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Ask HN: How many of the interns at your company are community college students?

4 points by March_f6 ↗ HN
I am currently an intern at a large tech company with over 2000+ additional interns. I was recruited from a top school last year but previously attended a community college before I transferred to said top school. What is most apparent between the two types of schools is the disparity in the professional opportunities/recruiting offers that occur at them. My company has refused to tell me how many of the current interns are community college students and I suspect that is because the number is very small. So now I am curious if this is the norm. Suffice it to say, I have serious concerns about the already narrow pipelines of access that are maintained via alumni and donors when it comes to recruiting.

4 comments

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tmoullet
0, but only because all of our interns are juniors and seniors (or grad students). In our area, CCs top out at the sophomore level. I would say the vast majority of our interns come from the local, 4 year state schools. We're generally not importing kids from "Top Schools". There's a good chance a good portion of our interns did indeed attend a CC at one time; that's a very common path to a 4 year degree here.
tudelo
I think this answers the question pretty comprehensively. There are a lower amount of sophomore interns, and you only really go to a CC for 2 years or maybe 3 for the cost savings aspect, so you don't see many CC interns.
ecesena
I don’t have numbers but I’d bet 0. I think it’s more a process issue though, and there might be opportunities.

My understanding is that big companies spend a ton of money in events at top schools, where they collect a pool of candidates for internship. This is already a big work and fills the pipeline with enough candidates, so they don’t have to search further.

In principle, this doesn’t prevent a student in a community college from applying, but getting into the process at the right time might be cumbersome. In addition, the probability of success is low, just looking at the number of applications vs positions.

I think there might be a big opportunity, however, in aggregating pool of candidates, and for example get paid from the companies to acccess these resumes. A sort of niche linkedin for internship.

Does anyone have numbers on how much a big tech company spend to attend to a school for recruiting interns?

askafriend
0

As a personal anecdote:

Community college where I grew up was basically an extended high school. The quality of everything from the instructors to the students to the material being taught was extraordinarily sub-par compared to the college I went to (admittedly, a top 10 CS school). Perhaps it was lower quality than even the high school I went to.

I know because I took a couple of community college courses in high school (and over college summers) for some easy college credit to transfer out to my 4-yr university.

There were a few shining stars who had no other option but to go to community college (they would later transfer out). However, the vast majority were people who were largely uninterested in learning but knew enough to know that they need more credentials than "high school graduate" to have a shot at a career.

It's unfortunate but that was the reality in my hometown.