"As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper." - a counterpoint: I teach in the business school at an accredited public land-grant university in the US northeast and interface with several HR managers / campus recruiters from major companies nearby, including a fortune-5 and three fortune-50 cos. Almost all companies have minimum GPA cutoffs to even interview a student. Higher GPA increases a student's chances of getting hired. Recruiters frequently ask professors to recommend the best students in their class. That "piece of paper" mentioning the student's grade is fairly important, as are people-skills and attitude. Doing well in class signals a candidate's work ethic.

In the article, OP wrote about Facebook: "They didn't want you to do anything but what you wanted to do naturally, they just wanted to pay close attention and help." Does OP or anyone else have specific examples of what Facebook did in their early days?

Interesting post. What was that bit about the three heads?

Accenture work tends to be client-facing, so part of the interview was, presumably, to check that I can present myself professionally and make a good impression on the client. In other words, check that I don't have three heads, or some other major personal presentation issue...

thanks. I enjoy reading your posts, keep 'em coming!

He's suggesting that the only qualification Accenture required of prospective new employees was having the correct number of heads.

The fact that there's not already some law against this can only be attributed to the weakness of the pushmepullyou rights lobby.

Actually, places like Accenture do tend to hire better looking people. Especially women. That goes into the whole "chicks making charts strategy" people joke about.

My friend is still working at Accenture (sigh) as a senior manager and he says the only purpose of the first interview is to weed out the morons.

"India produces large numbers of bad engineers" - that's a sweeping statement. Among all countries, India sends the largest number of engineering students to the US (according to NSF - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-sends-maximum-number...), which is not bad for a country producing "bad" engineers. I am a professor in a US university, I work with a lot of technically trained undergraduates, and I can say that students here (as anywhere) when they complete their undergraduate education, are merely ready to become an apprentice at a company. Their education continues in the company (or research lab) they join. So when you compare recent Engineering undergraduates from different countries, I am willing to bet that their quality is on average not that different.

If they're in your class, India is not producing those engineers.

At any rate, we're talking about outsourcing. If they're not in India anymore, then by definition the US cannot outsource to them.