It's who you know, not what you know

@Chattygirl123 I was a school governor and sat on interview panels. I was amazed at the bias within the rest of the set up.
My most memorable example was the candidate who was proper ugly. There is something about her features that is remarkable at first glance but obviously you very quickly get used to it and then it's just a person in your community.
The male head teacher and chair of governors were noticeably swayed by the standard attractiveness of another candidate who ticked the 'Miss Honey' appearance. It was amazing to witness. I used it all the time in training, it really highlights how backwards some organisations unexpectedly are.
They used to scan the application, and make judgements on home address, uni choice, bizarre things. It's often not you, it absolutely is them.

You're conflating here. It isn't necesaary to come from the upper echelons to work in a theatre, nor film tech, nor gallery security, nor cinema check-in, nor marketing, nor crafts, nor hundreds of other roles. The roles people are grumbling about here are a very niche set.

I understand where you are coming from. I graduated as a primary school teacher in NI many moons ago. Was all over the 6 counties for job interviews, the majority of which had a preferred candidate. Soul destroying. It's very much not what you know but who you know in this wee country and I had no-one in the teaching profession to help me get a job.

I'm not sure about this one. My background was sink council estate, OK secondary(I passed an 11+ to get into a catholic comp), local poly (cheaper than going away to uni) and I still ended up with a masters from a decent uni and a career Investment banking tech. From what I observed, the Investment Banks grad recruitment schemes didn't favour the privately educated. But they did favour organised, focused, confident DCs who understood that spring weeks lead to internships that lead to grad scheme places.

That was to @GRex

There's also abundant evidence that social mobility in the arts is getting worse. Back in the 70s-80s if you were an artsy kid from a WC family you could go to youth clubs to practice, play in your school orchestra, study at uni for free, get benefits during the holidays to tide you over, even live in a squat in London while you got started. Very little of that is available now.

Maybe have a quick look at the value of the arts to the UK economy. Hint: it's big.

I agree OP it’s tough. It’s not just about getting a foot in the door it’s also fitting in once you are there.
Im from a working class background and now a professional, as is my sister. Between us we are fairly well connected and my nephew in early twenties has had some bloody good work experience opportunities due to our connections between us. This has obviously given him a boost that we didn’t have.

Arts Council report link: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/cultural-freelancers-study-2024-our-largest-piece-research-freelance-sector TLDR: loads of WC people leave the sector because they can't make it work financially,we are all culturally impoverished as a result

It is definitely a thing. The Arts Council put out a report on it a month or two back. There's also a great book on it called Culture is bad for you.

Depends by on your age OP, yes it did used to be like this but isn't really, any more. I work for a big law firm which only recruits from non-Russell Group universities and is very high up the Employers Social Mobility Index. Many law firms and other large corporates do blind recruitment, where name of candidate and uni are removed from applications.

Conversely, 15 years ago when I was applying for training contracts, some of my male peers got training contracts at magic circle firms after a bit of a chat about rugby by way of "interview". That would not happen now.

STEM is the key to career success for people who are outsiders in any given society.

This. UK is a land of opportunity if you have the right degree/skills. Degree doesn't even have to be from a UK uni.

I don't know - I know quite a few working class people who've broken the glass ceiling into professions. Mainly because of their personalities and that fact that networked well at uni. Didn't just socialise with people while they were at uni but got to know friends of friends etc.
I also know of a few people who should have been guaranteed work after uni fail to get anywhere.

I don't think it's a school thing. It's a parent's thing!

I am from a single parent family. Lots of ACES in my background. Lots of poverty.

I went to private secondary school on a full fees bursary.

The people that came out of that school and progressed through their careers due to networking and connections, got those networks and connections from their parents. Not from school.

The kids like me from normal families haven't continued to mix with the elite. I'm a normal person living a normal life. My children are at state school. I've no idea how to network. I have no connections in the upper echelons of society. It's an alien world to me. I may have gone to the same school as some future politicians and ceo's, but they were just kids when I knew them. I didn't walk in their circles then and I don't now. My mum didn't mix with their parents when I was at school, other than to rsvp the occasional birthday party invite. We got on at school, but it was two parallel universes and the innocence of childhood which enabled friendships without the two worlds properly colliding.

It isn't the school. It's the parents that make the difference.

Also there is such a thing as invisible privilege that corrupts STEM professions too.

So many friends of my daughters looking for work experience at school, followed by internships post university, found them through family connections; whether they wanted to work in a medical research lab, an art gallery or in aeronautical engineering. And the family connections can kick in later and help with career advancement too.

And that's aside from the initial privilege of attending a school where STEM subjects are taught by adequately qualified competent teachers. My nephew's comprehensive school had vacancies for physics and chemistry teachers the entire time he was there!

And I strongly disagree in turn. So many things that make life worth living are strongly related to creativity and the arts. Architecture, design, fashion, music, the aesthetics of public spaces, film, literature, sculpture and fine art all have infinite value to humans and to our daily lives. And some of them are multi-million pound industries too.

Ds1 went to an ordinary comprehensive school in a wc area, but got a place at Oxford and got a First in PPE. He then went and did a Masters in a related subject and got a Merit. He's been a member of the Labour Party since pussy was a cat and really wanted to go into politics. He got a job in London and is doing well, been promoted, is well regarded, good reputation etc. He did some volunteering with the Labour Party, went to meetings etc. He applied for quite a few parliamentary assistant jobs when they won the election and didn't even receive a reply. He has a wc background, there's no airs and graces about him. He's hardworking and has integrity. He would be perfect for such a role, but it's not going to happen because he comes from a far flung poor area and doesn't know anyone. Most of his friends at uni were the science crowd and he didn't put himself about enough even though he spoke at the Oxford Union etc. The right people aren't in the right jobs, no wonder the country's going to shit.

I have a LOT of issues with that report. Percentages taken since 1901, failure to take into account the differences in winning prizes versus commercial success, badly chosen sources on genetic intellect impacts, etc. If we look at people like Ramanujan,, to see how he fought his way through, by far the greatest barrier was the formal educational links meaning his terminology and structure didn't meet expected standards, rather than anything to do with his background. In fact, how on earth can anybody have written such a paper without mentioning Ramanujan anyway, who every university maths student learns about?

GRex, I think the issue is aiming for access to opportunities in all fields of work, no matter what social barriers exist and I think its well established they do exist.

Also 'who does the job best", can be open to interpretation and is perhaps another way of making class bias invisible.

I think this might be an issue for STEM too. This article from the guardian raises some interesting questions about that.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/07/the-science-behind-winning-nobel-prize-being-man-from-wealthy-family-torsten-bell

Re the point of view that "it doesn't matter as much when it's work that's perceived as being of low value" there was an interesting Freakonomics podcast in a similar vein, which was "is it okay for restaurants to racially profile their employees?" so are Indian restaurants ok to only employ Indian staff for example and the answer was no, not really but the conclusion was that nobody is going to do anything about it because it's low paid work and people aren't scrambling for the jobs anyway. So maybe similar applies to art history?

Is It Okay for Restaurants to Racially Profile Their Employees? - Freakonomics

I think it’s only in a limited number of career paths and also depends what you see as successful- contacts are more extreme upper end and to be honest then you’re heading into ‘not the real world’ territory- was involved in a court case a few years ago and the way they treated the less high up staff there was disgusting, scary to think people can go home at night and sleep having ordered people around and calling them ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ to their face!

Agree 100% OP. My DS is in a similar position to you.

Sure it's important. But for your concern to be valid we need to assume that the person hired is going to be much worse at doing that job than the person not hired. Some people are genuinely better than others at certain roles; whoever designed Discover Children's Story centre, whoever organises events at Hampton Court Palace, and various amazing small museums around the country showing amazing playable animatronics, or everything about vehicles that bring engineering to life. Do we know that those people happened to get in on merit while V&A tedium is run by someone who got in via nepotism? Genuine question, maybe you can make me bothered if so.

People genuinely don't do that same apathetic shrug when it's roles that matter to safety or the overall economy like scientist, engineer, medic, finance etc.

I think they do. Medicine has for so long been populated by the wealthy and male- there was a brief window when it opened up, but since 2010 it’s largely back to being those who can afford the fees for the length of the course, and then to fund their own CPD and exams for another 10-20 years before getting to consultant level.

And of course politicians, the most recent batch from Eton, Dulwich, Winchester etc has been disastrous for the country and yet there’s very little consequence for them personally or even any widespread commentary about it. It’s been a national shrug.