Divided Pipelines: Pre-Professional Clubs and Racial Inequality in Elite Labor Markets

• In Event: 30226 - Centering the Experiences of Workers in an Unequal Labor Market

Abstract

This study examines how pre-professional clubs, as emerging labor market pipeline initiatives, produce antecedents to racial inequalities in elite professional services (EPS) careers. Pre-professional clubs are student-led organizations at colleges and universities that provide valuable career development resources for students aspiring to enter specific professional fields. Drawing on participant observations of the interview and deliberation sessions conducted by two of the most competitive investment banking and consulting clubs at a top U.S. university, I uncover mechanisms through which unstructured interview evaluations systematically disadvantage non-White candidates in gaining membership to these organizations. Specifically, while desirable behavioral traits create evaluation leeway for White candidates with flawed technical performance, resulting in acceptance, the same traits fail to mitigate scrutiny of non-White candidates’ technical skills or elevate their imperfect applications to acceptance. Conversely, non-White candidates lacking desirable behavioral traits are rejected despite strong technical abilities, whereas White candidates are not penalized for the same reason. I also identify factors leading to non-White candidates’ acceptance and White candidates’ rejection. This study extends research on elite labor market inequalities by exploring how pre-professional clubs as pipeline initiatives shape access to EPS careers, as well as contributes to the evaluation literature by theorizing how racial biases produce unequal evaluation outcomes by influencing the interplay between behavioral and technical skill assessments in unstructured evaluations.

Author

• Zorina Chen, University of Pennsylvania