
Ask HN: How much does company name matter on a resume? - sweetsweetpie
TLDR: Does the company names matter increase prestige of your resume? For example, does a job at a large corporation like Dell or IBM (obviously not on the level of a unicorn tech company) impart any kind of prestige?<p>I&#x27;m choosing between two internship offers at companies. One of them is Dell, the other is a lesser known but global company who&#x27;s offer I have already accepted (they pressured me to decide that day so I don&#x27;t feel too bad about declining). With Dell I&#x27;d be a &quot;software intern&quot; and they can&#x27;t tell me anything more about it. With the second company I would be working on doing Full-Stack development to build (another) IoT product, which seems very interesting to me.<p>I feel this question is a bit cynical, but I think it is important to have some perspective. At the end of the day, I know it is my decision and it is only for the summer but I just can&#x27;t see why a brand of company matters, especially if they are not &quot;Google&quot;. I can always work full-time for a company doing what I truly enjoy (seems to be full-stack dev).<p>Of course, this is also an important question for prospective full-time employees.
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ncallaway
Personally, I care more about _what_ an prospective employee was doing rather
than the _where_. If you are a Software Engineer at Unknown Widgets Corp (UWC)
that has been heading up a small team of engineers to build a complete
product, then I'm more interested than if you're a Software Engineer that has
been silo'd in a very specific area at Dell.

All that being said the company you're at does matter for a couple of reasons.
One is there is a small level of bias towards known companies. If two
engineers have been doing the same kind of work at Facebook or UWC, I'll
probably have a slight unconscious bias towards the engineer from Facebook.

Ultimately, I think the best bet is to go where you think you'll be happiest
and have the most opportunities to _learn_. It's good to think about the
impact that decisions will have on your long-term career, but the best way to
get ahead is to be a stellar engineer. The happier you are in your day-to-day
work, the more effort you'll put in to growing as an engineer to meet the
challenges. And the more challenges that you're faced with, and the more smart
people that surround you, the better opportunity you'll have to grow.

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emilyfm
Go with what sounds more like the interesting work (plus, it shows you keep
your word).

Yes, the company name can have an effect. I worked early on for a major bank
(global name), which made other banks more likely to look at and hire me,
which made it even more likely major banks would want me, so I worked for lots
of them. Got a bit typecast (but, that's where the money was ...).

So after Dell, you'd perhaps give off more of an "enterprise" vibe (and likely
have very dull work!).

With the other company, it sounds like you'd be able to show more practical
experience, and a less staid choice of company, which could make you more
interesting to younger companies.

~~~
partisan
> So after Dell, you'd perhaps give off more of an "enterprise" vibe (and
> likely have very dull work!).

I agree. I am weary when I see big company names on a resume. I've had
interviews where someone's whole job was creating DTOs for a service layer or
writing queries in a database. That's the worst kind of pigeonhole and it
happens in big companies where everyone is in their own silo.

People become their inputs (specs) and their outputs (code) and people are
layered in the same way code is, like an assembly line. And since the inputs
and outputs are standardized, whole layers can be outsourced. As a business
owner, I can appreciate the benefits of predictable results, but as a
developer and a human, I can't justify hiring someone who is simply a cog in a
machine and happy being that.

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kafkaesq
All thing being equal, yes, the company name does matter (at least as much as
what you do there), to most people spending the requisite 200 milliseconds
scanning your resume and/or profile 5 years from now. That is, again, assuming
all other things about the role description being roughly equal.

But in a grossly imbalanced situation such as yours:

 _With Dell I 'd be a "software intern" and they can't tell me anything more
about it. With the second company I would be working on doing Full-Stack
development to build (another) IoT product, which seems very interesting to
me._

Where company A seems eager to heap responsibility and challenge after
challenge on you, while company B refuses to even tell you anything about the
role other than that you'll be an "intern"... and given that company B, while
you could say they're a household name, isn't exactly a Google, Facebook or
Tesla... or anything close to it, really...

... then I hope you won't have any hesitancy in choosing the role offered by
company A.

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zhte415
It's not just the name, it's the name in the niche.

If A (Dell/IBM) is a generic job, a small piece in a long, long, generic
chain, and B (lesser known but global) is much better known in your area of
interest, then B's name counts a lot more.

If A (Dell/IBM) is a global name, but you'll be in a small team, for example,
designing chip architecture, and B is a bunch of rambling idiots that got
lucky and now believe they will take over the world, then choose A.

Make the choice based on your department, role, and manager (the more senior
the better is often, though not always, true), not overall company name.

