In our experience, recent grads usually come from a CS or engineering background, so they at least have a strong familiarity with algorithmic thinking, and a much stronger exposure to various programming languages, and comprehend what a data structure is.
The folks from the school we've interviewed with are people who, mostly, have never even seen a programming language before they went to the "school"/program. Most of them had zero background in anything abstract enough to really grok programming, and it was painfully obvious (to us, and to most of the candidates we interviewed as well).
In our experience, recent grads usually come from a CS or engineering background, so they at least have a strong familiarity with algorithmic thinking, and a much stronger exposure to various programming languages, and comprehend what a data structure is.
The folks from the school we've interviewed with are people who, mostly, have never even seen a programming language before they went to the "school"/program. Most of them had zero background in anything abstract enough to really grok programming, and it was painfully obvious (to us, and to most of the candidates we interviewed as well).