Interesting education discrimination email I got today

So I recently signed up for the software development Bachelors program from WGU and was accepted. I am a 9+ year IT veteran who is wanting to transition from engineering and administration into development. I am a self taught programmer / developer.

As a result, I listed it on my resume with my expected graduation date. I started applying for Java / C# positions last week. Immediately, I've already been hit with a morale killer.

Her to me:

Me to her:

Her to me:

I hope this doesn't become a trend. I am excited to finally pursue a degree to go along with my certs... but even when that isn't enough.. its kind of depressing. The sad part about this? This isn't Google... or any other large tech firm... the company is < 300 employees.

I am not even sure how to respond, or even if I should respond to her email.

Ahh well.

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Comments

J_86

I wouldn't even respond. This kind of sounds like a place you wouldn't want to work at anyway with that kind of response.
Why should it matter where your degree came from? Experience and showing you can deliver and perform the job is what should matter the most!

kurosaki00

Wow... thats a first...
I know some degrees/universities are more reknown n stuff, but dang. To actually say it to you...
I agree with J_86, skip that place!

Thacker

I just looked up the company on glassdoor and they have 2.5 stars out of 19 ratings, with a good bit of complaining from former devs.
I replied, I couldn't help it.

"
****,
Thanks for the update. After reading the glassdoor reviews for your company, I would no longer be interested in the position even if something was to change on your end.

Thank you,
*****
"

srabiee

If you ever get that question in the future, simply tell them it's a state school in UT and leave it at that.

JamesKurtovich

Life is a popularity contest, unfortunately.

iBrokeIT

Your follow up email sounds petty and bitter. Avoid doing that in the future please.

One thing you are going to learn in the software development field is that Computer Science is the gold standard for degrees and everything else is second rate attitude with a lot of company's HR departments. They are familiar with the quality of candidates out of those programs and are too rigid in their process to gamble with anyone else.

You don't want to work for anyone with backwards thinking policies like that anyways (as your Glassdoor findings confirmed).

Danielm7

^^ Hah, sometimes it's so worth burning a bridge. Dodged a bullet with that place.

Danielm7

srabiee wrote: »

If you ever get that question in the future, simply tell them it's a state school in UT and leave it at that.

That's what I've done. It's a state school in UT and I can do my classes remotely. No point in explaining their educational model.

I actually had the opposite experience at my current job. When I was interviewing one of the managers there was mid WGU progress himself. He told everyone about how great it was and he was impressed that I had completed the security program already.

Hammer80

Your screenshots don't seem to be working, I would love to see what was said.

22306

not able to see the screenshots

Fulcrum45

I wouldn't let this discourage you. Many places will lean towards good ol' brick & mortar degrees over anything accomplished online regardless of the curriculum. This thinking is a bit antiquated and it will ultimately disappear as these very same schools price themselves out of the market and begin losing students- the ROI just isn't what it used to be.

Thacker

The screenshots are hosted on imgur, not sure why you guys are having a problem with them.. they are working fine here. Possibly an outtage on their part.

Mr. Meeseeks

I actually like your response. It's not like you are burning a bridge here... and you certainly aren't applying for NASA or the NSA. I wouldn't want to work for such a company, even without reading their Glassdoor reviews.

Lesson learned, gather as much info on the company as you can, even before applying.

JoJoCal19

I agree with srabiee, just say it's a state school in UT. It is unfortunate though that companies are still doing this. As Fulcrum45 said, eventually this thinking will disappear.

hurricane1091

You shouldn't of went into the self paced stuff. Makes it sound not legit. I tell people it's a school in Utah but I'm doing it online which works well since I'm a full time 8-5 employee. Accredited by the same people who did BYU, Oregon, Boise State, etc. And if they still are questioning it and aren't an I.T. person, I just tell them it's mainly an I.T. thing so that's why you have not heard of it.

the_Grinch

I definitely wouldn't be too hung up about it. But also, a lot of places know they will need to train someone from the ground up. It sounds like this position was built for a new grad. I've worked in environments where new hires with experience were way more difficult to work with then new grads. Old dogs and new tricks as it was.

dou2ble

iBrokeIT wrote: »

Your follow up email sounds petty and bitter. Avoid doing that in the future please.

I agree that your response was a bad idea for a few reasons.

1) You're building your network
2) The same close minded people there have a network of their own.
3) They will mature/grow up and move to other positions that might intersect with your future path.
4) You might have dodged a bullet, but they're probably thinking the same thing based on your response.
5) Most importantly it's always better to be the bigger person.

the_Grinch

I'll add that name recognition is dumb because unless you're an ivy league graduate the one doing the hiring is bound to find a lot of schools they don't know. I attended and worked at Drexel University. We did studies and found that outside of a radius of 200 miles few people had heard of the school. Locally, we are a very well known and respected school. But go to say California and they say, who's Drexel?

BradleyHU

the_Grinch wrote: »

I'll add that name recognition is dumb because unless you're an ivy league graduate the one doing the hiring is bound to find a lot of schools they don't know. I attended and worked at Drexel University. We did studies and found that outside of a radius of 200 miles few people had heard of the school. Locally, we are a very well known and respected school. But go to say California and they say, who's Drexel?

Well it goes a bit beyond Ivy league. You name any top 40-50 national university, and you're good. CalTech, Stanford, Puke...err, i mean Duke, NW, MIT, NYU, Michigan, UNC, Rochester, RPI, Univ of Chicago, Hopkins, Vandy, Berkley, etc....and pplz will know those schools, and that they're well known academic schools.

Online schools are a different animal. most pplz wouldn't know about WGU. Hell i didnt even know about it before ya'll on this board started talkin about. But thats because of the stigma of online schools have...blame Univ of Phoenix, and the rest of its ilk for that.

Akaricloud

Honestly I feel your response should have been different; from an outside perspective it makes WGU sound like the typical no-name online BS degree.

I would have replied with something starting WGU is both a nationally and regionally accredited university based in Utah and provided them with a link or two to some reviews and accreditation sources. With what you stated there's really no reason for them to think it's a legitimate university and it's easier for them to pick the next candidate than spend the time researching every school they don't recognize.

It helps to think about why they asked the question and provide them with all the necessary information to soothe their concerns.

Thacker

Akaricloud wrote: »

Honestly I feel your response should have been different; from an outside perspective it makes WGU sound like the typical no-name online BS degree.

I would have replied with something starting WGU is both a nationally and regionally accredited university based in Utah and provided them with a link or two to some reviews and accreditation sources. With what you stated there's really no reason for them to think it's a legitimate university and it's easier for them to pick the next candidate than spend the time researching every school they don't recognize.

It helps to think about why they asked the question and provide them with all the necessary information to soothe their concerns.

Honestly I feel like your response should have been different. Ideally, I wouldn't have to respond or explain my choice in school to anyone nor should I have to defend the school against the people that feel it's not a legit university. If education is that important, they can spend a second to research the school.

Hilariously, you can see from her first email asking me about WGU, that she simply copied the name from my resume and pasted it into the email to send to me... see the color change on her font? She could have easily just pasted it into Google and found all the information she needed.

Akaricloud

Thacker wrote: »

Honestly I feel like your response should have been different. Ideally, I wouldn't have to respond or explain my choice in school to anyone nor should I have to defend the school against the people that feel it's not a legit university. If education is that important, they can spend a second to research the school.

Hilariously, you can see from her first email asking me about WGU, that she simply copied the name from my resume and pasted it into the email to send to me... see the color change on her font? She could have easily just pasted it into Google and found all the information she needed.

You can post about ideally how the world should be, but the reality is this is how it's thought about. Could you have gone about it differently and easily overcome this? -Likely. The fact that you weren't willing to says a lot about you as a candidate. I do quite a bit of hiring myself and would never hire anyone with this idealistic, defensive attitude.

You can't expect every HR person to be perfect, but they CAN expect you to be.

DoubleNNs

srabiee wrote: »

If you ever get that question in the future, simply tell them it's a state school in UT and leave it at that.

Is WGU a state school? What's makes a school a "state school?"

Fulcrum45

The whole school name recognition thing can be a double edged sword- I went to Kent State and all anyone can think is "Didn't the National Guard shoot and kill some people there in the 70's?"

Thacker

Akaricloud wrote: »

You can post about ideally how the world should be, but the reality is this is how it's thought about. Could you have gone about it differently and easily overcome this? -Likely. The fact that you weren't willing to says a lot about you as a candidate. I do quite a bit of hiring myself and would never hire anyone with this idealistic, defensive attitude.

You can't expect every HR person to be perfect, but they CAN expect you to be.

It's natural to be defensive. It sounds like you've done this kind of thing to candidates before which is why you are defending her actions. If you insult someone over where they chose to spend a substantial amount of money and where they chose to spend 3-4 years of their life achieving something by saying "sorry, that isn't good enough to work for us" ....without as even so much as calling that person for a phone screen...

Then yea, anyone with dignity should be defensive in that situation.

anoeljr

I wouldn't worry about it and just move on to the next one. Everyone has an opinion on things. Let them think that way. You just keep on doing you.

Magmadragoon

I was initially interested in doing a master's at WGU. I think the biggest problem is University of Phoenix has killed the reputation of online schools. I had work in the finance field before the IT field and had a boss who would look at resumes for what college they went to. If he saw an online only college it would go straight to the trash pile. Experiencing that made me reconsider doing a master's degree at WGU.

N2IT

@OP

I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often, let's face reality, Georgia Tech, Stanford etc are superior to almost every school including on line Universities.

Like IbrokeIT mentioned, those schools are the gold standard for developers, those kids will always get preferential treatment and rightfully so. Those are big time Universities that require a high level of aptitude to graduate from. I've seen these "kids" in action and I can't recall any of them coming from one of these programs failing to delivery errrrrr code at a high level. In fact the last shop I worked at brought in a younger fella from Missouri Science and Technology, who had a CS degree. I believe they are top 25 or 50 in CS. He demanded 80 out of school and got it. Within one year he is making over a 100,000. He was an amazing developer, even our senior developer who was very good, who also had a top 25 CS bachelors made note.

IMO in development the quality of the degree is crucial to land the big time roles, unless you have the experience which we all know is king. Usually......

Thacker

N2IT wrote: »

@OP

I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen more often, let's face reality, Georgia Tech, Stanford etc are superior to almost every school including on line Universities.

Like IbrokeIT mentioned, those schools are the gold standard for developers, those kids will always get preferential treatment and rightfully so. Those are big time Universities that require a high level of aptitude to graduate from. I've seen these "kids" in action and I can't recall any of them coming from one of these programs failing to delivery errrrrr code at a high level. In fact the last shop I worked at brought in a younger fella from Missouri Science and Technology, who had a CS degree. I believe they are top 25 or 50 in CS. He demanded 80 out of school and got it. Within one year he is making over a 100,000. He was an amazing developer, even our senior developer who was very good, who also had a top 25 CS bachelors made note.

IMO in development the quality of the degree is crucial to land the big time roles, unless you have the experience which we all know is king. Usually......

Noted. I am not applying for any top software firm, or anything that I feel is out of my reach. With that said, this is a small company with terrible reviews on glassdoor telling me I can't get an interview because of the school I chose. Even google and other top tech leaders hire outside of the top colleges based on skill.

Akaricloud

Thacker wrote: »

It's natural to be defensive. It sounds like you've done this kind of thing to candidates before which is why you are defending her actions. If you insult someone over where they chose to spend a substantial amount of money and where they chose to spend 3-4 years of their life achieving something by saying "sorry, that isn't good enough to work for us" ....without as even so much as calling that person for a phone screen...

Then yea, anyone with dignity should be defensive in that situation.

Actually I've never discriminated based on where someone went for their education, or whether or not they have education. I do however judge candidates based on their how they go about resolving issues and their ability to explain concepts that others around them might have less information on. I understand it's natural to be defensive, but it's not always helpful to be defensive.

You seemingly took their reply as "We don't think where you went to school was good enough", whereas the reality of it most times is "We haven't done the extensive research on the school as you have, and we have a stack of 500 other resumes". All I'm saying is this is an easily resolved situation and instead of taking the natural defensive stance you can help educate them on why you picked WGU and the credentials it holds.

This is going to be something you'll likely run into again, how you handle it can have an extraordinary impact on the result. I'm not trying to defend their actions, but rather explain them to help you overcome similar issues in the future.