Center for Effective Global Action

We measure the impact of two main signals of tertiary-level human capital accumulation, college quality and certification, on hiring in India. Using a correspondence experiment, we send 16,944 resumes to 1412 job postings for recent engineering graduates at small and medium firms. In precisely estimated results, we find that these employers do not respond to signals of tertiary education quality. Specifically, there is no impact on callbacks of having graduated from a mid-tier college ranked in the top 300 relative to an unranked college outside of the top 1000, despite significant government investment in college rankings. There is also no impact of scoring in the highest as opposed to the lowest quartile of a post-tertiary certification test that has been taken by millions of graduating students. There is evidence that women modestly benefit in the first stage of hiring in this market, with this effect concentrated in some regions.