Why recruiters ask for an IIT graduate?
Recently, I came across a job posting asking for candidates having relevant work experience in a particular domain, but had a caveat attached to it - The Candidate must have received a part of his education from the IITs, NITs, BHU or BITS. All these are the elite(or, the best) engineering colleges in India. Since i myself have done my B. Tech. from IT-BHU, I obviously can do an ego-thumping by reading such a job advert but I also know that a degree from an elite institute doesn't conclusively mean anything in terms of a person's intelligence, aptitude or any other trait with respect to the skill-set required for the job.
At a personal level, I've had so many friends who're quite accomplished and sometimes more able than the regular IITians. This is not to say that all IITians are fools (not just to save myself :) ), but only to put things in perspective. I personally believe that just an exam, where a person who manages to cross the cut-off is branded a winner and one who misses it by whisker becomes a permanent loser, can't identify the true potential of a person for sure. And I feel that so many people who have studied in these supposedly elite institutions (including recruiters who might be alumnus themselves) know this fact. In fact, most IITians are absolutely similar to normal human beings in all traits and capabilities if you leave aside some maths crunching skills, puzzle solving skills etc. which have no direct relevance with regards to real life.
But this practice of asking for IITians in job advert seems to continue. Why? The reason I've been able to conjure up is: Every action has its costs. So, to a recruiter, who I believe is perfectly rational and reasonable human being, The cost of finding a suitable candidate from the generalized population strata is far more compared to finding a suitable candidate among a much smaller pool of IITians. Yes, it is entirely possible (rather I absolutely believe it) that a lot of people who are not in IITs or IIMs are more intelligent and capable than those who are inside, but since the number of people outside such higher graded institution is quite large, the recruiter has to spend a lot of time and energy to separate the wheat from the chaff. And that's why mostly, recruiters tend to make an exclusivity criterion for the the IITs and bunch of other selective institutions for their selection process. Agreed that it usually increases the pay packages that they've to shell to the finally selected candidates, since the demand supply gap tends to favour IITians and IIM grads in such cases, but I think that recruiters have usually figured out that the costs of finding a supernova amongst the masses don't quite add up when compared to selecting from a limited bunch of IITians and paying them handsomely.
The same argument covers all such discussions related to education. Why is a relevant educational degree wanted when applying for that marketing post even though it's plainly obvious that theoretical knowledge is no way better than practical knowledge? The answer is, the costs don't quite add up for the recruiter.
My Groups
-
The Spice of life Updated: 2 hours ago
-
Music = Life Updated: 4 hours ago
-
We♥Music Updated: 4 hours ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
Comments
That's an interesting point that you make. So many times I have questioned the importance of a degree (of course, it depends on the occupation). Anyway, I agree that practical knowledge is important to have. In most cases, it's ideal to be knowledgeable about the field and have practical skills as well. However, training seems to be the key factor to most employers, regardless of one's academic achievements. It's frustrating because I have met people that don't have college degrees that are brilliant and hardworking.
Unfortunately, companies don't want to risk hiring someone without a degree. Sometimes this is even true for someone without a degree that has work experience. While I understand that the job market is competitive and what not, I think exceptions can be made. If a person is hardworking and has great potential, maybe the risk is worth taking?
There is lot of social status attached with these brands , we may envy it but will find that these people tend to prove themselves too .
Most of the people I've met in my life who really impressed me were not really too much educated .
Tough Call !
@Tony:
Thanks dude for the welcome. I'd try to post regularly now :)
@E:
You said:
Well.. that's precisely the point I'm making. The risk is too high to be taken. Reams have been written about the futility of teaching management to people inside classrooms of MBA colleges but come to think of it, The recruiter has to make the best choice under the given circumstances. You might turn out to be a better manager than those who are inside Harvard, but the cost it will take for recruiter to find you will be immense as He'll have to take thousands of interviews which will involve too many pathetic candidates reaching the interview panel (you can get called to interview in comparison to a Harvard guy only when the interview is open to all, i.e. without any exclusivity criteria). Hence, the usual story of selecting the Harvard graduate continues.
@Ankit:
I'm not saying this at all that people who are inside such renowned institutes are fools. In fact, the graduates from these institutes have performed consistently over a period of time, and therefore these institutes' brand name exist. But the fact remains, though It is definitely possible that a suitable candidates for the job will be present inside the IITs, IIMs, or Harvard but this also is entirely possible that the *BEST CANDIDATE* for the job might be outside these very campuses, in the outer chaotic world. Trying to find this *BEST CANDIDATE* isn't usually very easy, at least through the conventional means of job-sites, job-fairs, classifieds etc. If you've a terrific network then in that case you might come to know of such person who might give you the best returns at even lower salaries than IIT and IIM grads, but then the probability of this event happening is very less and purely incidental.