Its mostly done as a way to filter job applications into a smaller set. When Google was the 'hottest' job prospect (many years ago) they needed a way to reduce the set of applicants down to a number where hiring managers could handle the load. Setting criteria such as having an Ivy League degree or a CS degrees with GPA over 3.8 was a logical way to achieve this goal.
That being said, if you went to a community college but also had 10+ years experience at one of their competitors (eg: DE Shaw, 2Sig, Citadel, etc), you'd almost be guaranteed an interview. But once again, thats another very small set of applicants.
To a certain extent, you are correct. However, companies like Jane Street need to filter and doing so based on colleges is the most efficient when other factors are all equal. Top tier colleges strive to base their admittance on performance and strive to be racially and culturally diverse. This gives Jane Street the ability to say they filter on the same criteria.
I'm all ears if you have a better system that is more efficient. I'd also add that I went to a State college and my resume would have been tossed if I applied as a starting engineer too.
I kind of agree, but I do wonder if that’s largely confirmation bias though; they hire the best engineers they can find from an Ivy League, don’t bother even looking at decent state school people, then the Ivy League engineers they hire do well and they assume it must because they went to an Ivy League school.
I know that fancy colleges like to say that they strive to base admittance on performance, and I believe that’s true to an extent, but it certainly seems like they make an exception for students who come from a lot of money. I’ve mentioned this before but think about any politician that you think is un utter moron, and there’s still a reasonably good chance that they went to an Ivy League because they come from a rich family.
And it annoys me that people act like Ivy League schools are the only ones that accept based on performance. I applied to a bunch of state schools as a teenager and I got declined by a bunch of them. We can wax philosophical about why I was declined but I doubt it was personal, just that they probably didn’t think I would perform well based on some metric.
It makes logical sense - if they look over their staff and search for commonalities amongst successful employees, and trends like school or CS degree and GPA stand out, then it's logical to assume that will predict further success and thin the pool. It's a jerk move, sure, but it can be both.
> they needed a way to reduce the set of applicants down to a number where hiring managers could handle the load
The question is what other attributes you "accidentally" filter by if you filter by school prestige. Even if you do bias your pool to individually better candidates on average, you may bias it in a lot of other ways.
If the purpose of the filtering is to reduce the pool to a size where humans with common sense can make sensible calls, then that CC graduate with 10+ years of competitor experience would likely be filtered out before common sense could suggest he might be good anyway.
They're smart enough to know how create filters that don't miss people with competitors experience on their CVs. In fact, they actively seek those people out on LinkedIn and anywhere else they can find them.
HFT jobs are high value / high comp jobs, so Jane Street and their cohorts put a lot of effort into recruiting. This includes their resume intake system, internships with desirable colleges and professional outreach.
That being said, if you went to a community college but also had 10+ years experience at one of their competitors (eg: DE Shaw, 2Sig, Citadel, etc), you'd almost be guaranteed an interview. But once again, thats another very small set of applicants.