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

I am sorry that your son is struggling to get into a graduate / apprenticeship role.
my son is white and does not have amazing A level results - despite being very bright. He had a non - relevant degree (sports) as well. When he decided to look at finance graduate roles there were some companies that he didn’t qualify for but that was mainly because of his A level results. Certainly a number of his white friends are working for high profile companies. DS got into a finance grad programme with a national company - in fact he was offered a place at two different companies in the end.

Good luck to your son. I know how hard it is to keep them motivated.

I dont know what industry you work in bit I work in what was a traditionally male dominated industry.
I never thought I needed to share lipstick in the loos (the equivalent of your grits anecdote). But I do know that some of my talented female colleagues self selected out thinking the industry wasn't for them. And I do know that men did not consider us worthy candidates for some roles (we weren't tough or hard nosed enough).

I used to think it doesn't matter who is in charge.

But what I have learned over the years is role models matter. It's pretty off putting as a young woman looking around and seeing absolutely no women at any senior levels. You think .. maybe women cant progress, maybe this industry isn't for me, maybe there's a reason women are not in senior positions, maybe it's because I dont like football or golf or whatever.

I am not advocating for positive discrimination. But to think it matters not a jot that people in charge have zero meaning or relevance is IMHO being very short sighted.

And in your example. I know senior people of ethnic backgrounds in the NHS can relate to others at junior level. Many of them were at that level themselves before. And the majority have reported experiencing discrimination. So maybe having someone at a senior level who understands that this can and does happen is a good thing. And FWIW I worked with an incredibly senior female colleague who started at 16 as a cleaner.

Both St John's and Murray Edwards colleges at Cambridge usually run summer schools for which not being male is enough to qualify. In DD's year, there was also an online thing run by Trinity for which I think they also had to be at a state school.
There does seem to be little for boys with no "disadvantage" though.

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My god, the victimhood on this thread.

Posters say that white working class boys are the most disadvantaged, behind in maths and English- behind even Bangladeshi girls- and need help to keep up. OK.

But at the same time SOME white boys are really clever and passed over in favour of stupid PoC with worse grades and accomplishments.

I mean, which is it?

Well I have been a manager for 20 years and part of my responsibilities is to hire for my team, so yeah I would say I do know what a hiring manager in my firm is.

Not sure I should bother replying to your other comment or not. I am obviously taking about my experience in MY firm here.

You can take it or leave it and put my experience down to me being poor at my job, but I am writing my post to say the OP and her son are right.

Can someone give him a job please?! He's a really nice, clever young man. 😊

My son is on a grad scheme with one of the UK's biggest insurance firms. There were about a dozen in his intake - he's the only "white male". Says it all really!

I wonder if you son isn't looking at the big picture of the recruitment cycle? E.g where i work in the City has a scheme for underrepresented groups, vacation schemes open to all candidates at Easter and in the summer, plus the ability to apply straight to the graduate programme. But the graduate recruitment team can't manage the recruitment process for all at the same time, so they have different recruitment windows. If someone looked at what we offer when we are recruiting for the diversity scheme they might assume we don't recruit anyone else but we absolutely do. Our graduates are a diverse bunch, fairly representative of the broader population.

@Agrumpyknitter What are the barriers to entry for Law? Lots of tough recruitment rounds but it’s the same for everyone. Why Law in particular?

The Graduate job market is hard.
DS is a white male, privately educated (large bursary), Oxbridge graduate.

He said recently that at times he regrets working so hard at school and uni as it hasn't paid off in terms of getting a job. It's very sad.

@5128gap They won’t be choosing useless people! Just a few may not be the highest calibre - but they might be given time and good training. Hence my observation that promotion might be harder to get for them in the long run. Time will tell in around 10-20 years. So far top board rooms are not very diverse! Of course great employees come in a variety of shapes and sizes so the dividing lines are very fine.

Once you go beyond entry level roles, it gets less diverse. So yeah, he has to fight for a chance to get in, but once he's in, he's in and he'll fly high.

Hth.

I work in financial services and I have hired interns and graduates in the past 2 years. We hire the best candidates, most are actually white as the population is largely still white. We do make adjustments so that the playing field for applications are level. We have a lot of ‘white male and stale’ in the upper management but a lot more women entering our workplace too. Some professions have barriers of entry like law so I get why they would encourage diversity but financial services is pretty good.

You don't need to be powerful to offer up information to protect the business. You may have no control over who you are presented with, but surely you have input into the selection methods? You need methods that actually test core skills and the application of knowledge in a way that reflects the way the candidates would be expected to work once in post. Then if people don't perform adequately you advise your seniors they wont be capable of the job and will be a liability. I find it hard to imagine any serious business is going to knowingly recruit people who you can evidence can't do the job. Why would they put 'diversity' ahead of profit?

White English population: 43M
UK population: 69M

Unless the Scots and Welsh and Northern Irish seriously up their game, ‘White English’ will remain the dominant ethnic group in this country for the foreseeable future.

I don't think you know what hiring manager means.

No I don't work for a small company. It seems like you may be surprised to hear that the very impressive bank you work for is not the only global company in existence.

Did you miss my post where I am saying this is not just down to me. It’s a huge amount of people involved in this process and we have to select from the pool we are given. Can I just select white candidates? No. I have a quota I need to fill.

The point I was making about my company being a prestigious one to join (if you want to work in banking) is that we should be able to only choose candidates from the top shelf and we are not.

Also it’s not just about actually getting the job. It’s also getting the opportunity to interview for a job. So if OP’s son on paper is equally qualified as a “diversity candidate” then the “diversity candidate” has a much higher chance of getting an interview than OPs son.

I think you assume I am much more powerful than I am. There are a lot of people involved in the recruitment process. Do you work for a very small company? We have to fill a quota, so we select the most suitable candidates from those presented to us. I am not saying they are not clever people who might do really well in another role. They just can’t compare to the usual top performers we select on the “non diverse” side - generally speaking - and everyone knows that.
We also run return to work schemes for women who have been out of the workplace raising children. This scheme has been very successful and I support it. We have had some great people join the firm via these schemes.

Current demographic tends clearly show that the indigenous English (those who have Northern european genetics) will be in a minority in these Isles in a generation, and increasingly so. We have a decreasing or stagnant birth rate, incomers are breeding far more. This trend is already apparent in the youngest generations. So that's correct.

At what point do we become protected in the way other indigenous populations are?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that if a group make up a certain percentage of the population you wouldnt expect to see them make up the same percentage of the workforce. EDI initiatives are used when this is not the case and a group is underrepresented in the workforce compared with the proportion of society they represent. Or when a group is underrepresented in senior positions.

It’s 82% white now. How do you propose it becomes 50% in one generation?

Sexuality is probably the best bet, there's literally no way anyone can prove you're not bisexual! 😅

The uk was 97.5% white and as is still the case today men do not typically have their careers interrupted by pregnancy and breastfeeding.

How absolutely shocking that white men had all the good jobs in this country historically (as well as the shitty jobs like chimney sweep and factory worker because you know the country was literally 97% white but let’s just focus on the privilege)

Exactly.