The PIT Lab is exploring how tech recruitment pipelines at Stanford have changed over the last decade, and how they can incorporate more PIT opportunities over the next decade. With the number of CS majors doubling since 2010, tech companies have jumped at the chance to recruit more Stanford graduates, enticing students with perks and paying Stanford organizations upwards of $20,000 for a table at career fairs. As Stanford students funnel into the technology industry, a closer look at recruitment practices will explore how Stanford interfaces with the broader tech ecosystem. By using data, interviews, documents, and milestones to show how tech recruitment has evolved in the last decade, the PIT Lab team is positioning itself to provide research-backed recommendations to shape the next decade of tech recruitment at Stanford — a decade that we hope will include more pathways into PIT careers.

During the 2020-21 academic year, the PIT Lab is partnering with the Stanford Tech History Project to author a report on the status of tech recruiting on campus. Our speakers have included Adrian Daub, Stanford professor and author of What Tech Calls Thinking, who shared his insights about what makes Silicon Valley so appealing to Stanford graduates. To further explore pathways into PIT careers, we are continuing to build on our partnership with the Haas Center’s Cardinal Careers team. For example, in December 2020, we co-sponsored the Haas-led panel How to Leverage Tech for the Public Interest that was moderated by Mehran Sahami and featured Amanda Renteria ‘96 (CEO of Code for America), Kevin Barenblat ‘97 (President of Fast Forward), and Dan Getelman (CTO of Remix).