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

White middle class males you're talking about got there 30-40 years ago.

At present, unless we're talking about top level, specialist head hunted type of roles, this group is at the very bottom of every list. White middle class boys aren't even allowed to apply for many intern, apprenticeships, work experience positions.

This will come back to bite us badly. Saying this as POC.

This clearly isn't true though, is it? White males dominate every profession and institution and power structure within UK society, so clearly they are highly employable and promotable. The white males who are struggling are a subset of white males. The WC disadvantaged ones. The wealthy privileged ones continue to do just fine.
Why is the most important factor that effects whether a white male is likely to be rise to the top of our society or be disadvantaged ignored in favour of pretending its his whiteness and maleness that disadvantages him?

Why are we framing women and POC as the barrier to his success rather than the MC, wealthy white males who are disproportionately occupying the positions he might aspire to?

what's the outcome of this policy?

Totally agree with the op. Even applying for a few days work experience is somehow restricted to those in minorities. I was quite shocked at the blatant requirements!

Some of these entry roles ask what your parents do, did they go to university. Immediately bounced. I has no idea dragging myself out of poverty would negatively affect my children.

It does seem that if you are white, never been in trouble with the law, got great grades, no particular religion, heterosexual, male, got boring parents with jobs, you can just fuck off. You're unemployable.

Even MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are at it.

Thoughts? @Bambamhoohoo @BoringBarbie

Spy agencies reopen ‘racist’ internship that bans white Britons
MI5, MI6 and GCHQ offer scheme exclusively to ‘ethnic minority’ and ‘disadvantaged’ candidates for third time
The GCHQ Summer Intelligence Internship has been running for two years
Credit: David Goddard/Getty
Aaron Newbury
05 August 2025 3:01pm BST
Britain’s intelligence services have re-opened a summer internship scheme to which white participants cannot apply.
Started in 2023, the MI5, MI6 and GCHQSummer Intelligence Internship attracted criticism last year, when it was labelled “racist”.
It was offered only to young people from a “Black, Asian, mixed heritage or ethnic minority background and from a socially or economically disadvantaged background”.
When the scheme was first advertised for this summer, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, described it as “racist” and called for it to be axed.
He said: “I understand the need to encourage applications from a wide range of backgrounds, including under-represented minorities.
“But this is an overtly racist policy and it should be immediately discontinued. It implies it’s impossible for any white person to be deprived or deserving of assistance.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/05/spy-agencies-repeat-internship-mi5-mi6/

Another one for those in a state of denial on this thread

news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888

Oh?
As businesses push forward on hitting diversity goals, a major insurance company in the U.K. is telling its 22,000 strong workforce that senior white male new hires must be personally approved by none other than the CEO.
*Aviva’s boss Amanda Blanc said the policy forms part of the company’s efforts to stamp out sexism in the financial services industry.
Speaking at the Sexism in the City inquiry, Blanc, who became the blue-chip company’s first female chief executive in 2020, told a parliamentary committee that there was “no non-diverse hire at Aviva without it being signed off by me and the chief people officer.” *
fortune.com/europe/2023/12/15/aviva-insurance-ceo-amanda-blanc-white-male-new-hires-sign-off-improve-diversity/

Oh?

As businesses push forward on hitting diversity goals, a major insurance company in the U.K. is telling its 22,000 strong workforce that senior white male new hires must be personally approved by none other than the CEO.
*Aviva’s boss Amanda Blanc said the policy forms part of the company’s efforts to stamp out sexism in the financial services industry.
Speaking at the Sexism in the City inquiry, Blanc, who became the blue-chip company’s first female chief executive in 2020, told a parliamentary committee that there was “no non-diverse hire at Aviva without it being signed off by me and the chief people officer.” *

fortune.com/europe/2023/12/15/aviva-insurance-ceo-amanda-blanc-white-male-new-hires-sign-off-improve-diversity/

Did you read the links?

Yes I’ve heard it before black boy doesn’t listen and goofs off at school it’s white peoples fault. White boy doesn’t listen and goofs off at school that’s ALSO white peoples fault.

🙄

If it was the other way around it would be systemic racism, that's the difference. White working class boys failing is not a racist issue, there are links up thread detailing the causes.
ETA: there is a long term problem of white working class children, particularly boys being failed - and that absolutely needs a discussion - but it isn't really relevant on this thread.

I work in financial services and it’s largely meritocracy however all the top roles are still populated by white men. If you look at CEO roles in this country again largely populated by white men. I have hired apprentices and grads and they were majority white. Any diversity hires we do have are very capable.

In my last job at an airline, 70% of the white men who were managers often worked their way up into the position. The diversity’ hires also worked their way up but were better qualified. I was in a position to know what their educational backgrounds were. The Women of all races tended to be better qualified than their male counterparts.

Agreed. Said poster is alleging a large international bank does not allow hire of white males without senior sign off. Absolute hooey

I don't have to provide evidence for calling out someone else's bold (read: batshit) accusation.

If I say there is a family of fairies living at the bottom of my garden you can call me a liar and you don't need any evidence because it's obviously ridiculous.

You’re going to need to provide some evidence for your bold accusation.

You know that something being unlawful doesn’t necessarily stop it happening?

If it was the other way around you’d be blaming racism and systemic oppression or whatever but when white kids do badly at school they just aren’t doing as well

So you are aware of the economic status of all 200 of this intake? And can't imagine that the "different skin colour" candidates might be there because they are clever and achieved high grades, but it must instead be because they are rich?

Yes this is a problem but not one for the discussion here. The poor working class white boys are not likely to be getting the top A level results that are needed for the graduate programmes in question. So yes it's a very significant issue, but needs a very grassroots approach. They are not being excluded from these programmes, they aren't anywhere near at the level of even being eligible. It also begs the question, that why when the achievement of black and brown children is mentioned does it have to be at the 'expense' of the white ones? It's almost as if some people cannot fathom that they could be doing better than their white counterparts.

In my experience you are correct OP.
My son (white) got on a grad scheme at a bank with an intake of around 200 grads per year.
There were only around 20 white males which is way below the national average.
I’m from the North East and my son was born in the South East and has a Southern accent but he told me there was no one from the North, Scotland or Wales.
They were all rich, my son was the only one from a low income family. Most had been to private school.

They are employing interns with different skin colour but they are privileged by wealth, and mainly from the South East.

I think it's fairer and more effective to support candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds in other ways. Employers can provide extra support on how to complete applications, use diverse interviewing panels, carry out blind screening, use task based assessments that test whether a candidate can actually do the job as opposed to testing whether they're good in an interview setting. They can give successful candidates financial support to help them move to the city. Lots of people won't even consider jobs that involve a move as they can't afford it. They can do outreach at schools to help people from less privileged backgrounds actually believe in themselves and think these jobs are open to them, too.
I hate positive discrimination. Apart from anything else, it makes new recruits - and their colleagues - question their credentials, which is in itself undermining.

@Sassiskt so your husband's complany designed a role to be able to promote him, sat on it for 6 months until there was a paper BAME candidate they coild interview as well to make it look less like a stitch up. Your husband's company are awful, but not for the reasons you probably think.

I’ve literally never heard of anything like this in a 20 year corporate career. Your husband works for a bizarre and very inefficient / slow moving company

(and an uninclusive one- “designing” a “promotion” for a white man- how corrupt)

but maybe he wasn’t telling you the truth or receiving it himself

My husband was told there was a promotion role that he would really suit, was pretty much designed for him to apply for, but they couldn’t interview him for the role until the interview pool had a diversity candidate in it. He waited 6 months for a diversity candidate to apply too, so they couldn’t interview both be interviews and presumably him get the job. By the time the 6 months was up the got board sign off to be able to just interview him. He got the job.

What a ridiculous palaver though. At one stage I was thinking maybe I ought to apply, despite being very ill qualified to do the job just to get it over with.

Why don't you read the research. Diversity hiring isn't holding white boys back their parents and the system are, amongst other thing.

Working class 'White' parents are as much of a problem as the system - which is run by predominantly middle aged 'White' men.

Then look at which groups are behind and earning less in adulthood...

there truly is some absolute bollocks on this thread. It is possible to use positive discrimination to address issues in the workforce where certain groups are underrepresented and the candidates are equally well qualified. There are masses of examples of positive discrimination particularly with graduate schemes. So many schemes and internships are restricted groups.

And just because something is unlawful under the Equality Act does not mean it didn’t happen. Employment lawyers would be out of work if this were the case.