To be upset about ‘university blind’ recruitment

[Newname576]

DS has overcome so many challenges and has an unconditional offer from Cambridge after achieving 4 A star last year. He has worked so hard and we are so proud of him! But I was upset to learn that so many companies are recruiting “university blind”now - what the hell is the point of going to a top Uni if no one will know about it! My younger child says she will apply to Manchester Met and have a ball even though she too is predicted stellar grades as there is no point going to a top Uni

AIBU to be sad that companies are recruiting blind?

i worked for a global corporate. We never favoured any universities, even back in the 80s. It's always who is the right person for the job, not where they got their degree.

Honestly OP, it’s pretty much bollocks.

Once anyone gets to the interview stage, I will have their entire application aside from disability info. I’m certainly going to recognise that a degree from Cambridge is worth more than one from various other unis (trying not to upset anyone by naming any!) That’s not to say that would bear more weight than them being a good team fit though.

Your DS will be fine. Relax.

That's still disproportionate.

The academic rigor of a low ranking and top university won't be the same. If the average has to be a 2.1, then the average performance of people getting CDD at A Level is not going to be the same as the average performance of a straight A cohort.

Where academic or technical knowledge matter there's ways to sift on those grounds without having university name as a proxy measure.

Equally, if a student goes to a high ranking university, has great grades, has made the most of the enrichment opportunities available and then applies for a job, they're going to have more to put in their application, be more knowledgeable, more confident and more skilled than the person who has gone to a less academically rigorous university, not worked too hard and still come out with a 2.1.

If someone has attended a mid ranking university, worked hard, made the most of the opportunities and is able to demonstrate employable skills then it makes sense they'd get shortlisted or appointed over someone from a higher ranking university who might have the same degree classification but none of the soft skills the company is looking for.

Judging someone by which university they attended for important things like entry I to professions is deeply regressive. If you DS is as good as you think then his merits will take him through with relying on the brand. If he isn't then hopefully these new fairer systems will give the job to a more deserving applicant who went to a different university.

England has a massive hang up about Oxbridge that is massively unhealthy and it needs to be challenged.

Sure, but much less so than the 7% figure.

The majority of pupils of Oxford and Cambridge are bright, hard-working and state educated. Drives me crazy when people misrepresent this: it's not only unfair on the students but also puts off other good state educated applicants.

yes exactly.
I don't look at the uni name, although provided. I don't need to. I push candidates the same, and I can tell whether they've crammed, or whether they know what they're talking about.
And more importantly... can they build a map in their head, given the coordinates? to put it poetically.

For non-technical roles it's far, far more important that they have people skills, which quite frankly comes with more time doing things other than studying...

This feels like satire? Is it? I work in a sector which recruits pretty exclusively graduates and until very recently a majority from oxbridge. In fact there was snobbery about which Oxford college people attended!

But things have changed and we use name and university blind recruitment. In terms of who does well and progresses it matters not a jot which university people went to. It honestly doesn’t. We recruit for aptitude and thinking skills as these are the things that matter most to be good at the job. If oxbridge helps develop that then fill your boots, but Im quite embarrassed that anyone thinks that the name of the university alone is sufficient to get you through the door. It’s really not enough, it’s not a marker of future success as work and academia aren’t the same thing. And as others have said would be very bad for social mobility if people’s future careers were determined by how they performed in exams when they were children.

I apologise for using the number of private schools vs the number educated at A levels.

I was trying to draw attention to the fact the first poster was misrepresenting information.

what the hell is the point of going to a top Uni if no one will know about it

Let's hope OP's DS finds out during his years at Uni, even if he has been blessed, having parents who genuinely do not know.

Actually no they dont. Last year Cambridge took 65% of state school kids and Oxford 55%. An excellent piece of research showed that until three years ago Oxbridge were taking half their students from private schools. Compare the number of children going to state schools against private schools and that is massively disproportionate. I have many friends who attended Eton, Marlborough and other expensive private schools. All were offered Oxbridge. The parents of children I know locally, some who have attained 4 A levels at A as predicted, were not offered Oxbridge. Lets not be naïve. Its always been the old school tie and believe me, my friends who went to Eton are well aware of this.

Your son has done well. Congratulations to him. It's a fantastic opportunity and hopefully he will be able to make the most of it. Clearly he has nous and intelligence and that is what will actually get him a job in the future.

In his situation the journey is very much as important as the destination. You seem to be ignoring that.

Stop panicking over hypotheticals. You are over thinking. He will be fine.

Could it also be the courses though?
Things like Classics are only open to those who studied Latin... obviously not available at many state schools.

Although.. for a 'traditional academic university''... what on Earth is this??

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/design

Exactly!

Funny you should say that, I met up with a friend after we both finished uni who had studied the same language as me. He studied at Oxbridge and I studied at a relatively new university which was close to home (and nowhere near as prestigious obviously).

I tried to hold a conversation with him in the language he had achieved a 1.1 in and he could barely speak it. Said they mostly just focused on written grammar.

What use is that for a language student? Not being able to converse in the language you spent 3 years studying?

Just because a university has good teaching it doesn't mean that what you learn is necessarily more valuable.

Posting things like this is just rude tbh OP.

Your DS has overcome lots of hardships to get there - very well done him. Other people may not have overcome them but be equally capable, you don’t know everyone’s story and who is more/less deserving. Have some empathy.

Grad schemes recruit ‘university blind’ - once she’s past that stage most other employers, but especially consultancies, do look at both the university and grade. An Oxbridge degree is so valuable to get your 2nd early job and you can usually get a highly paid one too

Have you got a source for those figures? The Econ article above agrees with @BonjourCrisette

You're also wrong about the "old school tie". Academic staff at Oxbridge are generally not ex public school and have no interest in accepting disproportionate numbers of their kids- in fact, they are trying extremely hard to recruit more state applicants. The issues are that a higher proportion of privately educated children achieve the necessary grades and perform well at interview, which is due to a combination of better resources at school and the fact that a higher proportion of private schools than state schools are academically selective.

Another one talking nonsense which only helps to put off potential state applicants.

What a depressing AIBU. Quite apart from the weird view that you seem to think Oxbridge grads should be favoured even if their education doesn’t actually mean they outperform others in assessments, it’s sad that you don’t value the education for its own sake.

I went to an RG uni and thoroughly enjoyed my humanities course. But when I did a masters I made a friend who’d done a very similar BA at Oxford. Where I’d studied, for example, a representative work of each author for a particular course, he has studied ALL of their major works. The handle he had on the subject was far deeper than mine and it made me see what the Oxbridge difference is. As someone who loved my subject, I’d have got so much from it.

That friend went on to a graduate scheme with many people who haven’t been to Oxford or Cambridge so in that sense it didn’t help him achieve more than them. But nobody can take away that education and experience.

AIBU to be sad that companies are recruiting blind?

Basically, yes.

It's a good thing. If your child is good enough to get into Cambridge then he should be capable of performing well in an application process, and if he's beaten by someone who attended a less prestigious university then that is meritocracy in practice.

Top universities don't necessarily produce the best future employees. I for one am glad they recruit blind, why should jobs go to those fortunate to have had the circumstances to get into a handful of universities?

Couldn't agree more - I once attended an in-house diversity course, where everyone spent the lunch break discussing that they couldn't possibly advertise in 'The Voice' (yes, it was a long time ago) because it would attract applicants without degrees. I laughed & said I didn't have one, why did every applicant need a degree, and why assume that because someone read the voice, they didn't have a degree?
I knew, & they knew that I was on a higher grade than anyone else in the room.

& there was the twat from Oxford who put in a formal complaint that he should not be managed by me because I wasn't a graduate.
He was 'let go' from the graduate training program.
I've got an MSc now.

If Oxbridge really is a cut above and not just a way of perpetuating privilege and the old school tie network then even if the recruitment process is university blind then oxbridge candidates should stand out and get the job. So nothing to worry about

So if all this is true, why aren’t the interviews and entry requirements adjusted to accommodate for the fact that experiences and outcomes between state and public schools are totally different?

If your youngest wants to go to university to ‘have a ball’, then fair enough, let them pick which one they want. Some children go to uni for that reason, others go because they want the best learning experience they can get.

In terms of recruitment it’s been shown that more diverse companies have increased productivity and profits. If you constantly employ white middle-class men from oxbridge you are likely to keep getting the same ideas, responses, etc. I work in a highly male dominated industry with traditional degree/masters/doctorate backgrounds. We are having huge recruitment drives to find employees outside of the traditional backgrounds (but obviously highly competent for the roles). I’ve noticed the change immediately. So many more ideas, different ways of looking at the same problem.

So if all this is true, why aren’t the interviews and entry requirements adjusted to accommodate for the fact that experiences and outcomes between state and public schools are totally different?

To some extent they are, it's called contextual admissions.