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Hiring by college affiliation not always a good idea

Patrick Ireland finds the continuing tug of school and fraternity ties in the business world bizarre but difficult to escape. The founder of http://www.antiventurecapital.com once helped four graduates of Washington State University, home of the Cougars, get financing for their pet project. Whenever the four met someone who was also a Cougar, "They’d jump up and down and shout, ‘He’s a Coug!’ " Ireland recalls.

He also says a good number of his classmates — mostly "party animals," he notes — ended up in the marketing department of a major consumer-brand company with offices in western Canada.

And he remembers how much effort his former business partner put into helping a fellow fraternity member. The young man had an idea for a door lock that people could use if they felt a hotel’s locks were insufficient. "It was dumb," says Ireland. But "my friend started going out of his way to provide assistance for this guy." When Ireland asked why, his partner said, "He’s a fraternity brother," as though that explained it all.

School ties are immensely powerful in the business world, providing pre-existing networks of relationships and low search costs. But while relying on them often works out just fine, lost in the mix of well-meaning loyalty to educational institutions and nostalgia for the past is the possibility that the ties that bind can also blind, undermining corporate efforts to build meritocracies.

By Jared Sandberg
The Wall Street Journal

Full Story: http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635190736,00.html

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