Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to end today with a call-in for anybody who has ever hired anybody for anything. We're going to ask you to get candid about how you look at where they went to college and that is, of course, assuming that the positions you're hiring for would be for college graduates. Why do we ask this? Well, the conversation around affirmative action and legacy admissions and everything leads to even deeper questions about our higher education system in general.

One of those might be why do we value the Ivy League and other considered elite schools so much and what kind of leverage does school name recognition or ranking really have, or should it have? We're going to do a series of segments on the show interrogating the idea of the rankings of schools and how that should affect what schools people want to go to, how that might affect what schools people want to hire employees from. That's where we're going to start today. We have a guest tomorrow lined up who's going to talk about the cost of different colleges and what's worth it and why tuition.

Then ultimately, student loans are going up so much for what may or may not be worth it for the students and for society. That's going to be tomorrow's installment in this. We're going to start it with a simple call-in for employers on the question, what are you screening for if you look at where somebody went to college on their resume? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Be candid. You can use an assumed name. It's okay. Have you screened for schools for any reason? Everybody puts their college degree on their resume if they have a college degree.

This is not unusual at all, I assume but maybe you've looked at a school name on a resume and thought, "Oh, they went there. I bet they'd be good." Tell us about it. Tell us about that thought process for you. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Of course, we're not just talking about preference for Ivy Leagues either. There are a number of ways the school name listed on a resume might influence the application process and this can be for interns too who are maybe currently in college. Maybe it's as simple as specialization.

If you're hiring for something highly skilled or specific, let's say aerospace engineering or video game design, do you look for applicants from schools that have invested in those programs, have good majors in those programs? That's a non-hierarchical way, I guess, to look at schools on a resume ones that actually specializes in those topic areas. Do you have a relationship even with certain schools or programs? I'm especially interested to hear about your thought processes when you consider an applicant's credentials.

I can imagine there might be a hiring manager out there, one who's done it in the past, who sees a lot of value in an applicant who say went to community college for a couple of years before transferring to a four-year school. They might look at that and see pragmatism or hard work or wanting to help somebody get a foothold in the middle class or something like that, or maybe it's not about the institutions themselves, but other organizations associated with them, like fraternities, sororities, or honor societies. Oh, you are a member of Alpha Alpha Alpha. I don't know fraternity names.

You went to Alpha Alpha Alpha. Oh, there's an Alpha boy. Let's see about that Alpha boy or Kappa girl. Why might those things be important to you when you're hiring? Or is it just sentimental or community focus wanting to help somebody who's considered family in the sense that a fraternity or sorority member might? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anybody who's an employer now or has ever been, what are you looking for when you look at what college somebody attends or has attended? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

You can also text us to that number and we'll take your calls and texts or tweet @BrianLehrer right after this. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right. What are you looking for when you look at where somebody went to college as a job applicant? Pepper in Nassau County. You're on WNYC. Hi, Pepper.

Pepper: Hi. This is my first time calling. I'm excited.

Brian: Glad you're on.

Pepper: I was on the search committee for my church. When the candidates come, I definitely look at where they went to school. If they went to New York seminary and Newton or Pacific, I know that you have a more liberal education. Some of the seminaries are more evangelical. Definitely, it mattered where they went to school when we were selecting a pastor.

Brian: Interesting because the schools tended to line up with a religious philosophy.

Pepper: We're a very liberal progressive congregation and we wanted a liberal progressive pastor and the schools definitely have a vent.

Brian: Thank you very much. Gerald, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gerald.

Gerald: Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Brian: I see you worked with a headhunting firm.

Gerald: Yes. For eight years, I was a headhunter as well as a general counsel for the headhunting firm in Midtown.

Brian: How did you process people's colleges from their resumes?

Gerald: Well, we particularly look for people in the finance and legal field. Our clients were the largest law firms and financial firms in the country. There was definitely a bias towards Ivy League schools. I can tell you a resume that comes in that has Columbia or Yale on it, that person would almost always be granted an interview. Usually, it panned out. The education was there, the academic achievements, they were well-polished, very articulate.

Brian: Then they turned out to be successful employees. I guess what you don't know is how good the people you didn't hire, who you screened out because they went to lesser-tier universities might've done on the job.

Gerald: Well, we looked at those as well. Usually, those were the majority coming in. If you look locally, we're going to get candidates from Fordham, from the city colleges [unintelligible 00:07:38]. Sometimes you have to look deeper with those candidates but there are definitely a lot of diamonds in the rough coming out of these schools. I went to both non-Ivy League undergraduate and Ivy League Columbia. I think I have a sense of those different environments and looking for people who are good-quality candidates regardless of the school, but finding people who may not be stars now, but can become superstar.

You see the potential. We would look for that but I can tell you that you, someone puts Yale, Columbia on the application, that's almost a shoe, [crosstalk] we're going to talk to that person.

Brian: Gerald, thank you. Thank you so much. Karen in the West Village, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi. I actually have the exact opposite perspective. I'm more likely to hire someone who went to a public university. Certainly, I don't never hire Ivy Leaguers but I'm attracted to people who I see as strivers who have worked hard for their education and who don't have elite backgrounds. Now, I've worked in non-profits in the public spectrum my whole career. The coworkers of the person I'm hiring tend to be not so much from elite background, and certainly, the clientele aren't. I favor public university, the city university. Rutgers, Connecticut, whatever.

Brian: Karen, thank you so much. Warner in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Warner.

Warner: Oh, hi, first-time caller. Well, I think the academy is the worst defender. I've worked in state universities, state colleges for over 40 years and I've been on at least half a dozen search committees. We would get up to 200 or 300 applicants for a tenure-track position. If they have a CV from the usual expected elite, snobby places, they go right to the top. We're the worst offenders. We're a state college, we're not an elite institution. The academics themselves are the worst perpetrators of this scam. It's not a scam. I went to an Ivy.

I got headhunted to be a president of a very well-known liberal arts college in Vermont, and largely, the headhunter said I can put you in the final two or three because you went to search of the Y. The academicians and the system of hiring itself perpetrates this entire thing. It's different in quantifiable fields like finance, physics-- They can look at your research, but when it comes to the liberal arts and when it comes to academia, we're the worst offenders.

Brian: Do you think you would get a different quality or if that's too much of a value judgment, a different type of applicant coming from state universities than from elite private ones?

Warner: Again, I've taught in the state college for 40 years and the biggest problem with our students is not the quality of their work, it's their self-confidence. It's their ability to walk into a search committee of seven or eight people and convince them. That's one thing. I guess my experience is the same with my relatives, cousins, grandkids, is that those colleges, whatever you want to call them, train or perpetrate or brainwash their kids to be really good self-promoters when it comes down to, "I'm one of four, who are they going to hire?" Or three out of hundred.

Brian: They tend to believe they're the best. Warner, thank you so much. Jim in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Hi. I've hired in both not-for-profit and legal. I think I'll stick with legal a little more. We always look at resume from the top schools for a legal hire, but we actually have more success with employees from the next level down, and this is in a public sector legal hiring in New York City. The reason for that is because they're more apt, the person hired from the second-tier school, it's really not a quality issue. Legal training is pretty good across the board at the levels we're hiring, and someone from a top position in what you'll call the second-tier legal schools can do the work.

They do the work better for us because this to them is an important job. He/she can achieve, can stick with it, and can-- We get better end results, and you don't get the frustration you might get with someone who's been convinced from the start that they're a high flyer because much legal work is not high flying, and it takes time to know and to reach the position where you can do that sort of thing. My own background is Ivy League undergraduate and then public university for law school, so maybe that's what biases.

The trick is, of course, figuring out which schools provide candidates who do that. I have to say it is experience with the school that's generating the person you're looking at, and that can really put you over the top as well.

Brian: Jim, thank you. Very, very interesting story. Marianne, an MD in Nassau County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marianne.

Marianne: Hi. Very nice to be on the show. Thank you so much for taking the call. I've been on residency search committees for easily the last 20 years. I do emergency medicine, I'm a professor of emergency medicine. Step one is something I also taught my kids that it matters less where you do your undergrad and it matters more if you're going to do a grad degree where you do your grad degree. That's going to be where you want to put any money or emphasis in terms of what you want to do on the other side.

If you get a good solid undergrad degree, wherever you're going to do it, I myself went to Rutgers, I got a very solid state education. I did not realize, at the time, a lot of my friends went Ivy, and I did not realize at the time how good my education was until I ended up in my first and second year of med school and was way ahead of a lot of other people. I went to Einstein for med school, so an excellent med school. The other thing is because what I do is emergency medicine, and again, I've been doing this for the last 20 years, so I've seen how people have played out over time.

I'm actually biased against Ivy League. Very similar to what the last gentleman said about law education in that my experience is that as he was saying, people who believe they're high flyers from the beginning, what I'm looking for is grit. Emergency medicine needs really smart people who are willing to work really hard and that might include pushing structures or doing other people's work because they are busy and everything's trying to take care of the patient-- [crosstalk]

Brian: Really interesting and Marianne, I'm going to have to leave it there for time, but thank you. Maybe it's because of this audience or maybe it's a way I framed the question, I don't know. Or maybe it really is that there are large numbers of employers who look for people other than Ivy League grads. The assumption is going to be that Ivy League grads or from other elite colleges have a leg up. We're hearing a lot of people who go the other way. Pete in Brooklyn is going to get our last 15 seconds because he went to Columbia and he doesn't like what he's hearing. Right, Pete? Literally 15 seconds.

Pete: That is correct. I find the insinuation that Ivy leaders are privileged and don't have to work hard for anything to be asinine. I went there for three years and I finished in the 30th percentile of my class, and I went to law school. I didn't go to the best law school.

Brian: Pete, that has to be the last word. Interesting set of calls. We'll follow up tomorrow and more days as we interrogate higher education hierarchies.

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