kind reforms she can pass so that the quality of the work produced by yahoo doesn't correlate with the quality of employees they're currently dealing with.

[notahacker]

Not sure how the focus on prestigious degrees squares with the seven figure acqui-hire of a seventeen year old that hasn't finished his high school qualifications yet...

I'm willing to believe that people with prestigious qualifications not seeking work at more prestigious companies and startup wunderkinds are probably the worst talent pools for Yahoo to be trying to dredge, especially considering the wealth of smart developers who don't fit into those brackets are probably more likely to stick around.

[rollo_tommasi]

Yahoo's problems were almost entirely at the top. The products are bland and useless and there is no strategic vision. Refusing to hire from outside of top-twenty programs is a smokescreen, not a solution. Call me when Mayer is able to articulate what exactly it is Yahoo is selling.

[rhizome]

Top universities, personally reviewing hires, etc. is straight out of the Google playbook. I imagine product is secondary to her establishing her authority right now, and really, it's not like Google is all that great at capital-p Product.

[waterlesscloud]

The difference is that Google has a few products that are very well-defined that account for nearly the entirety of its revenue.

Yahoo has...

[rhizome]

You're jumping ahead. All I'm saying is that Yahoo has many things whose foregrounding is secondary to establishing Mayer's authority over the entire enchilada.

[sp332]

Yahoo has over $1B/quarter revenues, nearly 30% growth, and no long-term debt which means they're in fine shape financially.

[joeblossom]

Is requiring a top university really a new thing at Yahoo?

I remember 5-6 years ago when I was applying for internships I couldn't even finish my application as it required you to pick from a list of universities (no option of "Other") which also happened to be the top 20.

Perhaps they stopped this for a time?

[walshemj]

Sounds like recruiting people like me which is never a good idea - could lead to problems with accusations of discrimination.

And it all depends on interpretation as what is a top university I worked on campus at Cranfield University in the Uk.

There was a joke on the CIT campus was they looked down on lesser institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge Harvard etc as "they offered BSc's as well as Masters and Phd programs"

Cranfield at the time only offered higher degrees

[georgemcbay]

Regardless of whether her premise is sound, if reports of a hire taking 8 weeks are accurate, she really needs to get that time down. I know 4chan/reddit style memes aren't popular here, but "Ain't nobody (worth hiring) got time for that (waiting for Yahoo to finally make an offer)".

I don't think the strategy she appears to be employing is 100% bad, but I think it is greatly hampered by the fact that Yahoo is not an inherently desirable place to work. They need to do a far better job of making a public display of why you would want to work for Yahoo, because I know a lot of very good software engineers and none of them , to my knowledge, view Yahoo as a desirable place to work and you'd have to be an absolute dream job to have the ability to make people wait months.

[rdouble]

This approach worked at Google. However, as you point out, it does seem like there is a fundamental problem. Yahoo! is not pre-IPO Google. Or post IPO Google. It's not even pre-IPO Yahoo! What skilled programmer with good grades from a top university is even considering employment at Yahoo! ?

[jack-r-abbit]

Maybe one that sees the risk/reward to be pretty equal to (if not better than) that of some random unknown startup?

[kmfrk]

Guess the only way I'll ever work at Yahoo! is to build something that gets acquired. :P

[posabsolute]

Not really, in the case of summumly 2 engineers did not pass the yahoo tests and most probably will not be working for yahoo.

Congrats to them, they got the money without the 18 months contract...

http://philosophically.com/the-summly-deal-makes-no-sense

[danmaz74]

If she doesn't trust her HR department, instead of trying to personal do/correct their job, she should invest enough time upfront to hire people she can trust in HR and then let them do their job.

If she is really personally reviewing each new hire, she's not only slowing down the hiring process, but she's also demotivating her HR people.

[julespitt]

Is her hiring "policy" to hire just from prestigious universities? That's what anonymous internal sources are saying to this reporter - but whether that is actually the case seems up in the air to me.

According to the article, she is personally reviewing all hires, so sounds more ad-hoc based on her judgement than formalized policy.

[greenyoda]

"I think this reflects well on Mayer's distrust of yahoo's HR department."

I'm confused by this statement. In a highly technical company like Yahoo, aren't the hiring decisions made primarily by the managers of the groups that have the open positions? It doesn't seem that an HR department would have the ability to figure out whether a software developer is even minimally competent.

[joshAg]

But HR is the first gate. If they only let through mediocre people, then the true hiring managers are stuck with taking the best of the ones that get through. The only way to change that is to change how HR gates candidates.