Charan Naidoo
PhD
Sociology
Charan Naidoo is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Melbourne. His research interests revolve around young people’s experiences of inequality at elite law, consulting and investment banking firms. Charan’s time working at a strategy consulting firm piqued his curiosity about how inequalities work at elite firms. Before working in strategy consulting, Charan was a Graduate Policy Officer in the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, where he worked on digital identity policy. Charan also worked as a Community Engagement Advisor to the Attorney-General of Australia. He has previously published in the Journal of Sociology.
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Thesis
Young people in elite firms in Australia: who gets in? who gets on?
Elite firms are the holy grail of employment for young graduates in fields such as law and finance. These ‘gold-collar workers’, a subset of ‘white-collar workers’, are particularly young, ambitious and well paid. While scholars have rightfully paid great attention to precarious or ‘bad’ jobs, it is also worth studying these ‘good’ jobs because inequality is driven by privilege, as well as disadvantage. In this research project, I will interview a diverse range of 40 young people working at top-tier law, consulting and investment banking firms in Australia, to understand who gets into and who succeeds at these firms. This project may be the first to focus on a single group of young people who have experienced hiring and work at elite firms, and in a new context, Australia. This project seeks to contribute to an evidence base that helps inform policy debates and improves access by disadvantaged groups to highly paid roles at elite firms.