To think being prejudiced against the privately educated is OK

[EastLondonObserver]

I have spent 25 years working in the advertising industry at some of the most highly regarded agencies in the world. Most of these have been dominated (in certain roles, at least) by the privately educated who gained their entry to the industry through having personal/family contacts in it, were subbed by rich parents while working in low-paid or free internships to gain experience and had that empty confidence private schools instil.

Perfectly capable graduates educated comprehensive schools didn't get much of a look in. However a few managed to break through, including myself.

Consequently, throughout my career I have actively rejected almost all privately educated graduates applying for entry level positions. This runs into hundreds of applicants. I have managed to do this without being called out. Sometimes I have rejected them even when they clearly would have done a better job than a comprehensive school educated alternative. These were corporate companies - it made no meaningful difference to me if they were mildly less successful as a consequence. The only exception was one graduate educated at Harrow and Bristol. I gave him the job as an experiment. He was average at best.

I did this in the name of social justice: re-distributing opportunities away from those with unearned privilege.

Have I been unreasonable? Has anyone else done the same?

Another saying don't blame it on the kids. And to ditch any Oxbridge graduates without seeing what school they went to sounds intemperate. They might have clawed their way in with no family/school support or gone for it despite state school teachers telling them it's not worth applying.

You're an absolute sick

Dick*

Blind hiring sounds good. As does non-sex based hiring.

This.

Fairly certain enough state educated applicants have had their CVs binned without consideration by the private elite.

Would you reject white applicants in favour of POC?
As a social justice warrior, levelling the playing field?

To be fair, people have been actively discriminating against state school educated people ever since state schools started.

As one small example, the percentage of privately educated people in cabinet below gives a feeling for that. Even Labour cabinets had 30 odd percent - well above the national average for private education.
Rishi Sunak (2022) - 61%
Liz Truss (2022) - 68%
Boris Johnson (2019) - 64%
Theresa May (2016) 30%
David Cameron (2010) - 62%
Gordon Brown (2007) - 32%
Tony Blair (1997) - 32%
John Major (1992) - 71%

That's because their filtering criteria e.g. experience for graduates means you can only get them if your parents have certain culture capital that is common in those who are privately educated.

How unprofessional you are. I don't think your quite as smart as you think. The job should go to the best candidate regardless of education. If that's the state educated applicant, then that's absolutely who should get the job.

On the flip side though, it wouldn't matter to my DC if you didn't employ them due to their parents choice of school, (which is obviously out of their control) thankfully because of the choice we made with their schooling they already have so many doors open to them, so wouldn't exactly be hard pushed to find a job.

Ridiculous. Do you also reject kids for going to a grammar school?

Possibly ou are being a little unreasonable to not even consider these applicants. But personally, I think it would be perfectly okay to be more open to non-private school types on the basis that if they're as good or almost as good on paper as the public school candidates, it probably actually means they're a lot better because they've had to work a LOT harder to get to where they are.

Just like a man and a woman with similar skills and experience on paper, I'm always going to assume the woman is actually better because she's probably had a LOT more to overcome.

Hmm.. well if some people are hiring students just because they went to Oxbridge or Harrow or Eton or any other link they personally have, I guess it balances it out. However, you are no better than those people. Sadly, in the recruitment process there is a lot of prejudice (on the basis of sex, education, religion, race, weight, voice etc. etc). So if you do that it doesn’t make you a good person.
When you hire you cannot always understand a person’s background fully. I have been observing where my DCs state primary friends have ended up - some comp, some grammar, some independent - hasn’t made much difference to outcome. The outcome is largely driven by the parents’ level of education and home life/ money/ psychological comforts. The kids with multiple tutors in comps are not necessarily less privilege than those in the independent etc. In the comps round where I live lots of middle class parents are tutoring for the key subjects. Just like they pay for sports or music etc.

How would the OP know if "John Smith" is a POC or not?

Awful policy. I know families where a child attends private school with a scholarship or bursary, or through the parents working extra shifts to afford it. Lots of kids who are the first in their family to attend.

Equally, know of plenty very wealthy families with kids in state schools, second home, big holidays, prestigious jobs who can afford to buy into a good state catchment. Buying into those catchment roads versus the ones a few yards away costs more than most school fees in the area. You really can't read someone's background from their school.

Amazing OP what a stand for social justice! 👏 Discriminating against people on the basis of their parents’ decisions made when they were CHILDREN and had no say in the matter. Must have made you feel so smug to play god with people’s lives.

But I bet you waved through a whole host of middle class DCs whose DPs paid a fortune for houses in good catchment areas.

Do you not trust your recruitment expertise enough to see beyond the university that applicants attend, Op?

Maybe some training might be helpful to enhance your skill set.

I hope to be able to offer an internship at some point in my small business. I fully intend to offer it to a POC if I can over any white candidate on the basis that in my industry, it's ALL white and if I can give someone a leg up who would otherwise probably be excluded, then great.

So people whose parents can afford to buy in the catchment of an excellent state school and tutor their children in addition would acceptable?

Yabu to be prejudiced against anyone for anything but especially not giving a job to the person most suitable,I'm very low paid working class college educated.

So you would reject my DP who went to private school on a full scholarship followed by Oxford also on a scholarship? His family were certainly not rich and he got there on his own efforts.

Nice to know that after all his hard work someone like you would have tossed him to one side though thankfully he's done alright with or without people like you

You have a rather blinkered view OP

How would the OP know if "John Smith" is a POC or not?

Firms check social media as a matter or course now.

Positive discrimination is a thing, i cant get too worked up. Private school pupils already dominate so many industries. I probably wouldnt do it but i dont care that you do!

Come on. You don't really think that recruitment processes are this sophisticated? hahahaha. If that was true, we wouldn't be in a situation where many companies, government agencies etc are consistently run by people who went to private schools and/or Oxbridge.