Socioeconomic Mobility2015n = 120
>50% of elite firms use school name as primary cut
Rivera's Pedigree (replicated 2024) found that more than half of elite-firm hiring evaluators use school name as a primary screening filter, treating it as a proxy for general intellect; non-target-school candidates face an order-of-magnitude lower callback probability.
Primary source
Rivera, Pedigree (Princeton Univ Press)
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691169279/pedigreePublished 2015 — sample n = 120 — compiled by JobCannon Research.
Why this stat matters
This figure belongs to the socioeconomic mobilityvertical of JobCannon's ongoing review of hiring, AI, and career-outcome research. We track it because it is one of the few primary-source estimates with a published sample, methodology, or legal record. Cite the original source first; this page exists to make the figure easy to find and link to.
Related stats
- Absolute income mobility fell from 90% (born 1940) to 50% (born 1980) (Chetty et al., Science)Chetty et al., Science 356(6336) / Opportunity Insights — 2017
- Degree inflation: production supervisor postings requiring degree rose from 16% to 67% since 1970Fuller et al., Dismissed by Degrees, HBS / Burning Glass 2017 — 2017
- First-gen disclosure cut callbacks 26% (Stanford GSB, n=1,783)Belmi, Neale, Thomas-Hunt & Raz, Organization Science — 2023
- Top-1% kids 2x more likely at Ivy-Plus at equal SAT (QJE 2023)Chetty, Deming & Friedman, Opportunity Insights / QJE — 2023
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