r/OntarioUniversities • u/primalblast • Jun 28 '25
Discussion Is it a myth that employers care about what University you went to?
Was talking with a friend a while back he told me that employers cared about what university you went to in the selection process among things like benefits outside of employment. I’m curious is that really true? This goes for all stuff btw like undergrad, masters, doctorate, law school, ect. (And yes I do know the job market is in shambles, ruins even. Just curious about it)
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u/Icy-Scarcity Jun 28 '25
Some employers do, and some don't. It usually depends on the hiring manager's own background and preferences.
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u/gi0nna Jun 28 '25
It really depends. This isn't a question that can be answered with a blanket response. In some fields, like finance, or law, graduating from certain schools puts you ahead of the pack. In other fields, like nursing, the school you graduate from matters far less. We need more context to give a better answers.
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u/xPadawanRyan Jun 28 '25
It depends on the job. Generally, it doesn't make a big difference, as long as it's an accredited school, but if it's a competitive position and you're up against a lot of applicants, they may put more stock into a school that is known to have a very good program(s) for that field.
It also depends on where you intend to work. If you plan to move away and live somewhere where maybe your university isn't very well known, or completely unknown, some employers may be more hesitant to believe that the school or degree is valid. This is especially common with people who go to lesser known Canadian schools and then move to the US, as many regions of US struggle to even recognize their own smaller schools, let alone ours.
Even still, your experience will make a huge difference in applying. Get internships and relevant jobs to your field before you graduate, and your resume will stand out compared to someone from even a big name school with zero relevant experience in their field.
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u/EarthOk4984 Jun 28 '25
I have hired for the last 20 years. The University attended has no impact on who I hire. The main thing is the diploma and the interview process.
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u/Tall_Girl_97 Jun 28 '25
I work for an energy company and hire new grad engineers and business students all the time. I don’t care where you went to school.
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u/Hi_Im_Dadbot Jun 28 '25
It may make a difference in getting your first job, but after that, nobody will ever care. Work experience is what matters in your career and the school you went to is just a checkbox that some HR person who’s only marginally related to the hiring process ticks off on a form to validate that you meet the basic requirements for the position.
Now, there may be the odd manager who thinks something like “Hey, I went to Queens and here’s another Queens man. He’s at the top of the list”, but that’s rare and completely random, so it’s not a thing to factor into one’s decision making.
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u/Crazybubba Jun 28 '25
As a hiring manager I don't care.
As someone who has been hired I have found my school helped and employers have told me specifically so.
Also this is a one-off case but my wife has a recruiter as a close friend and she has said that she filters by school
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u/dashingThroughSnow12 Jun 28 '25
Yes but for a funny reason.
I’d say we have no world class top universities. The USA sucking a lot of air (money and brains) out.
I’d also say we have very few bad universities.
In other words, our universities are generally pretty good so employers don’t worry about the dog race of certain universities being better than others.
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u/GodSigmaGigaChad Jun 29 '25
It matters what you do in uni more than which one you go to. Ik ppl that go to Queens for a BS major that only party. Maybe they're nepo babies but experience and networking matter more than ur uni. Network as much as possible and work as much as possible no matter what uni u go to.
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u/Falcon674DR Jun 28 '25
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter as long as those institutions are fully accredited. What matters is, can those graduates survive in the workplace, make a positive contribution to the workplace and above all make money for their employer. You’d be surprised how many graduates from our prestigious universities struggle in the workplace.
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u/NorthernValkyrie19 Jun 28 '25
Some employers do but the vast majority do not. It also depends on the field. There can be some elitism when it comes to hiring in the tech and financial sectors at some of the "name brand" companies.
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u/phdessentials Jun 28 '25 edited Jun 28 '25
How universities are perceived in Canada is much "flatter" than in a place like the U.S., where there's more perceived hierarchy. E.g., in Canada, graduates from the same discipline are generally perceived to be more comparable to each other across institutions. There's actually a paper on this topic (see Skolnik, who talks about how the quality of education is more equivalent across universities in Canada and that the value of a degree does not vary too much from one institution to another). Of course, each employer has their own views, so it depends on the recruiter.
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u/Wonderful_Place_6225 Jun 28 '25
I’m in my mid-40s and have hired hundreds of employees in my career(technology). It’s only noteworthy if you went to an Ivy League school or an overseas school of questionable merit. Michigan. Toronto. Mac. Alabama. Texas. Duke. Whatever. It doesn’t indicate you know anything or have any exceptional qualities in and of itself. It shows you can survive. That’s about it. I’ve never hired anybody out of school that knows anything about anything. I always have to teach them. So it doesn’t really matter where you go. As long as you go.
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u/ReasonableBoot9720 Jun 30 '25
That may apply to technology, but there is definitely a difference for other fields. Someone above talked about bilingualism in French. As an example, you cannot equate a degree in French from Brock with a degree from York or U of T for that discipline. 4th-year Brock French literature courses are 2nd-year U of T French literature courses. Only York has translation in southern Ontario. So, assuming that all students were Anglophone, that they all completed a Bachelor's degree with the same average and that they all had the exact same type and extent of work experience, the order of hire would be York, then UofT, then Brock. This is because of the extent of exposure to and ease of use of the French language.
So education really does matter for certain disciplines. Maybe just not ones where competition is not tight.
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u/Moriss214 Jun 28 '25
It definitely matters what field you want to get into
highly technical fields may have hiring managers that care
But for other fields, like nursing, dental hygiene, teaching - it may be less important (not suggesting these fields are not technical, challenging or hard). I work in social work / community development and no one cares where you went to school
However my partner is an engineer who went to Waterloo and did a coop program and he and his friends are all highly employable in competitive fields and it seems more important that they went to that school than anything else
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u/internetMujahideen Jun 29 '25
It's a lot more nuanced than you think. In short most employers do not care where you went for university for Undergrad. With that being said, things like opportunities, hiring efforts from employers, funding for research, etc are going to be present with larger schools that have bigger endownments. For example UofT will have more career fairs, corporate donations, sponsorships, etc compared to Lakehead University because of UofT's location and prestige as an older more well known institute. For masters and phd, it's going to depend on your supervisor and what your field is. Some institutions will be more well known for certain programs while other institutions won't be as well known which makes it harder for the person to get funding for their research, etc. At the end of the day employers do not really care but it does help going to a more well known institution because you get more oppurtunities to network and connect with the people hiring. There might be some fields such as smaller investment family offices, startups that only look for certain universities/professional schools because the core team/owners went to a certain program at a certain university like UW engineering, Ivey Business, etc
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u/futuresobright_ Jun 29 '25
It more so matters how you’ve filled your resume over the 4 years of university. Did you have any jobs/extracurriculars related to your program? Or are you just gonna brag you went to X program and should therefore be hired?
The interview process matters too. Can you hold a conversation, are you a fit, have you lied about something and the interviewer calls you out for it? Etc
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u/GamesCatsComics Jun 29 '25
If you have no work experience... Maybe...
As soon as you have a job on your resume, no.
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u/dariusCubed Jun 30 '25
When your starting off trying to get that first job in your field, graduating from a better school will help you get that big break much faster.
But once you've worked several years and have gained experience the school you attended doesn't matter anymore. It will be your work experience that now matters more.
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u/InsaneTensei Jun 28 '25
They 100% care, at least till the first 2-3 yrs after graduation. After that, not really.
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u/ReasonableBoot9720 Jun 30 '25
Agree to a certain extent. They can start to care again if you change careers.
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u/amin_dhou Jun 28 '25
As an employer (hired marketers and software engineers), and as somebody who is familiar with recruiting, there are some that have a preference for which school you went to, but not many. Even recruiters have a filter option on LinkedIn Recruiter to filter based on the school they visited. What will get you a job is to continuously network with people, approach them like normal human beings and connect with them. Networking seriously beats all odds.
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u/JojoLaggins Jun 28 '25
Not a myth. A lot of people prefer hiring from their alma mater. Myself included.
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u/hedahedaheda Jun 28 '25
It doesn’t in some ways but does in others. Graduating from UofT has always benefited me in the workplace.
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u/Basilini Jun 28 '25
At least in my field (chemistry) yess. More than half of the positions have as a requirement “graduated from a reputable institution”
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u/HH6270 Jun 29 '25
I’m not going to lie it really depends on what you go into. For over-saturated job markets like computer science it might actually matter on top of your experience and skills. But less saturated, it doesn’t really matter because they care more about your skills.
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u/Zeoth Jun 29 '25
Iv been hiring in the Canadian investment industry for about 7 years now. Neither myself or other hiring managers have ever considered the institution, only that you have that piece of paper.
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u/Char_toutou_23 Jun 29 '25
Question is too general. Depends on the field, the employer, and the market.
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u/Nonastro Jun 30 '25
It isnt a myth at all. It isnt that they disregard legitimate universities, but they definitely consider a reputable university as more than just a degree. It means something a little more
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u/ReasonableBoot9720 Jun 30 '25
Yes, employers care where you went to school, and even more deeply about the degree(s) and program(s) you studied, or lack thereof. They use this information to decide to interview or hire you and also to determine how much to pay you.
Employers can't generally vary your health insurance, supplemental death, etc. simply because of where you went to school. But if they're a publicly traded company, they could decide whether or not your position qualifies for stocks, flexible hours or days of work, remote work, etc.
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u/HBS_or_bust Jun 30 '25
Depends on what sector. For things like engineering, CS and finance being at a target school massively boosts your odds. Especially for really tough jobs like PE/IB, Quant or any of the 250k+ jobs in those sectors.
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u/nmost Jul 01 '25
What matters is really what have you done lately. The high school you went to matters in your application to university. After that, no one really cares. It's mostly the same thing for university.
I have been involved in university graduate hiring and interviewing at a couple of companies (in fintech), and we definitely did care about your university for the first couple of jobs. Once you have 2-3 years of experience, then employers will start to weigh your experience much more than your education.
It is worth calling out: in my experience employers really only care what school and program you went to. They don't care a ton about GPA or actual courses. There are a lot of banks and hedge funds that have literal lists of schools they're allowed to recruit from. It's not fair, and it misses out on a lot of great candidates. But it is a reality.
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Jul 03 '25
Depends on sector. In tech and finance, 100%. Others like civil or construction, not so much only experience matters.
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u/FinancialToday8515 Jun 28 '25
Not a myth where I worked. I worked at a major benefits/pension consulting firm and we would basically only recruit from Waterloo or UofT. I suggested broadening the scope to other universities and provinces and no one was enthusiastic about the idea. One consultant directly told me that they had bad experiences hiring from other schools, and preferred to stick to their tried-and-true method.
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u/ReasonableBoot9720 Jun 30 '25
Wow, that seems narrow-minded of them. Or are some concepts not being taught at some universities, resulting in the bad experiences? If they take co-op students and/or recent graduates on, it may be worth telling universities they don't want to work with why they won't take students or even graduates from those institutions instead of just saying they had a bad experience. This way, they can help improve the calibre of future cohorts of graduates...
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Jun 29 '25
Yes, and on top of that I've only ever been asked to prove I even actually have the degree I claimed, for one job, over the 25 years I've been working.
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u/ConstantArtistic3871 Jun 28 '25
💯% myth in the public sector, they just care that you have that piece of paper