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

[reallyreallycrazy]

Slight hyperbole but not far off.

Yes, of course I suppose my DS should be appreciative of his 'white privilege' (I do detest the term though), but he's been applying to over 100 x spring & summer internships and apprenticeships.

Invariably, he finds that lots of programmes are only open to black/female/social mobility/ND candidates. In one recent case - a global consultancy - there were NO openings for anyone outside of these categories.

And today, on LinkedIn, he forwarded me several links from leading banks reaching out about apprenticeships etc. In most photos, you might be lucky to spot 1-2 white males and in the video of one, there were not a single white male (or female for that matter).

I get that these firms need to do outreach to disadvantaged groups but if you look at the population level percentage of the various group categories, this really has swung too far the other way.

I get that many of these organisations have years to catch up with diversity hires but to try to rebalance in such an aggressive way and in a short space of time, makes it very difficult for young, white males (unless they have qualified for 'free school meals') to get a foot in the door which is especially tough in an incredibly tough grad market as it is.

Thought you were complaining about your PFBS not being good enough to get himself an apprenticeship or internship?

Liar.

This is 100% true.

No it is not. For starters, it's highly illegal.

I think it’s much harder for young graduates now and young people generally than it’s been for many years.
I’m more sympathetic for these kids who have worked their butts off through Covid, continue to work at uni possibly also working nights to support themselves, no nights out or fun, having to get top grades in everything even in 1st year, having to get internships etc from day 1 to have any hope of a job at end.. then, instead of one or two interviews where you actually get to interact with human beings, days of online tests, essay questions and AI interviews before they even make it to an assessment centre..,,

It’s really tough. Most fully fledged adults struggle with repeated rejections. What a mess we’ve made of our economy. .

We certainly were told any ‘non-diverse’ candidate hires had to have the right ratio of ‘diverse’ interviews held for the same role, and then the justification for the hire had to go up through a two layers of MDs.

How do you think senior management strive to meet their diversity targets and what do you think they do if not meeting them?

As it stood we only usually got Indian CVs anyway as all hires were done through one of the big Indian IT consultancies.

It is absolute nonsense to suggest that there is a different hiring process for white candidates vs non-white candidates. Years ago, Cheshire Police tried to hire a non-white candidate when the white candidate had done better at interview and were sued by the white candidate. What you are suggesting is complete and utter nonsense.

I agree this is a lie.

you’re clearly not someone exposed to the whole hiring process either

Have you not heard of DEI? I am not coming back to this thread, unbelievable gaslighting.

I looked up the Cheshire example you stated and the man was able to successfully prove he was the best candidate because his father already worked there. In other cases how could someone ever get the data to prove this?

“
It ruled that while positive action can be used to boost diversity, it should only be applied to distinguish between candidates who were all equally well qualified for a role.
The force's claim it had seen 127 candidates who were equally suitable for the role of police constable was a "fallacy", the tribunal ruled, and imposing such an artificially low threshold - assigning candidates a pass or fail rather than any kind of score - was not a proportionate response to addressing the force's lack of diversity.
Cheshire Police was among a number of forces criticised in 2015 for having no black officers, but has since taken steps to improve opportunities for those of different ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disability.
”

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.

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...

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.

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

@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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.