How important would a Russell Group uni be to your employer?

[paygride]

I work for a well known global company, employs about 2000 in UK. I was speaking to someone from our People team about how important it is for a candidate to have attended a Russell Group unti and she said it wasn't something that was especially relevant when they were looking at CVs and a few young people have joined our team recently and only one of them attended a RG uni (she did go to Cambridge). I spoke to DH about this and he works for another global company (totally different sector) and he said it's not something he looks for when he's been recruiting either. What they both said is they were bothing looking for 'something extra' (well my People officer actually described it as a 'sprinkling of fairy dust'.)

By contrast I worked for a Consultancy firm in the city and they pretty much only recruited people from Oxbridge, much smaller firm and pretty much all their business was UK based, huhe salaries and huge bonuses (which defintely isn't across the board where I work but lots very senior of people on high salaries).

DS is going to be applying to Unis and is fixed on the idea of a RG uni even though some non RG unis (Lancaster & Leicester) seem to be offering much more interesting courses in his chosen field but he will only apply to the RG unis.

Interested to know what others think. .

I work for a relatively small company, compared to the ones you've mentioned it wouldnt be a consideration at all. They want the best person for the job not the best person who also went to a certain university

Your experience can't possibly be applied to all of the employers in the UK, that's a bit laughable tbh

I would go to the best university I could with my predicted grades. Loughborough may not be Russell group but it’s world class for sport science and also has an excellent reputation for engineering.

Depends on the field. DS works for an economic consultancy and they only recruit from Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial and UCL. Not even other RG unis.

I work for a big bank and they want people with the right skills and personality they don't care if you haven't been to Uni let alone a certain one. My DH recruits a lot as part of his job and he gets a lot of young applicants who went to Uni but have no on the job experience and they expect to be on huge salaries. In his line of work on the job experience is more valuable and most have had to work their way up as he has. I've told my DS that nowadays uni is only needed if you need a degree for your desired job, eg medical degree. If you don't need it it's not worth the debt.

ds is involved in recruitment for an accounting firm (not big four, but next tier down) and they recruit from a variety of unis: Warwick, Southampton, Bath.. and a variety of subjects. One of the partners he works with studied music, others have a stem background.

Large global company - interviewing is blind so no knowledge of where the candidates went to Uni.

Lancaster Bath St Andrews and Loughborough are all as good as Russell Group and rank far more highly than many Russell Group universities (all are top ten so within the top ten ranking universities, almost half are not Russell Group!)

Some of the Russell Group universities rank way down in the lists. It's literally a marketing consortium. It's just been very effective.

I used to work for a US company in the UK and was on the graduate recruiting panel.

We paid no attention to whether a candidate had been to a RG university or not.

While there were some universities we were somewhat wary of (no names, no pack drill) and a candidate from one of those would have to be exceptional to be called for interview, but that aside, we weren't bothered in the slightest whether they came from an RG university or not.

Outside academia, I don't believe RG status actually signifies anything.

Rg is self selecting other unis like bath are in top ten rankings and are just as good

Zero.

Work in Cambridge in a global company

That’s literally why I was asking other people.

Completely irrelevant. Same for every company I've worked for.

Oxbridge, Imperial etc might add some points but no one is going to wowed by Cardiff over say, Brighton

RG has 24 unis in it but only the top 5-10 matter

That’s really interesting, is that a data protection thing or just something your company has decided to do?

Lots of law firms also now interview blind.

You still find the best candidates are successful and they tend to have been to the highly ranked universities.

Not at all. You're asked not to put the institution down on the application form.

Our recruitment process is blind until you're interviewing, so I wouldn't see universities/names/dates of school etc until I get someone's unblinded CV before the interview.

It wouldn't be a factor I'd consider - for recent graduates we're looking for someone who's managed to get some experience in the industry or has done something related to it in their spare time, outside of their school/uni work. Often that looks like maybe interning over their uni summer holidays, or running a YouTube channel/blog/their own micro business.

I work for a small business which represents other SMEs. It wouldn't be important at all. 60% of the workforce is employed by SMEs.

Not at all, my current company do blind hiring too like others.

It's very common now and nothing to do with data protection. It's to remove bias from the recruitment process.

Completely irrelevant where I work. A degree in a relevant field might be of interest (not a dealbreaker though) but the uni wouldn’t matter

Nothing to do with data protection but we’re looking for the best employees and not necessarily those who went to a RG Uni. We have successful Partners who joined at 18 without a degree.

Work for a massive global company. Wouldn’t be important at all. Qualifications, skills and experience more important than “your school”

We proactively are looking for candidates from under represented talent groups, the newest of which is lower socioeconomic statuses so you might do better in the interview these days if your dad was a plumber!

I’ve worked for huge brands and most of my managers wouldn’t have even known what a Russel group uni was ;unless they had a 18-22 year old kid). It’s all about skills and attitude. Get the best degree you can in your field, but then get experience and build a reputation!

I work for a global company and we don’t care if it’s a RG uni or not. What we care about is a 2:1 or higher grade, preferably a Masters or relevant internship, work experience (can be a Saturday job just anything to show work ethic and responsibility), enthusiasm and interview preparedness.