Field report · June 2026
Skill, not signals.
What four decades of hiring research say about bias, blind evaluation, and screening for what actually predicts performance.
The name on the pageBlind evaluationWhat predicts performanceThe cost of the pile
The short version
The pile rewards the wrong things.
Most hiring still starts with a name, a school, and a network. Decades of evidence show these proxies are poor guides to who can actually do the job, and reliable carriers of bias. When you hide those signals and test the work instead, who advances changes, and it changes for the better.
+50%1
More interview callbacks for résumés with white-sounding names than identical résumés with Black-sounding names.
r = .515
How strongly a structured interview predicts job performance. A résumé's years of experience score only .18.
52%3
Of US job postings now list no formal education requirement at all, up from 48% five years earlier.
<1 in 7004
Hires were actually affected when employers announced they were dropping degree requirements.
What is inside
01 The name on the page
02 How a network hires itself
03 Hide the signal
04 The degree proxy
05 What actually predicts
06 The cost of the pile
07 What works
Method and sources