Pedigree

How social class determines who lands the best jobs Americans are taught to believe that upward mobility is possible for anyone who is willing to work hard, regardless of their social status, yet it is often those from affluent backgrounds who land the best jobs. Pedigree takes readers behind the closed doors of top-tier investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms to reveal the truth about who really gets hired for the nation's highest-paying entry-level jobs, who doesn't, and why. Drawing on scores of in-depth interviews as well as firsthand observation of hiring practices at some of America's most prestigious firms, Lauren Rivera shows how, at every step of the hiring process, the ways that employers define and evaluate merit are strongly skewed to favor job applicants from economically privileged backgrounds. She reveals how decision makers draw from ideas about talent-what it is, what best signals it, and who does (and does not) have it-that are deeply rooted in social class. Displaying the "right stuff" that elite employers are looking for entails considerable amounts of economic, social, and cultural resources on the part of the applicants and their parents. Challenging our most cherished beliefs about college as a great equalizer and the job market as a level playing field, Pedigree exposes the class biases built into American notions about the best and the brightest, and shows how social status plays a significant role in determining who reaches the top of the economic ladder.

Lauren A. Rivera With a new afterword by the author

Acknowledgments xi
1 Entering the Elite 1
2 The Playing Field 29
3 The Pitch 55
4 The Paper 83
5 Setting the Stage for Interviews 113
6 Beginning the Interview: Finding a Fit 135
7 Continuing the Interview: The Candidate's Story 147
8 Concluding the Interview: The Final Acts 183
9 Talking It Out: Deliberating Merit 211
10 Social Reconstruction 253
11 Conclusion 267
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 287
Appendix A Who Is Elite? 291
Appendix B Methodological Details 295
Appendix C List of Interviews 311
Notes 319
References 351
Index 369