The latter. Having been to quite a couple of interviews with hiring managers, most of them interviewed in a way that they would have hired themselves, so case n

The latter. Having been to quite a couple of interviews with hiring managers, most of them interviewed in a way that they would have hired themselves, so case number 1. Case number 2, hiring people that they subconsciously wish themselves to be, is coming more from an observation of all these hiring practices posts here on HN. The latter would be quite a nice empirical/psychological study, though I fully expect such a study to already exist. Disclaimer: I'm living in Germany and nearly exclusively interviewed in Germany so far. There's nothing comparable to the top US schools here, so school reputation is probably much less important than in the US.