The fact that top firms have blunt, inefficient hiring algorithms is in theory a good thing for equality/competition/dynamism in the long run. Imagine they accurately assessed every graduate in the job market and always harvested the best ones.
I don't think blunt and inefficient are necessarily the same in this instance. The hiring managers are basically outsourcing the prescreening to the college admission boards. That method certainly allows a huge number of great candidates to slip through the cracks. However,it also is an incredibly quick and efficient way to narrow down applications to a group that is on average "better" than the general population.
Another firm can try to capitalize on the market inefficiencies and hire tons of Brown grads. Although they will likely need to spend more time and money on the hiring process since the candidates aren't as thoroughly prescreened. None of us know if that will really pay off in the end.
I see what you're saying, but hasn't this been going on for decades? Wouldn't that indicate that it is actually efficient for the scale of their business?
I think one of the key points in the article is when the recruiter suggests that basically they are free-riding off of the admissions committees of the top schools. That makes a lot more sense than blanket elitism, which would be costly and inefficient in the long term.
And for decades established firms have been tumbling from their perches and replaced by new ones. I don't have stats to back that up though so I could be wrong.
But even just the idea of free-riding college admission committees - if that's their idea of capturing the best candidates, then they're turning a blind eye to students who underachieve until they actually reach higher education (or who can't afford to enter institutions like Harvard anyway). Clearly they leave a gap which allows the possibility of weaker firms grabbing the best talent.
