Do employers generally view Northwestern or Duke as more prestigious?

Neither Northwestern nor Duke has a meaningful overall prestige advantage with employers. Both are widely recognized as elite private universities, and for most entry-level hiring, the difference between the two names will be negligible compared with your major, internships, grades, skills, and interview performance.

Duke may have slightly stronger immediate name recognition in some parts of the Southeast and among employers familiar with its highly visible undergraduate and professional programs. Northwestern has especially strong recognition in the Chicago and Midwest markets, along with a distinctive reputation for journalism, communication, performing arts, engineering, and business-adjacent opportunities through Kellogg.

National employers that recruit at highly selective colleges are unlikely to treat one diploma as categorically more prestigious than the other. They are more likely to notice what you did there: relevant coursework, leadership, research, project work, and summer experience. For an undecided student, practical factors such as academic programs, campus culture, location, financial aid, and the alumni network in places where you may want to work should carry more weight than a small and highly context-dependent difference in perceived name value.