Civil Service Fast Stream

You tell me, you’re the one doing the gatekeeping.

@Xyloplane But it won’t be just the accent though will it? It’s impossible to know other than a gut feeling. It could be dc don’t get the jobs because they don’t apply! Civil Service fast stream is around 950 jobs. As I said earlier around 8000 applicants have had fsm. So the least advantaged appear to apply but only 1.6% of fsm applicants are successful but we don’t know why. It’s 2.7% for non fsm. Of course fsm people might have uber bright parents doing very low level work through choice. We don’t know.

Also half of applicants are not university leavers. They are older so they have experience and a degree.

Is that how you and Labour see it working? What is being used to assess the job and accent exactly

Try googling “accents and social mobility” and it might just give you a clue.

Exactly, such nonsense.

I’m surprised about that.
dc1 did the internship last year as told it bear no relation with the fast tracked application.
He did have his boss in London (dc was in the North of England) say that hed help him put applications together etc… but that’s it.

Agree with all this, also if he wants to work in the civil service the fast stream is just one option. He might also want to apply for Executive Officer or Higher Executive Officer roles on the civil service jobs website, that way he has more control of what role he gets and people can still get promoted very fast that way!

The hassle is created by legislation, its more onerous for a tradesman to take on an apprentice than in the past, and colleges require lecturers in the trades to undertake teaching qualifications, which in the past they did not. gone are the days of Joe the electrician teaching new recruits at the tech on Thursdays.

Very blunt instrument but would work, along with screening out anyone who went to a private school.

@dynamiccactus if the recruitment is blind, how will the admissions know where the applicant went to school?
Also, what if the applicant lies? Does the CS check up on applicants’ schooling?

Of course, blame the comp, not the “outreach” team at the multi-billion pound organisation that has a wealth of influence, information and money at its fingertips. God this bootlicking is so tiring.

Why do people think what parents did at 14 means dc have a regional accent? Why would accents be more represented? Most recruiters at the highest level do want to have a conversation with applicants but it’s not accent that matters. It’s what is said.

@Xyloplane Why didn’t your school give you info after the day? They were at fault. I’ve a very bright dsis and she wouldn’t consider applying to Oxbridge because she preferred her bubble. Her dc too. My DD did apply but we want to break out of our backgrounds. Attitudes matter and ambition matters but there’s a variety of ways to get the PhD.

It really is.

It is nonsense. I was one of the students who was subjected to such “outreach” activities. Ours involved taking G&T students from our London comp to visit Cambridge uni for the day when we were in year 10. We were taken on a lovely tour, spoken at about extracurricular activities that students at Cambridge did (a lot of talk about rowing) and then…shepherded back onto the bus.

No acknowledgement of the barriers we faced, nothing about the application process for Cambridge, no talks from admissions, finance, accommodation, SU etc. But I bet all the adults involved felt very good about themselves when we got back to our council estates. And guess what? None of us applied to Cambridge. I now have a PhD and a professional career. I most certainly could have studied at Cambridge. But as the first in my family to go to university I had absolutely no idea of what it would take to even apply. And my visit to Cambridge did not give me any clues.

I wish they had this thirty odd years ago.
I applied for loads of jobs in final year at university and got loads of interviews but no job probably because of my strong working class regional accent.
The job I did get offered had an Irish person as chief interviewer who would have listened to what I said rather than how I said it.

@MinerbirdIt’s 2.2%. Civil service fast stream is very competitive. Nearly 45,000 apply and already get 7785 applicants on Free school meals. I think that’s quite high. Lots of the privately educated who apply are on bursaries.

Delighted to say I would have qualified for the protected intern application! Dc wouldn’t because we’ve achieved our social mobility!

They have very specific criteria and character profiles they are looking . We know several who sound like your ds who have been successful. Ds has applied twice but not got in but works in cs now anyway. You can apply internally and more than once. It has not always run in recent years. One of the successful ones actually came off the scheme early to secure a ft role as the salary is restricted while on fast track and progression not guaranteed.

This

With gdpr can put anything down

Recruitment is blind so interviewers won't know that candidate did an internship. Only advantage would be 6 weeks work experience (and hopefully a bit of interview coaching).

I'm all for restricting the internship. Nice one Pat.

@Jakolantern I was a fast streamer and also am a fast stream assessor. The recruitment processes are very structured and there are lots of guides online on how to prepare and what to expect. Once you get past the verbal and numerical reasoning tests she major thing they are looking for is leadership ability. You are generally tested on your communication skills, motivation for working in the CS, your judgement and reasoning, and as I say leadership. As others have said though I would definitely advise your son to apply widely as it is competitive and even very good candidates don't always make it through. I am also not a white MC male but there are a lot of them!

NB name changed given this is identifying!

Yes I agree with this too. But I also think the current senior crop of SCS would have been coming through before so much attention was being paid to widening access. Our Department (small, Whitehall based) is definitely doing better at Exec / SCS diversity in recent years so it gives me hope that some of these initiatives are starting to pay off.

Erm, did you read the last sentence of my post?

Not sure what you are meant to do if you don't have a practical bent though,

And being in the trades isn't that easy - as well as having the practical skills, you also need to be able to solve problems and work well alone, you never know what (or who) you are going to encounter when you go to a job.

But again, if people want more tradesmen and women, then the existing ones will have to train them and they don't want to, because it's a hassle.

I did wonder how they would prove it but I guess the BBC could be wrong on the job at 14 thing and they can screen by postcode. There are websites which tell you how deprived your postcode is out of around 35,000 postcodes (across England, anyway).

Very blunt instrument but would work, along with screening out anyone who went to a private school.

So if your child is 13, move to a more deprived postcode, quick ;)

My god, do you know what deficit there is in the trades!! and what a good plumber or electrician can earn these days. We need many more young people picking up trades and not wasting their time at university.

The dots are being joined up, which will result in many office based roles vanishing in the next 10 / 20 years, with trades needs growing.