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?

Absolutely - it is notable that minority ethnic groups are more likely to go to private school in uK so op is effectively indirectly racially discriminating.

Do you mean you were in PR? yes more private, I agree.

The owner / CEO or MD actually can be as you say, but the directors are more a mix and hire a mix ime in the agencies I’ve been in.

No. I'm not a fan of private education and chose to send my dd to state schools, but I would not actively discriminate against candidates from private schools. I want the best candidate for the role, regardless of their background. Personally, I have chosen to focus on improving our recruitment processes in order to ensure that we're looking past superficial "polish" and effectively assessing true potential/suitability for the role.

I've moved my organisation to blind recruitment now in any case, so we don't know anything about their backgrounds before they rock up at interview.

@MarshaBradyo In the PR and Marketing/Comms agencies I've worked with/for, the top brass have tended to be posh toffs. Fact. And while there might be a more diverse group at the lower levels, it gets posher the higher you go. And even at director level, the posh ones tended to be the ones on the more high profile/profitable accounts. Every single time. They also tend to get promoted faster (or move into comms/PR/marketing from some other field at a higher level than someone from a different background who makes this move).

And of course, the reason is often because to get to the very top in these firms, you have to be able to bring in business. And they are the ones who have the connections. And that starts to be felt practically from day one when they join as account executives.

‘I've moved my organisation to blind recruitment now in any case, so we don't know anything about their backgrounds before they rock up at interview’

okay, so by your argument then WC at interview get given the same shot as everyone else, yet they have less chance of going to Uni or FE so presumably are weeded out pre-interview?
and then in interview they get exactly the same shot as any one else?
and yet, senior positions, in professional industries are absolutely stuffed with the privately educated, and those from privileged backgrounds.
I suppose that means the privately educated and those from wealthy backgrounds real are just breed than everyone else…

Fair enough Tired interesting. I do see PR as quite similar to publishing, and more inclined to private / posh etc.

I feel like I was more in areas where there were a range of accents, including international, the CD was always quite um strong ego but not necessarily posh. The client director on top of things and often female but not necessarily private / posh, I do take your point about the CEO though. They usually fit what you say and I have pondered that before.

though actually, it’s at interview that I actively look for those I believe will be willing to learn, hardworking, focussed have REAL work experience and resilience and I have to say it’s rarely the candidate who just - as happened recently - came from an interning role in a music company ( her mum
was a senior exec there) where they spent their days organising travel and the diary of a famous musician.
I took the grad candidate who was currently working as admin in a logistics company in the night shift, and Tesco in the day.
Neither job could give them enough hours to do one full time and I reckoned that candidate probably knew something about hard work and time management and how to deal with people. Real people,
no showbiz people.

@LolaSmiles Who hands out the permission to take direct action in society?There are rules for discrimination and those who feel discriminated against can use them. But why attack as 'random', an individual who can personally do something about the overrepresentation of privately educated people in public and professional life and chooses to take that action? What comes across in so many of these posts is an overwhelming sense of entitlement to MAKE the rules.
If the OP is as brilliant and experienced and senior as she claims, she could do an awful lot of good in meaningfully promoting systemic change, changing and shaping policy, getting outreach a priority, considering whether there's a need for funded internships or studentships specifically to improve access and diversity.

But they all take hard work, effort, and don't come with the little endorphin buzz of binning applications because you don't like which school someone's parents chose for them.

My incredibly talented female colleague who didn’t make partner because her face didn’t fit and she was a woman used to explode with that sort of talk Lola. She had heard warm words “things are changing” outreach programs etc for fucking years but funnily enough they never actually did really change not right at the top anyway and so her colleague (privately educated collegiate easy going white male) got made up and she didn’t. Hey ho.

My incredibly talented female colleague who didn’t make partner because her face didn’t fit and she was a woman used to explode with that sort of talk Lola. She had heard warm words “things are changing” outreach programs etc for fucking years but funnily enough they never actually did really change not right at the top anyway and so her colleague (privately educated collegiate easy going white male) got made up and she didn’t. Hey ho.
I'd be furious too in her shoes and it shows we have a long way to go in many industries. I'd also probably guess that being a woman was another factor behind that decision as well because misogyny is rampant.

Do I think that makes it right for someone to throw applications in the bin because their parents chose a certain school for them? No.

The inequality many face starts a long way before someone gets to school. Gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged children are evident from 3. Binning someone's application as an adult because of where they went to school wouldn't have changed your friend's situation.

@LolaSmiles

Privilege hand-me-downs? We must 'reach-out' to those who don't have our advantages of skin colour/private education/centuries of entitlement? But we do not acknowledge that in order to make life fairer we will be giving something up?

Some companies do talk about social mobility and doing well at that by some measure. Make any policy above board for senior hirers and approach interviews according to standards set. Just binning CVS for entry level positions is not the way to go. They have no power in their situation and a recruiter should be ethical and use standards imo

citroenpresse
Unfortunately our whole society is steeped in this shit.

There's a hell of a lot of work required to make our society fairer and have greater representation in many areas.

Someone looking at someone's application and binning it because they've got a chip on their shoulder about something the adult's parents decided for them as a child isn't bringing about reform. It's just one person making themselves feel big and powerful.

Just binning CVS for entry level positions is not the way to go. They have no power in their situation and a recruiter should be ethical and use standards imo
Agreed.

This thread makes me think of the fact that on many social issues there's courses of action that are simple but wrong, and complex but right.

Binning applications for entry level jobs because you don't like the applicant's parents' choices falls into the simple but wrong camp to me.

‘Who hands out the permission to take direct action in society?There are rules for discrimination and those who feel discriminated against can use them’

no-one. We take action ourselves and more of us need to do it when we can.
Discrimination is so INSIDIOUS that it’s almost undetectable. My global company has 60% women but a 30% gender pay gap.

I was discriminated against by my weasel of a boss- and there was fuck all I could do about it. That’s the reality. Only after he’d left - pushed out once he started on women more powerful and influential than me - did anyone admit that no it wasn’t a ‘personality clash’ between us after all and yes he was a misogynistic ( single sex boarding school educated) slime-ball.

Of course you're unreasonable. Best person on merit always. And a diverse workforce is always best. What do your employers think of your discrimination?

I think it's totally OK to acknowledge that the different barriers that have been overcome by two different candidates with ostensibly equal qualifications might have been wildly different, and if there's nothing else to choose between them then going for the one who had a more difficult time rather than the one who had an easy ride is a sensible choice.

You can take this further and say that if the qualifications and experience of the one who had the more difficult task are slightly lower than the one who had an easy ride, then they still might on the whole be a better candidate.

But it's not reasonable to assume that all people who were privately educated had an easy ride, or that they are not worth employing. That's a mistake and you will lose out on genuine talent, as well as discounting that some of them have some pretty serious struggles to contend with that private education only partially compensated for. Not everyone has a silver spoon.

Great post FaazoHuyzeoSix

Lots of universities have started making contextual offers, which I think is positive and acknowledges the effect of inequality. The details are published and there's criteria for the contextual offer to be made.
That's much better than someone sitting in admissions office binning UCAS forms because they don't like where the student went to school and have decided that they can create a whole backstory about the student from the school name on their form.

Anyone recruiting for a position right now/recently who would like to share a private/state school percentage count?

OP If you were my employee and I found out your little game I would fire you instantly.

Your blatant prejudice is shameful, it says a lot about you that you brag about it.

There's probably a good reason why she's not, though.

Do you also direct this anger to those who help ensure all our top professions are rammed full of the privately-educated, or do you just save it for people trying to give the disadvantaged a leg up?

I just can’t stand any form of prejudice or bigotry- no matter who it’s aimed at. You may think certain forms of blind prejudice are acceptable or desirable, I don’t. I judge people as I find them, no preconceived assumptions or stereotypes.

Fine, but your response to the OP is not 'your colleagues' selecting public school types over others is disgusting', instead it's the OP doing the opposite that you find 'shameful'.

Some forms of prejudice are worse than others. Some are even justified. I'm happy to own those statements.

Do you hire people? Out of interest

OP, have you done any kind of analysis of the background of the state school students that you are letting through the gates? A state education does not mean that someone is had a disadvantaged upbringing (and if you think it does then you really need to widen your view of disadvantage - there's a world of difference between "didn't have access to fencing lessons at school" and "grew up in and out of care with lots of changes of school").

If your profession is as dominated by the social elites as you say, then surely there's a really good chance that you are simply increasing the number of middle class state educated employees. That is not a victory for social mobility. This is UCAS contextual admissions are far more nuanced than just giving all state school students the same "context" - otherwise grammar school students would hoover up the places and rural and coastal areas would fall even further behind.

If you are really interested in social mobility then set up a network in your industry. Mentor young people. Do outreach work with schools. Join an agency that offers free tuition to underprivileged children. I'm a part of a social mobility network, and we do a huge amount of this kind of work.

But if you aren't actually interested in social mobility, and you want to just validate your own self-image as an edgy rebel sticking it to the man, then crack on as you are.