  How do socioeconomically unequal screening practices impact access to elite
firms and what policies might reduce inequality? Using personnel data from
elite U.S. and European multinational corporations recruiting from an elite
Indian college, I show that caste disparities in hiring do not arise in many
job search stages, including: applications, application reading, written
aptitude tests, large group debates that assess socio-emotional skills, and job
choices. Rather, disparities arise in the final round, comprising non-technical
personal interviews that screen on family background, neighborhood, and
"cultural fit." These characteristics are plausibly weakly correlated with
productivity (at the interview round) but strongly correlated with caste.
Employer willingness to pay for an advantaged caste is as large as that for a
full standard deviation increase in college GPA. A hiring subsidy that
eliminates the caste penalty would be more cost-effective in diversifying elite
hiring than equalizing the caste distribution of pre-college test scores or
enforcing hiring quotas.
