When you are in the position to do so, hire people with unconventional backgrounds. Prefer the un-credentialed person with promise who had to drop out of univer

When you are in the position to do so, hire people with unconventional backgrounds. Prefer the un-credentialed person with promise who had to drop out of university because they had a kid; take the rough diamonds; ignore the degree and look at the experience or side projects or life story. How? Demand a cover letter with every application. Weight that massively higher than the resume. In interviews, select overwhelmingly for raw intelligence and grit - look for a spark in the conversation; go off the track a bit and ask about broader implications of some thing you're working on; probe for resilience and determination in overcoming problems. Then, keep in mind the composition of your entire team when hiring. Try to build a heterogeneous group with a variety of skills and experience. You could use a few top-school people for sure; they have great polish and poise and facility with words (usually) and those attributes are useful in representing your company to others. By far the easiest way to let this happen is to have a very wide default accept at the resume review stage. Point is, no one person is in a position to make that broad systemic change. Make some changes in your particular corner of the world and, over time, it'll spread. EDIT: sorry, I think this should have gone under forgottenpass's succinct reply which is saying the same thing.