If you recruit for top City law firms, banks, consultancies...

[Middleaugust]

...how important are A level grades and what would your minimum expectations be if a graduate candidate did not having any special circumstances such as illness or having attended a poorly-performing school?

Deleted will ask separately rather than hijack

not the grade as such, but breadth as well.
wouldn't likely take on someone with 2 related a levels i.e. physics & maths)

Most people who do physics also do maths though. Are you sure you recruit?

to do physic and maths is fine. but to only do that is not.

My clients only really look at degrees - they wouldn’t take a third from Cambridge but they would take a First from Durham. A levels (for the level I recruit for) aren’t so much a thing.

Many of these organisations will publish their grade requirements for graduate schemes in terms of UCAS points and minimum degree requirements. I would see maths plus physics as a good thing, similarly double maths plus physics.

Are you thinking about an Apprenticeship? If so, follow that route in
If not, the recruiter will look at the degree results rather than A levels

Hijack away Dorothea, it's fine and the more the merrier

That's interesting @greenacrylicpaint as I haven't heard that before.

No, but most people would do three A levels.

I think the degree and any related work experience/internships are more important than A Levels, as is being able to demonstrate a real interest in the role you’re applying for.

Not at all. We do our own test in interviews

For graduate recruitment at the big corporates it will be quite transparent re the criteria. I think it’s smaller, more niche companies where they are probably pickier because they don’t have the same resources or capacity to run mass assessment centres. Eg bigger place I worked, grad recruitment requirements technically quite low but the tests and assessment process was v stringent- lots of psychometric tests, group exercises etc. Smaller place we did sift on a-levels and even GCSE’s as we had so many 2:1 or masters from top unis plus extra curricular we needed to knock people out. I had my pick of bright keen kids so very rarely took someone through that didn’t have straight a’s at a-level and a string of A*s. I was never keen to just say oxbridge only etc to knock people out that way.

Ok will hijack…do you care whether a university is Russell group, pre/post92 or position in league tables? Or is the class of degree all that matters?

That's a good and very relevant question not really a hijack :)

I will caveat to say it’s been about 15 years since I recruited to a mid tier law firm (top 20 but not top 10). We only looked at 2:1 from Oxbridge or Russell Group, and we looked for good A levels. But this was literally everyone who applied to us - we would get 300+ applications for around 20 places.
We then looked at basically anything that made them look interesting and we would invite them for summer internships and pretty much recruit 80% off those schemes.

Oh and what we absolutely favoured were people who hadn’t done a law degree but had done a different degree first and then the law conversion. Nearly all of us had studied something else first.

I used to look at subjects out of interest but I would be expecting to see pretty good grades (A+/A/B) just by virtue of the fact that most people would have gone to a good university and got a 2.1 in an academically rigorous subject. If they had that (eg a 2.1 in Economics from Bath) but poor A-levels, I'd be confused or assume there were mitigating circumstances.

So what if they had good a levels but had chosen a less ranked uni for other reasons? Is it better to choose a higher ranked uni, and be miserable and get at 2.1 or a lower ranked be happy and get a first?

(academically rigorous subject but sensitive needing less pressured uni)

The big 4 accountancy firms have dramatically changed their policies over the last 10 years

targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/accountancy-banking-and-finance/big-4s-entry-criteria-and-your-graduate-job-application

I would do a search on the areas you are interested in as many are adopting broader criteria and doing their own tests.

I think a fair bit of recruiting is blind now with education institutes removed. So you'd have the subjects and grades but not where from. Personally I'm more interested in adaptability and experience.

So honestly for a job as a lawyer, I would imagine they wouldn’t be all that well suited for it anyway. Which is fine! Not everyone is right for those highly pressured jobs.

My experience of recruiting into law 10-20 years ago mirrors @Ozgirl75's. But the process has changed quite a bit at many firms in recent years. Some review applications on a school and university blind basis. And there are lots of initiatives around social mobility.

In tech we only look at A Levels when someone applies for a tech role without a STEM degree & even then I’m mainly looking for A*-D in maths / further maths.

As I said, I haven’t been involved in recruitment for ages. I don’t know how it works now with blind recruitment as someone with a 2:1 in a subject from a bottom tier university is a totally different candidate from someone from a top university. I assume they just have to interview more candidates.

Also, we would visit universities and try to meet people and then invite them for interviews if we thought they came across well. I suppose that isn’t allowed any more.