Don't say 'elite: Corporate firms' new pitch is meritocracy

McKinsey, Accenture, and other big firms want to recruit with a wider net, focusing more on skills than on pedigree

- SARAH KESSLER

If you ask a graduating MBA student, a prep school guidance counselor or the internet how to be hired at the global consulting firm McKinsey, you're likely to find a list of prestigious "target schools" where it has consistently aimed its recruiting efforts. You know the ones Harvard, Yale, Stanford.

But these days, McKinsey would prefer a different answer. "Exceptional can come from anywhere," its career website says. And then, in case that wasn't clear enough, "We hire people, not degrees," and also, "We believe in your potential, regardless of your pedigree." Katy George, Mckinsey's chief people officer, told Fortune last year that the firm had increased the number of schools that its new hires came from to 1,500 from about 700, part of its process of "pivoting from pedigree to potential."

Many companies are working toward a similar makeover.

"Elite" has never sat well with many American institutions, but the word has taken a particular beating in recent years.