Employers may see them as less prepared, but a simple intervention can flip the script
The first-gen applications were significantly less successful, receiving 26% fewer callbacks for an interview than the group that didn’t disclose the candidate’s background.
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Peter Belmi, PhD ’15, fields lots of queries from his graduating students at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where he is a professor. Many of them want career advice. But students who are the first in their family to earn a college degree have a particular question, Belmi says. “They want to know if they should include their first-generation status on their job applications.”
He talked it over with several colleagues — including his former doctoral adviser at Stanford, Margaret Neale — and the group agreed that it could go either way. Hiring managers might see it as a plus, but some research suggested that the first-gen label might carry a stigma.
“On one hand,” says Neale, a professor emerita of organizational behavior at Stanford GSB, “being first-generation fits the old Horatio Alger narrative that Americans love: the gritty underdog who overcomes hardships and bootstraps themselves up to success. It takes an exceptional person to do that.”
But, according to Neale, others might believe that one’s class background leaves a mark. These young people may have grown up without the socializing influence of any college-educated role models. Perhaps their schools were under-resourced, or they didn’t have a good study situation at home.
“Basically, it’s a deficit mindset,” Neale says of this perspective. “It’s like, here are all things they lack, compared to other applicants — rather than focusing on the unique strengths that enabled them to beat the odds.”
This piece originally appeared in Stanford Business Insights from Stanford Graduate School of Business. To receive business ideas and insights from Stanford GSB click here: (To sign up: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/about/emails)