To Think that Grad & Apprenticeships are now only for Diversity Candidates

I’ve seen a similar situation in the civil service. No promotions for white males, no matter how qualified you are. Meanwhile the diversity hires are getting promoted left right and centre and most are absolutely useless at their job. Under qualified and out of their depth.

Edited as replied to wrong post

@NorthXNorthWestGovernments have been useless for many reasons but the degree ministers have isn’t one of them. The problem is politics. The need to win over voters and get elected. This skews every decision. Unfortunately. There’s some party loyalty and a lot of following the party line. The government bears little resemblance to undergrad degrees and intelligence because other factors overwhelm these. We need a cross section of MPs but few have got near a stem degree @reallyreallycrazy. Few have run a business.

Of course being an entrepreneur doesn’t rely on degree classification and no one much cares where an engineering degree came from. DH employed engineers for 45 years. Far more concern about actually doing the job accurately!

@Isthisit22Any undergrad will know internships and grad schemes exist. If they don’t they an existing in some sort of vacuum and not attending careers fairs, cv seminars and everything else available at university in terms of employment. By this stage, background is cancelled out!

The McKinsey study was largely debunked.

But the person I was responding to was talking about graduate schemes in Finance. We aren't dealing with 16 year old kids who know nothing about anything.

Surely once these students from disadvantaged backgrounds have already got their degree, they understand full well that they can apply for aboslutely anything they like, providing their degree is relevant? Just the same as any other graduate. If they don't realise that by then, then I'd say their whole university experience has been pretty bloody pointless.

If we look at the private sector haven't Oxbridge dominated professional services industries done really well financially?

For those seemingly struggling to understand, it has been proven that more diverse companies make better decisions and have higher returns than their peers who are less diverse i.e. they do better financially. So no, Oxbridge dominated is not the recipe for success.

www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters

Given the intense competition in the graduate space these days it makes sense for at least some of the most sought after employers to pre-screen according to some base academic criteria. Yes some people to take longer to settle but on average in a large sample, we know what the results will be.

Each UK government has done some good and some bad. I accept that Blair government did genuinely do some good (after following Major's budgetary plans).

The Tories in the last 14 years did some genuinely horribly mistakes but also delivered genuine good e.g. really helped the green economy. The public sector on both sides is always going to have people not being at their best.

If we look at the private sector haven't Oxbridge dominated professional services industries done really well financially?

As I said. It's not the be all and end all. But seems a bit premature to blatantly exclude all academic achievements.

You’re missing the point. The discussion is about UEL and how a large proportion of its students are local (from Tower Hamlets/Hackney/Newham) but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t smart kids there who aren’t on a par (or better) with the various posters’ more privileged white children at much ‘better’ universities. The reasons for going to a very local university can be much more complex for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and UEL’s student population who originate from Tower Hamlets is a good example of this.

Can you tell me where the ND/women only grad opportunities are please because my ND dd is really struggling...

Brains on average take up to mid 20's to develop. Some people take longer to settle but once they do and they find their place they may outperform for the rest of their lives. Some go to Oxbridge and end ambling around rudderless boat for one low skilled job to another, never living up to their 'earlier promise'.

Consigning someone the the scrapheap for not meeting a narrow criteria (no A*'s/2.2 etc) earlier on in their life says more about the person judging them than it does about the individual.

If having a degree from highly selective and exclusive Oxbridge and the Russell Group was the measure of our brightest, best and therefore most deserving (according to some), why have successive UK governments been so spectacularly shit?

Not everyone getting a 2.2 has extenuation circumstances. Obviously extenuating circumstances and personal hardship should definitely be taken in context. But it seems silly to be to just blanket not look at grades and the university degree. It should be toTo me (bar obviously serious hardship and difficulties) a 2.2 is a poor signal to the labour market. On average it shows the person couldn't handle the academic pressure, discipline was inconsistent and they didn't adapt. Obviously it's not reflective of everyone but it is an indication that should be used and assessed as part of the wider application.

I do agree with PPs that removing names and gender from the pre-screen process is sensible and helps mitigate biases.

Exactly. They'll use certain core metrics to filter out the low hanging fruit. It just has to be done due to the intense number of applications.

Friend's DD is a civil engineer. I asked her once what types of projects she works on. She said "oh I've been doing bridges". So I assume in some part of her job she looks at bridges.

That is the issue you get a few exceptions like my DS who put himself out there and could have done Oxbridge if he had put his mind to it and had the inclination. It is natural that you gravitate to the very best as a starting point. It sounds terrible but my heart almost sinks when friends proudly wave off their kids to add to the never ending pile of criminology graduates from the old polytechnics.

You really show your true colours when you dismiss someone who perhaps got BCC at A Level and a 2-2 in their degree as “not doing well”. You have no idea where people are starting from. Your DS with his first started at the 25m line in a 100m race.

And you say in another post that someone with a 2:2 won’t have the basics skills to do a job in their field? Nonsense. If you asked me to match all the grads in my workplace to university attended and degree classification gained, I’d get it all wrong. Apart perhaps from nailing the entitled, not-as-good-as-they-think, middle class young men with Oxbridge or RG degrees.

Is that really so? A good friend of mine has been in tte field for 35 years and we always assumed the relative dearth of men below board level, where they miraculously appear, was due to the abysmal pay in publishing.

25 years ago it seemed to be dominated by clever posh girls who presumably got fed regularly at weekends by their parents.

A few parties but shit wine and pay.

I am sure you can find exceptions. How do you think a business with thousands of applicants for 20 graduate training roles will do the first sift? Do you go looking for ducks on a hill top or in a pond?

Where jobs are about written communications, data analysis/manipulation, logical sequencing, managing dependencies and risks, etc., high academic achievement is relevant.

Not necessarily. I’ve worked with plenty of people over the years with all those skills that didn’t go to university, or do A levels, let alone have “high academic achievement”.

There are far too many young people in university and too few jobs for them.

I think we all agree that some jobs need street smarts and some jobs need book smarts. Some need both.

Where jobs are about written communications, data analysis/manipulation, logical sequencing, managing dependencies and risks, etc., high academic achievement is relevant. If it’s not, we should ask why we are bothering to send so many young people to university.

Where a job just needs a smart person without high level skills, then businesses will be happy to take a chance. However, if I need polished communication skills, critical thinking and numeracy, I don’t want to sort out what parents and teachers failed to do. I want the finished article. My goals are business deliverables, not parenting and tutoring. Some mentoring and training is to be expected, but it is expensive and time consuming, so I will choose the least risk option to invest in.

You aren’t serious?

Did you have a graduate job? You know it’s just an entry level learning post right?

He got that knowledge through experience, not through his degree. Graduates aren’t doing his job.

surely that’s obvious?!

Not in every case, obviously. The point is that you can't rely on academic outcomes as a reliable measure of inate intelligence, creative thinking, interpersonal skills or diligence. Because all of these qualities can exist in a person who didn't achieve qualifications due to a variety of barriers. Just as they can be missing from a person who did well in education because enough support and money was thrown at it to elevate their mediocrity.

And when I said I couldn’t get a job while putting I was straight and white on applications (cv with literally nothing on it not because I’m lazy or stupid but because I got pregnant at 15) until I finally put mixed race and bi I was called a liar on this thread but that doesn’t happen when someone comes in with an anecdote that supports their world view.

For as long as they don’t ask for actual proof of sexuality or ethnicity I actually like DEI lol