The filter is worthless. I've known lots of disinterested CS grads who coasted through school and fight anything that requires any expenditure of effort on their part (like using a new library, etc.). They went to school and now they feel entitled to their seat in a bloated corporation where their lack of contribution can't really stand out against the larger background.
The best way to hire someone is to sit down and chat with them on multiple occasions for 1-2 hours at a time. Another programmer can generally tell when someone is incompetent and/or BSing. It doesn't guarantee the employment will work out, as working styles can be incompatible, employee can be/become depressed and/or unmotivated, etc., but it at least allows you to discern the competence to a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
When I interview programmers we're so busy talking shop that school doesn't even cross my mind. Thus far very few mention anything related to their schooling as a qualification while we're discussing, i.e., not a lot of "Yeah, I did a project like that in school once...". If one is hiring for a heavily theoretical position, academic credentials may be slightly more meaningful (though it's still about the final output, much of the personal research/development for that type of thing would occur at a university, whereas "working" software engineers mostly go through school as a formality), but for most other things, it's so irrelevant that it never comes up after several searching technical interviews.
The best way to hire someone is to sit down and chat with them on multiple occasions for 1-2 hours at a time. Another programmer can generally tell when someone is incompetent and/or BSing. It doesn't guarantee the employment will work out, as working styles can be incompatible, employee can be/become depressed and/or unmotivated, etc., but it at least allows you to discern the competence to a reasonable degree of satisfaction.
When I interview programmers we're so busy talking shop that school doesn't even cross my mind. Thus far very few mention anything related to their schooling as a qualification while we're discussing, i.e., not a lot of "Yeah, I did a project like that in school once...". If one is hiring for a heavily theoretical position, academic credentials may be slightly more meaningful (though it's still about the final output, much of the personal research/development for that type of thing would occur at a university, whereas "working" software engineers mostly go through school as a formality), but for most other things, it's so irrelevant that it never comes up after several searching technical interviews.