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. .

She has the confidence to come over very well at interview (which isn't exactly uncommon with private school and Oxbridge grads). But once she was in she was just incredibly lazy, no initiative, rude to internal clients etc.

Interview processes are not infallible!

Also as I said we recruited blind so didn't know what university they'd graduated from

I went to Imperial and disagree. But each to its own.

I would still take into account the university when hiring new grads or junior people. RG, Ivy League or equivalent in other countries. It’s definitely not the deciding factor but it’s also not irrelevant. It completely depends on the sector I suppose so impossible to answer without more context. Also it’s going to be easier to achieve higher marks at a university where the score/criteria/competition to get in is lower so yes, I would view a 2:1 at Oxbridge, LSE, Warwick etc very differently to a 2:1 at Lancaster or Leicester, neither of which I’ve ever heard of, sorry (not from the UK originally).

I worked for one of the largest companies in the UK and it wasn’t even a consideration in recruitment to be honest. They required a degree of a certain grade for some roles but it didn’t seem to matter which uni it came from really.

DS will be applying this year and he plans to try and go to the best place he can for his subject. It’s not always the university’s you might think. I think the atmosphere of the place is also very important.

I'd agree with this. DD will hopefully go to Lancaster in Sept to study Linguistics and MFL. She loved the feel of the place so will hopefully be happy there and Lancaster is very highly rated for Linguistics.

I am involved in recruiting in a media agency (advertising) and don't care what uni people went to. Looking for people who seem keen and switched on more than anything.

Prioritise a course that also has some element of “work experience” and that will do far more for their employability. Large corporate here and I have seen people rise through the ranks from apprenticeships so it’s not even about the uni!

I wouldn't consider that in hiring criteria at all. I got my degree and PhD at non-RG universities. I have worked at several RG universities, including Oxford, doing medical research. I have to say working at Oxford was no better than anywhere else.

By only hiring from specific universities, companies could be doing themselves a disservice. Oxford Uni was very insular, I found it an odd place. Most people I met there who were/had studied there only knew how to talk about things through an Oxford Uni lens. Actually quite boring! I would much rather hire based on a variety of backgrounds. Also, people from non-RG Universities may be less likely to come from privilege and have built more resilience as they haven't had so much support to get to Uni and beyond. I would far rather hire people who haven't had life handed to them on a plate.

Not important in any of the companies I have worked for (last 25 yrs) and I’m HR. Also now all CV’s are presented without identifying data or data that would bring in bias to the selection, so it may say grade and degree name but not where from. It’s all to do with diversity, equity and inclusion and is pretty standard in the financial services field now, and if not done in some companies it will be soon. You get some initial resistance to not knowing data but now all my recruiting managers have adapted and responded accordingly.

I work for a large global company and when recruiting it is irrelevant what university a candidate attended, the actual stuff studied, extra curricula activities and how they present themselves are much more important.

Also worth noting that many more people are hired onto the degree apprenticeships we run than the graduate schemes.

I wanted to apply to a very very famous consultancy and had to select the uni from a drop down. There was only oxbridge, imperial, Ucl and LSE hence I could not progress with the application. This was 15 years ago. I believe now they are more flexible on paper but not in reality

A relative was recently refused an interview because her English 2-1 wasn't a Russell.
Finance industry but admin back office job.
For some subjects the particular Uni is more relevant. Computing or Engineering or Pharma. Has the dept got a well known prof or a young team. Older people at the company may be keeping in touch to keep up to date.

Lots of jobs interview blind nowadays. Dd1 and dd2 went to Cambridge but as dd1 is a doctor it is not mentioned on applications. Dd2 works for a large global company and they do take a lot of people from RG universities but that's more self selecting. Ds is graduating this week from a RG university, he doesn't think it will make any difference to his success at getting an interview.

I work for a company of 10,000 plus in UK
Engineering and design/STEM heavy.
We wouldn't prioritise RG anymore as are keen to have a good spread of representation in our people which we wouldn't achieve if narrowed our candidate pipeline to RG graduates

@Bringbackspring we are on universal credit and my 4dc have been entitled to fsm. They have worked really hard to get into top universities, the eldest two went to Cambridge. The youngest is considering her options for next year. My cousin's son went to Oxford and his mum was a single mum on a rough Liverpool council estate.

Surely the universities to aim for are the ones with the most highly-regarded courses in your chosen field, irrespective of whether they are RG or not.

I agree, it's my son who thinks differently - his 6th form have pretty much told him if he doesn't get into e RG Uni then it's not worth attending Uni and based on what most people have said on this thread, that's terrible advice.

Blimey. I had no idea whether my kids Uni's were Russell Group. I've just looked it up and my sons Uni is RG, but my daughter's Uni wasn't. I honestly had no idea. They are both doing well in their careers, about the same level of success.

DH is fairly senior in a STEM industry and often moans about the lack of candidates with relevant (or even not relevant) work experience (also the amount of candidates who do not see why they should work their way up or receive an entry level salary even when they have zero skills or experience and are doing entry level work).

Which uni they went to doesn't come into it.

I work in the public sector where a registered/approved professional is what is required. Where they got the qualification that enables the registration is irrelevant (and is often from a non UK institution).

That's crazy. As I said in my previous post, my daughter's Uni isn't RG, and she has been a Teacher in the UK, a Teacher in the USA and she's now a Teacher to special needs children in Australia. She couldn't have done any of these jobs without a degree. It has opened all of those doors and enabled her to travel the world. I'm so proud of her. My son's Uni was RG, but I know for a fact that the company he works for has employees that did not go to a RG Uni, as a lot of them are foreign.

My employer is same as @Smellisande. Plus some top USA universities.

I had a friend who worked in recruitment who told me quite a few stories about the particular prejudices of different employers - mainly in the media industries.

She told me about potential employers wanting to drop starting salaries when applicants were school leavers and when they hadn't gone to one of the traditional universities but one of the newer named ones (old polytechnics). I don't have a specific anecdote about RG but I'm absolutely sure a prejudice exists among some people just like it does among MN posters.

Not important at all, but I’m a solicitor in a local authority so stuff like that isn’t as important.

I used to work at a global law firm and the HR recruiter did prefer RG unis but that was back in 2015.

His school appears to be more interested in being able to blow its own trumpet about the number of 6th-formers who make it into a RG University than it does about finding the best possible degree course for each individual student.

Someone interested in film and tv who wants to become a screenwriter (for instance) would find that one of the very best universities for that area of study is the University of East Anglia. Not RG. Does it matter? No.