A Reddit user claimed that a recruiter mistakenly sent him her “secret internal selection guidelines” detailing specific candidate selection guidelines. The leaked memo has sparked controversy online for exposing selective hiring criteria for software engineers. Posted on Reddit two days ago, the document revealed strict preferences, favouring top university graduates while refusing applicants from major tech companies and specific backgrounds.

The document specifies that ideal candidates should have a “Bachelor or Master of Computer Science from a top CS program”. It highlights institutions like MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Caltech, UIUC, and the University of Waterloo. It mentions that "special exceptions" might be considered for graduates from other schools, but only if they maintained a 4.0 GPA.

It also stresses the importance of hiring candidates with “4-10 years of software development experience” and expertise in modern JavaScript (TypeScript, NodeJS, ReactJS) and AI/LLMs. The document discourages applications from individuals working at big companies unless they have startup experience. Additionally, it explicitly rejects “job hoppers” and candidates with a consulting background.

The memo has a blacklist of employees from prominent companies, explicitly noting: “Candidates who have ever worked at the following companies are not the right fit.” The list featured companies like Intel, Cisco, HP, TCS, Tata, Mahindra, Infosys, Capgemini, Dell, Cognizant, and Wipro.

Additionally, the memo emphasised that there would be “absolutely no visa sponsorships,” restricting job applications to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and Canadians. A Redditor who shared the memo voiced his frustration despite meeting most of the listed qualifications. He penned, “the sheer pretentiousness and elitism kinda pissed me off ngl. And I'm someone who meets a lot of these criteria, which is why the recruiter contacted me, but it still pisses me off.”

The post rapidly gained traction online, igniting a heated debate on social media. Many condemned the hiring guidelines, calling them elitist and exclusionary.

One user shared their experience, saying, “This is true. I work for a big company, and I’ve been trying to move internally to tech for years. They flat out told me they only hire students from certain universities for those jobs.” Another user reshared the post with the caption, "Founder and ex-L7 Facebook engineer said he believes strongly that it's real and that 'top tier CS schools are the primary path to early career jobs [in software]'"!

Some people questioned whether the post was genuine, arguing that the Reddit user had fabricated the guidelines and shared a false screenshot on the “coding boot camp” subreddit. However, the subreddit’s moderator, Michael Novati, stated that the user had privately shared additional details with him, which indicates that the memo is likely genuine.

Novati, who has worked at Facebook for eight years, penned: "Regard allegations of fake screenshots. OP sent more evidence confidentially. It's impossible to 100% prove an email is authentic over Reddit, but the evidence adds more credibility to the original post. I can't rule out an elaborate Reddit-fraud scheme, but as far as a coin toss, I would guess more likely real than not real.”