Two candidates sitting in the same waiting room, outside the same interview panel, for the same academic post. Both hold doctorates, have similar publications, and have shown promise as scholars. The difference is decisive: One has a portal to upload the CV, pay the application fee, and receive a confirmation email. The other has a godfather on the panel and a well-placed letter of recommendation. One arrives as an applicant; the other is already in the room. When the shortlist is announced, few are surprised by the outcome.

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Concerns about fairness

Academia has long portrayed itself as a meritocratic institution where talent, research excellence, and scholarly contributions determine professional success. Recruitment committees evaluate publications, citations, teaching records, and h-indexes to ensure fairness and objectivity in hiring and promotion. Yet beneath these formal mechanisms lies a less visible but highly influential system of recommendations, references, and professional connections that often shapes academic careers in profound ways. This raises a fundamental question: What matters more in academia, who you know or what you know?

In theory, recommendation letters and professional references serve legitimate purposes. Academic work is difficult to evaluate solely through numerical indicators. Letters from supervisors, mentors, and senior scholars can provide valuable insights into a candidate’s intellectual potential, research independence, and future promise. Networking similarly facilitates collaboration and scholarly community building, creating opportunities for researchers to connect and advance collective knowledge.

However, the growing significance of recommendations and networks has generated concerns about fairness. Academic success appears to depend not only on scholarly achievement but also on proximity to influential individuals and prestigious institutional networks. Colleagues, mentors, and collaborators are not viewed as intellectual partners but as potential career assets. The question shifts from “What can we learn from one another?” to “Who can help advance my career?”

The social capital factor

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu described this advantage as social capital - the resources and opportunities people gain through relationships and networks. In academia, this takes the form of networking with influential supervisors, prestigious institutional affiliations, renowned collaborators, and professional connections. Unfortunately, access to these opportunities is unevenly distributed in academia and often concentrated among a relatively small group of established actors who influence recruitment, publication, collaboration, and promotion.

On one side are scholars trained at prestigious institutions, carrying the pedigree of renowned supervisors and connected to influential mentors and networks. Their CV is not merely submitted; it is introduced, accompanied by personal endorsements, informal recommendations, and behind-the-scenes advocacy that no online application portal can replicate. On the other hand, there are equally capable researchers from less-resourced universities, first-generation learners, and scholars from marginalised social backgrounds who lack access to these powerful connections. They enter academia without the inherited professional capital that others take for granted. For these scholars, academic excellence alone may not be sufficient for success.

Homophily

Networks and recommendations matter precisely because they shape who feels familiar to a hiring committee. A letter from a well-known supervisor, or an introduction from a respected collaborator, does not merely vouch for a candidate’s ability; it signals that the candidate belongs to a recognisable circle. This tendency reflects what sociologists describe as homophily: the inclination to favour people who resemble ourselves in educational background, professional identity, or institutional culture. It frequently surfaces in discussions of “fit,” a term that sounds neutral but can mask a preference for candidates who look, think, speak, and socialise like existing faculty members. Recruitment, thus, becomes relationship-based rather than merit-based.

Together, these dynamics operate largely beneath the surface of formal evaluation processes, making them difficult to challenge and easy to mistake for natural outcomes of merit. While often informal and unintentional, these processes significantly restrict the circulation of talent and reinforce existing power structures. Over time, these mechanisms contribute to what many scholars describe as academic aristocracy: the reproduction of privilege through elite institutions, influential mentors, and prestigious networks.

A call for transparency

This does not imply that networking or recommendations should be eliminated. Academic work is inherently social and collaborative. Mentorship, professional communities, and scholarly networks remain essential for intellectual growth and innovation. The problem arises when access to influential networks becomes a prerequisite for recognition and career advancement. In such circumstances, recommendation systems risk functioning less as tools for identifying talent and more as mechanisms for reproducing existing inequalities. These concerns can be addressed by increasing transparency in recruitment processes, reducing excessive reliance on informal references, broadening evaluation criteria, and creating more equitable networking opportunities.

As higher education continues to expand globally, universities must confront an uncomfortable question: are recommendation letters and academic networks helping institutions identify the best scholars, or are they creating new forms of exclusion hidden behind the language of meritocracy. The answer will determine whether academia remains a genuinely open intellectual community or evolves into a system where success increasingly depends not on what you know, but on who you know.

(Gowhar Rashid is associated with NCTE, and Waheed Ahmad is with NCERT. Views expressed are personal.)