Appendix B

Methodological Details

COMPOSITION OF RESEARCH INTERVIEW

SAMPLE: EVALUATORS

Gender Composition of Evaluators

As noted in the book’s introduction, I adopted an inductive approach

to data analysis.1 I did not set out to explore class or cultural reproduc-
tion in hiring. Rather, I had a broad interest in studying hiring in elite
firms. Because gender and race were original explanantia of interest, I
purposely oversampled women and minorities in order to be relatively
consistent with their typical representation among newly minted, ad-
vanced professional degree hires (i.e., JD and MBA), as these employees
participate heavily in screening résumés and interviewing candidates in
these firms.
It is important to note that—contrary to stereotypes of these
firms and the fact that women and minorities are underrepresented
in the partner ranks of all three types of firms—new hire classes in
these firms exhibit nontrivial gender and racial diversity. Firms gen-
erally seek to match the gender and racial composition of the student
bodies at the elite universities from which they recruit. Conversations
with industry experts and HR professionals suggested that in elite
law firms, women usually comprise roughly half of the newly minted
JD hires each year. Consulting firms tend to be equally split between
men and women at the undergraduate level and are roughly 30 to 40
percent female among new MBA hires. Investment banks tend to be
the least gender diverse. The representation of women varies by divi-
sion, but undergraduate hires tend to be 30 to 40 percent female, and
296 appendix b

Table B.1
Sex Composition of Evaluators Interviewed
Firm type
Law firms Consulting firms Investment banks
Male 45% 60% 72.5%
(18) (24) (29)
Female 55% 40% 27.5%
(22) (16) (11)
Total 100% 100% 100%
(40) (40) (40)

MBA hires are typically 15 to 25 percent female. Women are slightly

overrepresented in my sample because they tend to be disproportion-
ately involved in recruiting efforts, particularly in law firms. Table B.1
details the gender breakdown of evaluators who participated in my
research interviews.
Although the numbers of women may seem high to readers less
acquainted with the demographic composition of these types of
firms—especially given the underrepresentation of women at partner
rank—they are roughly in line with the demographic composition of
newly minted professional school (i.e., JD and MBA) hires.

Racial/Ethnic Composition of Evaluators

The ethnic/racial diversity of EPS firms is more difficult to calculate

because only law firms publicize information about employee race. I in-
clude the average racial composition of new summer associate classes
for the year 2011 for firms represented in this sample that reported new
hire statistics.
Although racial statistics for investment banks and consulting firms
are unavailable, investment banks typically participate in targeted re-
cruitment efforts to attract racial minorities from the United States,
such as undergraduate recruitment at historically black colleges and spe-
cial early internship programs for ethnic minorities.
 methodological details 297

Table B.2
Average Racial/Ethnic Breakdown of New Hire
Classes for Law Firms in Interview Sample
Law firms (%)

White/Caucasian 72
Asian/Asian American 15
Black/African American 6
Hispanic/Latino 5
Two or more races 2
Total 100

Source: National Association for Law Placement 2011.

*Figures are rounded to the nearest percent.

Table B.3
Racial/Ethnic Composition of Evaluators Interviewed
Firm type

Consulting Investment
Law firms firms banks
White/Caucasian 75% 57.5% 70%
(30) (23) (28)
Asian/Asian 12.5% 22.5% 12.5%
American (5) (9) (5)
Indian/Indian 5% 15% 10%
American (2) (6) (4)
Black/African 5% 2.5% 5%
American (2) (1) (2)
Hispanic/Latino 2.5% 2.5% 2.5%
(1) (1) (1)
Total 100% 100% 100%
(40) (40) (40)
298 appendix b

Parental Education of Evaluators

As noted in appendix A, there are various indicators that social sci-

entists use to measure parental social class. There is no clear consen-
sus regarding which single variable best captures the concept, and the
various measures used are highly correlated with one another. How-
ever, given the age diversity of evaluators in my sample (who ranged
from their mid-twenties to their early seventies), one straightforward
and easily commensurable metric for this group is parental education.
When using parental education as a measure of social class, researchers
typically define as “working class” those individuals who come from
families in which neither parent has a college degree. In my sample,
7 percent of evaluators came from such families. Conversely, 69 per-
cent of evaluators came from families on the highest rung of the ed-
ucational ladder—those in which at least one parent has an advanced
degree beyond the baccalaureate (e.g., master’s, professional degree,
or doctorate). For comparison, only about 11 percent of Americans
currently hold advanced degrees nationwide, a number that has sky-
rocketed over the past few decades.2 Although parental education is
far from a perfect or complete measure of social class, this data shows
that the evaluators I interviewed were highly skewed toward elite
backgrounds.

Sources of Evaluators Interviewed

Seven top-tier, bulge-bracket investment banks along with six presti-

gious management consulting firms are represented in the study. Law
firms are more numerous, and the definition of the top tier depends on
not only national but also major-market prestige rankings. The sample
includes eleven law firms.
I recruited interview participants through stratified sampling from
public directories of recruiting contacts, university alumni directories,
and multisited referral chains. Multisited referral chains—even those
that include personal contacts—are fruitful and appropriate strategies
for conducting research with elites.3 Table B.4 details the sources of my
interview sample.
 methodological details 299
Table B.4
Sources of Interview Sample: Evaluators
Representation in
interview sample
Personal contacts 10%
(12)
Public recruiting directories 11%
(cold contact) (13)
University alumni lists 22%
(26)
Referrals 57%
(69)
Total 100%
(120)
*Figures are rounded to the nearest percent.

COMPOSITION OF RESEARCH INTERVIEW

SAMPLE: JOB CANDIDATES
I conducted semistructured interviews with thirty-two job seekers who ap-
plied to the firms represented in my sample. I recruited participants from
university email lists and multisited referral chains. I purposely oversam-
pled Eastmore students who had applied to Holt Halliday to be able to
compare their observations of Holt’s recruitment process with my own.4
The interviews lasted between thirty and forty-five minutes and took place
at the location of participants’ choosing. Tables B.5−B.7 detail the charac-
teristics of these interviewees by degree type, sex, and race/ethnicity.

DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION OF HOLT

INTERVIEWERS IN ETHNOGRAPHIC SAMPLE
Tables B.8 and B.9 provide the gender and racial/ethnic breakdown
of the evaluators involved in interviewing candidates for first- and
second-round interviews for my ethnographic sample at Holt. It is
300 appendix b

Table B.5
Job Candidates Interviewed by Degree Type
Representation in
interview sample
MBA 56%
(18)
JD 22%
(7)
BA 22%
(7)
Total 100%
(32)

*Figures are rounded to the nearest percent.

Table B.6
Job Candidates Interviewed by Sex
Representation in
interview sample
Male 72%
(23)
Female 28%
(9)
Total 100%
(32)

*Figures are rounded to the nearest percent.

 methodological details 301

Table B.7
Job Candidates Interviewed by Race/Ethnicity
Representation in
interview sample
White/Caucasian 65.625%
(21)
Asian/Asian American 6.25%
(2)
Indian/Indian American 6.25%
(2)
Black/African American 9.375%
(3)
Hispanic/Latino 9.375%
(3)
Native American 3.125%
(1)
Total 100%
(32)

Table B.8
Sex Composition of Evaluators in Ethnographic Sample
Evaluators (%) Interviews (%)
Male 82 79
Female 18 21
Total 100 100
302 appendix b

Table B.9
Racial/Ethnic Composition of Evaluators in Ethnographic Sample
Evaluators (%) Interviews (%)

White/Caucasian 78 65
Asian/Asian American 6 10
Indian/Indian American 10 17
Black/African American 3 3
Hispanic/Latino 3 5
Total 100 100

important to note that these figures represent the Eastmore recruit-

ing team rather than all the evaluators at Holt. The representation of
women and ethnic minorities is lower in this sample than is typical
of Holt at the prepartner ranks, possibly because interviewers are re-
quired to be at a certain level of seniority and must travel to Eastmore
from their home office and stay overnight, preferably for several days,
to interview candidates on site. I report percentages only (instead of
the actual numbers of evaluators) to protect Holt’s identity and those
of its employees.

DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION OF APPLICANTS

IN ETHNOGRAPHIC SAMPLE
Tables B.10 and B.11 provide the gender and racial/ethnic composition
of interview candidates by round, the callback rate (from the first inter-
view round to the second round), percent of new hires, and rate of hire
from my ethnographic sample. Again, these figures represent interview
and hire pools for Eastmore rather than all applicants. As mentioned
below, although women and ethnic minorities were underrepresented
among the evaluators, and Hispanics and blacks had lower rates of call-
back than did other groups, all minorities except Hispanics had a higher
rate of hire than did whites. And to reiterate, I report only percentages
to protect Holt’s identity and its employees.
 methodological details 303

Table B.10
Gender Compositions of Interview Candidates and New Hires
First- Second-
round round
interviews interviews Callback New hires Rate of
(%) (%) rate (%) (%) hire (%)
Male 66 64 41 60 16
Female 34 36 45 40 20
Total 100 100 42 100 17

Table B.11
Ethnic/Racial Compositions of Interview Candidates and New Hires
First- Second-
round round
interviews interviews Callback New hires Rate of
(%) (%) rate (%) (%) hire (%)
White/ 54.4 55.7 43 51 16
Caucasian
Asian/ 17.6 17 41 21 20
Asian
American
Indian/ 13.2 17 55 14 18
Indian
American
Black/ 8 5.7 30 9 20
African
American
Hispanic/ 6.8 4.7 29 5 12
Latino
Total 100 100 42 100 17

Note: Numbers rounded to the nearest tenth.

304 appendix b

MOCK RÉSUMÉS
I asked evaluators who formally screened résumés to verbally evaluate
a set of mock candidate profiles in research interviews to illuminate
processes of candidate evaluation in action. I constructed résumés that
were somewhat standard for these firms: all candidates had attended at
least one selective university, met firms’ basic grade floor, had work ex-
perience, and were involved in extracurricular activities. However, the
candidates varied by gender, ethnicity, educational prestige, grade point
average (GPA), prior employer, and extracurricular activities. Because
more than one characteristic varied between résumés, the profiles were
not intended to be an experimental manipulation but rather a launching
point for discussion that illuminated processes of criteria deployment
and interpretation in real time.
I asked evaluators to assess mock résumés as they would in real time,
spending as much or as little time on the mock candidates as they did
on real résumés. Most participants completed this phase of the inter-
view in less than ten minutes. Figures B.1 and B.2 show the sample ré-
sumés I presented to the participants. There are small differences in the
résumés presented to the bankers and consultants versus the lawyers due
to different prestige hierarchies among business and law schools and a
wider variety of employment experiences among law students. In addi-
tion, at the time the research was conducted, many top business schools
had policies of grade nondisclosure for MBA coursework; Yale was the
only top law school that had such a policy. Finally, because I conducted
research interviews over a period of two years, I updated the graduation
and employment dates to reflect the current year in which the interview
was conducted.
 BLAKE THOMAS JULIA GARCIA
EDUCATION EDUCATION

Columbia Business School, New York, NY The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
MBA (Expected 2009) MBA (Expected 2009)

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ Yale University, New Haven, CT

BA Political Science BA Economics
Class of 2004 Class of 2004
GPA 3.7 GPA 3.9

Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH Roxbury High School, Boston, MA

Diploma (Class of 2000) Diploma (Class of 2000)
Member of varsity lacrosse and intramural crew teams Valedictorian and National Merit Scholar
GPA 4.0
WORK EXPERIENCE
WORK EXPERIENCE
Dean Consultants, New York, NY (2004 2007)
Analyst, Investment Banking Division Goldman Sachs, New York, NY (2004 2007)
Performed a variety of analytical calculations, including a complete audit on each Analyst, Investment Banking
of six mutual funds. Audited financial services clients, including banks and asset Corporate finance, technology emphasis. Won $180 million IPO mandate for
management companies. web-banking system operator.

Bank of America, Paramus, NJ (Summer 2003) McKinsey & Company, Jersey City, NJ (Summer 2003)
Management Intern, Loan Origination and Quality Control Summer Intern
Reporting to Executive Vice President of Corporate Operations, audited and Performed market and pricing research for a growth strategy for a leading
validated loan files. Organized and initiated fundamental changes in back room financial services organization.
operation which reduced labor expenses by 13%.
LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP Vice President, Wharton Women in Business
Intramurals Coordinator, Columbia Business School Treasurer, Wharton Hispanic American MBA Association
Captain, Varsity Lacrosse Team, Rutgers University (2002 National Champions) President, Yale Social Enterprise Club
ROTC member, Rutgers University Volunteer, New Haven Battered Women’s Shelter

INTERESTS INTERESTS
Lacrosse, squash, crew Volunteering, tutoring inner-city youth, cooking

Figure B.1 Sample Mock Résumés Presented to Consulting and Banking Interview Participants
 JONATHAN PHELPS SARAH THORNDIKE
EDUCATION EDUCATION

Harvard Business School, Boston, MA NYU Stern School of Business, New York, NY
MBA (Expected 2009) MBA (Expected 2009)

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

BA Economics AB History
Class of 2004 Class of 2004
GPA 3.91 GPA 3.5

Brockton High School, Boston, MA Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH

Diploma (Class of 2000) Diploma (Class of 2000)
Valedictorian and National Merit Scholar Member of varsity squash and rugby teams
GPA 4.0
WORK EXPERIENCE
WORK EXPERIENCE
F&S Alloys and Minerals Corporation, New York, NY (2004 2007)
Morgan Stanley, New York, NY (2004 2007) Analyst, Sales Operations
Analyst, Investment Banking Identified and solicited nearly 300 potential corporate clients for commodities
Worked with leveraged finance groups on credit syndications on leveraged sales; produced market survey and project evaluations for foreign firms seeking
buyouts (LBOs). Served on the left hand of mergers and acquisitions deals of to enter North American market; provided technical analyses of futures prices for
clients worth $450 million. Collaborated on weekly mezzanine deal review. commodities traded on London Metal Exchange, advised traders accordingly.

Bain & Company, Boston, MA (Summer 2003) Bank of America, London, England (Summer 2003)
Summer Intern Summer Intern, Equities Research
Assisted in the creation of customer segmentation models for the global and Reporting to European Investment Strategy Director, collaborated on
European pharmaceutical markets. construction of spreadsheet to graph and evaluate sector performance in Europe
for $2.3 billion operation.
LEADERSHIP LEADERSHIP
President, HBS Entrepreneurship Club Captain, Women’s Varsity Squash, Harvard University
Publicity Coordinator, HBS Finance Club Ranked top player in country (2003 2004)
Editor-in-Chief, The Daily Princetonian First Runner-Up, Miss Rhode Island Competition

INTERESTS INTERESTS
Running, politics, traveling, volunteering Squash, rugby, skiing, traveling

Figure B.1 Continued

 BLAKE THOMAS JULIA GARCIA
EDUCATION EDUCATION

Boston College Law School, Boston, MA Yale Law School, New Haven, CT
JD (Expected 2009) JD (Expected 2009)
Class rank: Top 25%
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ AB Social Studies
BA Political Science Class of 2004
Class of 2004 Summa cum laude
GPA 3.7 GPA 3.9

Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH Roxbury High School, Boston, MA

Diploma (Class of 2000) Diploma (Class of 2000)
Member of varsity lacrosse and intramural crew teams Valedictorian and National Merit Scholar
GPA 4.0

WORK EXPERIENCE
WORK EXPERIENCE
Dean Consultants, New York, NY (2004 2006)
Analyst, Investment Banking Division Teach for America, Houston, TX (2004 2006)
Performed a variety of analytical calculations, including a complete audit on each Corps Member
of six mutual funds. Audited financial services clients, including banks and asset Taught 6th grade in an inner-city elementary school in Texas.
management companies.

LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP
Vice President, Yale Women in Law
Intramurals Coordinator, Boston College School of Law Treasurer, Yale Latino Law Students’ Association
Captain, Varsity Lacrosse Team, Rutgers University (2002 National Champions) Volunteer, Cambridge Battered Women’s Shelter
ROTC member, Rutgers University

INTERESTS
INTERESTS
Volunteering, tutoring inner-city youth, cooking
Lacrosse, squash, crew

Figure B.2 Sample Mock Résumés Presented to Law Interview Participants

 JONATHAN PHELPS SARAH THORNDIKE
EDUCATION EDUCATION

New York University School of Law, New York, NY Duke University School of Law, Durham, NC
JD (Expected 2009) JD (Expected 2009)
Class rank: Top 35% Class rank: Top 15%

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

BA Economics BA History
Class of 2006 Class of 2006
GPA 3.91 GPA 3.6

Brockton High School, Boston, MA Milton Academy, Milton, MA

Diploma (Class of 2002) Diploma (Class of 2002)
Valedictorian and National Merit Scholar Member of varsity squash and rugby teams
GPA 4.0

WORK EXPERIENCE
WORK EXPERIENCE
McKinsey & Company, Jersey City, NJ (Summer 2005)
Morgan Stanley, New York, NY (Summer 2005) Summer Intern
Summer Analyst, Investment Banking Performed market and pricing research for a growth strategy for a leading
Worked with leveraged finance groups on credit syndications on leveraged financial services organization.
buyouts (LBOs). Served on the left hand of mergers and acquisitions deals of
clients worth $450 million. Collaborated on weekly mezzanine deal review.
LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP Captain, Women’s Varsity Squash, Princeton University

Ranked top player in the country (2004)
Member, NYU Law Review First Runner-Up, Miss Massachusetts Competition (2002)
Editor-in-Chief, The Daily Princetonian
Volunteer, Trenton Youth Tutors
INTERESTS

INTERESTS Squash, rugby, skiing, traveling

Running, politics, traveling, volunteering

Figure B.2 Continued

 methodological details 309

ANNULKAH ROBINSON
EDUCATION

St. John’s University School of Law, New York, NY

JD (Expected 2009)
Class rank: Top 5%

Fordham University, New York, NY

BA Political Science
Class of 2004
GPA 4.0

Herbert H. Lehman High School, Bronx, NY

Diploma (Class of 2000)
GPA 4.0

WORK EXPERIENCE

Thelen Reid & Priest, New York, NY (2004 2006)

Legal Assistant
Paralegal for the corporate division of a large New York law firm.

LEADERSHIP
Member, St. John’s Law Review
Finance Chair, Black Law Student Organization, St. John’s Law School
Co-founder, Corporate Law Club, St. John’s Law School
Co-captain, Varsity Track Team, Fordham University

INTERESTS

Politics, volunteering, competitive sports

Figure B.2 Continued