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

Try JP Morgan Chase. The white, privately educated kid whose parents live next door to me is currently on the degree apprenticeship.

OP is rude—whining about her son’s job prospects and insinuating that others are less well qualified than he. That is quite rude.

The diversity story that sticks out in my mind is from my daughter's school where pupils were being called out got class to approve particulars photos or have photos taken to be used in an external school promotional material.

Anyway there was a black lad who was very good in the school rugby team and sure enough he was called out of class and everyone assumed it was for a rugby photo approval

Anyway when he came back to class he was fuming. Apparently they already had "enough" diversity faces for sports photos but no black faces for the music photos, so they asked him to pose for a photo with a trumpet, when he had never picked one up before in his life.

His classmates thought that this was hilarious (as kids do) but he was genuinely pissed off for being used for the colour of his skin rather than his actual ability (in rugby) just to tick a diversity box.

God you are rude. ‘Not able to handle the competition’? The issue here is that the OP’s son isn’t even deemed eligible to enter the competition.

OP will because she can’t accept that candidates like your son can be both higher achieving than her child AND brown.

Like someone upthread said, there are tick boxes. Some would say that it's HR who are merely monitoring intake but I have insider knowledge that it doesn't seem to be just for this. Might be wrong.

But, yes, there are lots of programmes closed to certain groups - you can see many listed here:

https://app.the-trackr.com/uk-finance/spring-weeks

Of course, that still leaves many opportunities but it just seems that it's swung a bit too far and the whole AI selection is very demoralising too.

A couple of senior people said they get so many applications that all successful applicants are high achieving, but that there is definitely less holistic candidates now - i.e. those with other interest outside of academia and made in their view for less diverse teams (not in terms of gender/colour etc) but in terms of experience and personality!

Why should more than one of them be a white man though?

I think this is very true. I work in London in a white collar job. The office is naturally diverse, and if you hire the candidates reflect the local population which is diverse. You’d have an impossible task to build a high performing team, especially in more junior roles, out of just white males. It would restrict your choice too much.

The sooner they quit categorising everyone and quit asking intrusive information about race, gender snd sexuality, the better. This stuff creates grievances. I am not a Trump fan. I think his election was in part a backlash against EDI.

My son is white and got an internship at an investment bank before graduating two years ago. Since then he's worked in finance/banking in the city at more than one place and gets contacted quite frequently on LinkedIn, it doesn't seem to have been an issue for him.

UK is becoming more and more diverse and less and less white. In 20 years it will be like 50:50 or even more? So it might not necessarily be a diversity policy working here, just the statistics.

🙄 rude.

My two white children both have a clean sweep of A*s. They also competed in elite level sport. White people aren’t dullards.

For another example, the new president of the royal college of physicians is female. She is vocal about the representation of women in leadership in medicine. Quite right too, you might say… but she was taking over from a woman.

In another medical leadership panel, there were four posts. Two were reserved for ethnic minorities and one for female candidates. So if you are a white man, you can only apply to one. It’s absolutely bonkers.

Yes this. He can definitely handle the competition but a lot of opportunities are closed.

Of course I'm not saying that people from diverse groups can't be top of the class and the best, not at all, but I've heard some banks saying they want 20% diversity hires which is an awfully high number given the fabric of the population.

I know lots of white males with 4A*s and even masters (with both degrees from 'target' unis) who have not managed to get into any spring or summer internships.

It’s nothing to do with wither they can prove it or not. It’s because you don’t get jobs for just being bisexual so this information wouldn’t make you any better at the selection process and the fact that at the level you’re talking about no one gives a crap about diversity hires

As a non-white woman, I objected to these things 25 years ago

I never applied for any of them because I did not want to be the diversity hire

Unfortunately, these things have become entrenched. I was even greeted with surprise recently when I explained to someone - who really should know me better - that I would never apply for those things.

It's really annoying for me because I find it reinforces a stereotype on two levels in my case

As for what happens to the next generation, I'm sorry to say I don't know. There will be stuff that your son can apply for hopefully? So places who expressed that they will give preference on a DEI basis but they won't be exclusive about it.

I am definitely not the only person who thinks it's got ridiculous but it's the kind of view you won't hear expressed very often. I worry about typing it out on here! People have been trained to shout "prejudice" at everything from school. And it gets worse at university from what I can see. It's batshit.

I suspect it will get worse because it takes organisations about 20 years to catch up with what everyone else is thinking. Especially if they're following government!

I wish your son all the best in his job hunting 💫

I did, how do you think they would prove I wasn’t bisexual? Even “mixed race” is pretty ambiguous and could mean half British half polish. The definition is in the eye of the beholder.

Anyway MAYBE it was just a coincidence I finally got a job after I started lying despite having a non existent cv. Maybe