To be upset about ‘university blind’ recruitment

Contrary to the views of some in the Government, a university education isn’t a means to an economic end. It’s to educate - so improve thinking skills, knowledge of a particular subject and the ability to understand and analyse that subject. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a student from a particular “elite” university is going to be better at a particular job than someone who went to a post 92 university. It’s about the skill set required for that job.

Look, for example, at the recruitment process for the armed forces for officers- in particular the RAF, which is recruiting for specific roles rather than generic officers (as in the army). The rigorous computer based aptitude tests, interviews and selection board are focused much more on innate aptitude and potential to be trained than where someone went to university. So someone who hadn’t gone to university at all might be considered to have more potential to be trained as, say, an intelligence officer than another person with a Cambridge degree. The latter simply shouldn’t be treated as a meal ticket for life.

@Circe7 All that education and you still can't work out that no one really cares? Do you really think employers sit around a big table worrying about whether someone who went to, say, Southampton had to write a trickier essay than someone who went to Portsmouth?

Firms these days will set their own recruitment criteria because what someone does in academia is not a reliable indicator of what they will be like as an employee.

A fellow alumni! I got a first from the OU too and had to work. The OU was very similar in standard to the university I went to previously, which was Russell Group.

@SchnitzelVonCrummsTum
Yes - when I was at Cambridge our exams were only moderated by academic from Durham and UCL.

My difficulty with this idea is that it makes Oxbridge students who get a 2.1 look worse than other students who get a 1st.

I don't really believe that a student who goes into Oxford or Cambridge with 4 A*s at A Level and has an IQ of 130, works very hard at university and does well but comes out with a 2.1 is a worse student academically than one who gets 3 Cs at A Level and comes out with a 1st from a lower ranking university. Sometimes they will be (e.g. because someone might really blossom at university) but not on average.

Just as an example from my own experience. I was in the top few students academically in my school. Went to Cambridge where I was decidedly average and came out with a 2.1, which I worked very hard for. But afterwards came top of my year at law school and top in the country in my professional exams. I know many people who have had a similar experience.

On my course we wrote 12 essays a term plus 3 pieces of language work a week. My friend on the same course at another university did 2 essays per term. We were expected to work fluently in two languages (plus sometimes my supervisors expected us to read in French or German despite this not being our degree subject), whereas many courses with the same name at other universities have no language element. My boyfriend at the time was thrown out of Cambridge for failing his exams (natural sciences) but went on to get a first at another Russell Group university with little difficulty. One of my friends was a brilliant mathematician (child prodigy and won nationwide maths challenges etc. during school) but got a 2.2 because of some bizarre grading system an academic was trying out at the time where they deducted marks for getting anything wrong.

I agree that degree class and academic ability are only one relevant factor in recruitment and for many careers not the most important one (though I work in a highly technical field where I think academic ability is probably the most important factor and you do need some people who are really brilliant academically.). But if you are judging academic ability by asking for degree class, it seems unfair to take away the key contextual information of what institution a person attended.

To misquote Captain Jack Sparrow- yes, but she was PM.

I did not get a first from Oxbridge and there's no way I would have found time to work in termtime. I got a first from the OU whilst working more than 20 hours a week. Getting a first from Oxbridge is very very hard.

Alos to answer your initial question yanbu massively so.

We have a huge problem with over privlidged and under talented people rising to the top. Perhaps this alleged uni blind recruitment will start to address this.

Take it you’re not Oxbridge.

I'm sure your kid will be fine. Maybe step back a bit form their lives if they are post uni applying for jobs. Also your other kid can't be that bright if they think they might as well go wherever as there's supposedly a few companies not looking at which uni you went to.

Surely the boat race shows dedication and resilience?

Yeah. I sit there with applications like this thinking "would I want to work with someone who is like this?" Then I pop their application in the bin and move on to the next.

I've been on the recruiter side of this.

Some candidates do try to get around it, putting things like "when I was in the Oxford v Cambridge boat race" in the narrative sections of application forms. Whether it does them any good is another question.

posted too early complete with mistakes.

Anyway, op, your dc deserves to be rewarded by society for the hard work and overcoming adversity. At the same time, a hard working kid who hasn't gone to Oxford or Cambridge also deserves great opportunities. There is something wrong with the system and recruitment needs to account for more than the degree and where it came from, including adversities.

Well done to your kids and keep encouraging them

I’m guessing Aberystwyth?

Yes, but it does tend to be easier to get a first when you can study 100% of the time, rather than when you have to work 20 hours a week like a lot of students nowadays in order to afford living costs.

Your attitude would be very different if your kid could only get into Wolverhampton.

no disrespect intended to anybody who went to Wolvo.

4 years of coaching.! for grammar…..
Our friends started their children at age 4.
So Evenings, Saturdays. Plus their school was a Grammar Crammer. ( all paid )
It was discussed at the first assembly at reception.
Not well rounded at all, just taught to the test.

And yes they moved near the Grammars.

The ego and competitiveness of academic is so unhealthy. Those who buy into it seem constantly anxious that they might not be recognised as the very best.

Meanwhile, story from the real world. Girl in my school group and I both went to study social sciences in university. She went to a prestigious top-10 university, I went to a small uni in Wales, something like 80 in the league tables. Don’t know what sort of time she had, but I had an absolute ball. Happiest days of my life.

We both tried for the same professional doctorate a few years after graduation, I got on, she didn’t.

The doctorate was run by a very prestigious university, but I soon learned that their undergrad course was crap. The big-gun academics were far too high and mighty to spend much time and effort on the undergrads. I feel so lucky, I got an excellent education, the time of my life, and the job of my dreams, wouldn’t change a thing!

It certainly has. Trebling tuition fees ruined my firm's recruitment model. These fees put off a lot of fantastic kids from going to university at all, let alone to the ones closest to home. As a result we found our recruitment days attracted more and more posh dickheads (think the 21 year old who dresses like your grandfather, complete with dickie bow) than people who had a genuine shot at joining the firm! The last thing we want is someone who thinks they should be promoted because of where they went to school or what they studied rather than how they perform on the job.

very true. i usee to rue not going to Cambridge or Oxford. In the intervening years, I have read theses of the courses I would have enrolled in/departments I would have been and was shocked at how poor and basic they are. Yet those people gor better jobs in part for simply going to such unis. It should be about a person's ability not just the uni they attended

Agreed. 'A first is a first' simply isn't true when applied across all universities within a particular subject: there is (to my mind) unacceptable variability. It is markedly easier to get a first at some places than others. I also deplore degree inflation, which has been happening over the last 2 decades and has led to really quite large proportions of students getting firsts every year.

The lack of cross-institutional equivalence is one reason why external markers tend (generally, not always!) to come from institutions broadly similar to the one they're externally marking for - for example, Durham and York do a lot of external marking for each other.

I agree. Something is seriously wrong with that statement. How is getting a degree from Oxford or any top university not a demonstration of hard work? so those who studied hard and passed all their exams and got the right work experience which got them into Oxford are degree snobs. Those who went to less rigorous universities are the hard workers? not saying people who go to less rigorous unis don't work hard, but how have you flipped it that those who went to Oxford are not hard workers at all, they are just degree snobs?

I'm not sure where people are also getting the idea OP's dc is privileged? they said nothing about privilege in the OP. People have just jumped to conclusions that they must be from a private school.

It seems some posters are desperately trying to dumb down anything that says 'academic excellence' so that it is no longer worth the paper it is written on, no longer aspired to and no longer admired so that they can feel comfortable with their own mediocre achievements.. Wonder what their agenda is?

Hahah I can't work out whether you're being staggeringly patronising or just not understanding my point.

Yes, a degree at a top uni is a great achievement. But it shouldn't define the person, it can help shape them and be part of what they have to offer, but it isn't (and shouldn't be) all that they are.

I don't know of any 'top job' that recruits solely on the basis of one interview these days. There's usually an online test, then an in person test, then often a couple of interview type rounds, sometimes including a group task or whatever. And having a personality and ethics/philosophy that's a good fit for the team is as important for the new recruit as it is for their employer - with or without the right kind of smile 🙄