What we found
- In our Instagram poll, 55% said private school gives only a slight career edge, 24% said a huge advantage, 15% said they are equal and 6% said public is better.
- Where you went to school comes up most in law, consulting, stockbroking and property. In tech, engineering, mining and government it barely comes up.
- The advantage most people agree on is getting your foot in the door through who you know.
- Plenty of hiring managers in our community ignore school and hire on capability, and some mark private school down.
Private school or public school?
In Sydney and Melbourne, you’ll probably get hit with this question at one point or another when meeting someone, and a lot of people can’t stand it. We get why it happens though. Australia is small, and where you went to school is everyone’s shortcut to finding something in common, whether that’s a mutual mate, a sport or the suburb you grew up in. So should it matter? In tech, engineering, mining and government it barely comes up. In law, consulting, stockbroking and property, it’s a different story and the same goes for a lot of Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Most people agree that one advantage of private school would be getting your foot in the door. Knowing the right people gets you the coffee, the referral and sometimes the interview. It matters most in the final round, once the online tests and credentials are ticked off and it comes down to whether the person across the table trusts you’ll deliver for them. It’s a lot easier to trust someone whose brother you know or whose kids went to the same school as yours. That’s how the old boys’ club shows up in upper management now, as a bias towards people who feel familiar. From what we heard about women’s networking events, the girls’ clubs and female leadership run on exactly the same thing.
Getting in is one thing, but doing the job is another, and being the nepo kid only gets you so far once you’re there. Plenty of hiring managers in our community ignore school entirely and hire on capability, and some mark private school down because they don’t want that air of elitism in their team. That isn’t fair either, since nobody picked their school at 12. We’d be lying if we said nobody cares though. Some people still do, and it’s worth knowing that bias is there so you’re not losing out without understanding why.
If you went to a public school, you mightn’t realise what the person next to you picked up along the way, whether that’s years of interview practice, a parent’s mate in the industry or just being comfortable around senior people. Knowing that helps far more than resenting it, and a chip on your shoulder about it, in either direction, only gets in your own way. And if you’re in the same role as someone and still sizing them up by where they went to school, that says more about you than them. Don’t be the one asking whether your colleague went to Joeys or Scots...
How did our poll vote?
We asked on Instagram whether private school gives you a career advantage.
What did TAC readers tell us?
We asked whether school still matters at work. Here is what some of you said.
Pretty sure my employer won’t hire someone who didn’t go to a private school. Not that they’d ever say it, but having a “personal network of potential clients” is the only way in.
I’m a recruiter for a global mining company. Can confirm we rarely even look at high school education when assessing talent - only tertiary. With early talent programs, we review high school location and treat public vs private candidates entirely the same.
Had a Partner at a Big 4 say to me when looking at grad applications “we’re only interviewing people with Private School education because it shows they have good values”. Sorry but the only thing it shows is that their parents are wealthy??
In WA it is huge. In my lateral hire Big Four interview with the partner all we talked about was our schools. ...
I’m a head of recruitment and the only thing private school gives an advantage is POSSIBLY putting the person in front of a manager for an interview. 90% of the time they come across arrogant, don’t know why they are there, entitled and have NO Hustle behaviour. Private school good for connections possibly but the way we work has changed alot.
I come from the west and have always been concerned about not having been at a private school! The higher I get the more i realized it has nothing to do with longer term success! Yes it might have got them a leg up early on, what I quickly discovered was if they are reliant on those connections and have a silver spoon then they don't get far! Good work ethic and hard work will get u further!
If a candidate went to my school, or my son’s school, that’s a deciding factor. Rightly or wrongly - that’s fact.
Source: The Aussie Corporate reader poll and replies, October 2026. Spotted an error? Correct something.
