Can you still distinguish yourself at a second-tier grad school? I have noticed while reading CVs of professors in STEM fields that universities only hire up. First-tier and second-tier universities seem to only recruit professors from first-tier PhD programs, third tier universities only hire from top and second tier PhD programs, and so on. It seems like it is very unlikely for anyone graduating from a university that's not first-tier to have an academic career. I can think of a few explanations:

Maybe everyone wants to hire the first-tier &quot;brand.&quot; Hiring committees could be too busy to evaluate the relative merits of their candidates, choosing to trust in brand names instead.
There could be something wrong with second-tier PhD programs and below that cause them to produce candidates unsuitable for tenure track. Maybe there is something that certain universities instill in everyone who goes there that causes both increased output when they are there, and a long and successful career afterwards.
Perhaps most students bright enough to produce an impressive amount of research in grad school are bright enough to produce an impressive amount of research in undergrad. In that case, most of the good researchers get admitted to top-tier programs, making it unsurprising that virtually every tenured professor came from one. In this theory, research potential is an innate characteristic that universities have little effect on.

If the first dominates, then I should not bother getting a PhD unless I can go to a top-tier university, or unless I think it will boost an industrial career. If the second dominates, I would still want to go to the best school possible, but it would not be completely pointless to go to a second-tier institution; maybe hard work could close the gap. If the third explanation is true, the university's prestigiousness hardly matters at all, and I should choose based on factors like how interested I am in the research being conducted there.
So, in the light of these guesses, do you think it is possible for someone to distinguish themselves at a second-tier institution through hard work, high research output, and maybe a really good thesis - or is the second-to-first tier gap impossible to jump?
First, I think it is important to recognize that the definitions of &quot;1st tier&quot;, &quot;2nd tier&quot;, etc. are not so universally defined. World or national rankings of universities are substantially based on the opinions of department heads. The differences between the #1 school and the #20 school may not be that large.
Professors also move from &quot;2nd tier&quot; to &quot;1st tier&quot; schools all the time based on demonstrated research output. Therefore, it is possible to improve your value to hiring committees with more productivity.
Now to analyze your 3 options (which I think are fairly comprehensive): I think all 3 have some impact.

Departments often hire faculty with new expertise, meaning that no one at the department is an expert in that subfield. If they are not expert enough to evaluate individual papers directly, they may use as a proxy the quality of the journals which papers are published in, or the ranking of a school at which the student graduated from. However, I think this has the least impact because the quality of an individuals' research publications can usually be assessed separately from the ranking of their alma mater.
&quot;1st tier&quot; universities often hire the most productive faculty and have the highest expectations for promotion and tenure. Faculty at &quot;1st tier&quot; schools may have the best research abilities, skills, or ideas and share these ideas or skills with their students resulting in their students also becoming more successful researchers.
&quot;1st tier&quot; universities can pick the most promising new graduate students, which includes students who had the best combination of ability, skills, and motivation in undergrad and going into grad school. These students are likely to continue to perform at the top.

To answer your question directly, I believe that a student at a &quot;2nd tier&quot; school could certainly distinguish themselves sufficiently to be hired at a &quot;1st tier&quot; school. It happens infrequently because the students at &quot;1st tier&quot; schools have the advantages of being advised by top researchers and being top students when entering grad school.
Nevertheless, distinguishing yourself for a faculty job is hard at any school. I know many PhD alumni of &quot;1st tier&quot; schools who left academia.
Finally, not every school can be &quot;1st tier&quot;, and professors at &quot;2nd tier&quot; schools can still do good work in research and teaching. You may want to consider whether you prefer being a professor at a &quot;2nd tier&quot; school to an industry job.