Job applications screening for privilege.

Don’t forget to post if he got the job

Would you want to work for a company that asks these questions as part of the recruitment process?

Anyway your son has had 8 years work experience and the company should be recruiting on the basis of his career progression and experience, not his background.

My experience was that after about 5 years, providing you had the educational basics, whatever they were for the job, employers were uninterested inwhere you got it, what class degree you got and certainly had no interest inyour school. Alltat mattered was job experience and competence.

So much interviewing now is competence and case study based

biglouis
I have 2 grandchildren that have all that you mention ( and more)
But, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink 😉

Foxygloves

Funny Fleurpepper from your politics I’d have expected you to be more egalitarian.

I think it’s a Diane Abbot thing 😉

Oh yes, I don’t think anyone would deny that questions can be asked to see if someone has the class credentials to be a ‘good fit’ - it was ever thus, wasn’t it? What I find interesting is that it’s only when there is a sniff of a possibility that there might be positive discrimination in favour of the less advantaged that people get upset.

One of my daughters works in a very prestigious private school and they did ask her which school she went to at the interview. It happened to be a sister school of the one she now works at. I am sure that helped though she may have still got the job because they actually didn’t ask that until she was being interviewed.

As some posters have mentioned kids from middle class homes are more likely to have access to good study facilities, private tutoring, the latest technology and parental encouragement. Parents from less affluent backgrounds may wish just as fervently for their children to progress but simply not have the money to spare because they have to concentrate their financial resources on essential bills.

I am quite amazed that class features to be honest, it rarely is mentioned in terms of privilege.

No, I don’t suppose it does (and don’t get me started on the fact that men can muscle in on supposedly female shortlists) but I do think that it is important that data like this is collected. Without it there is no way of knowing where the gaps are, or at what stage of the process they appear.

I could see that university would do that, they are children when they apply.
And as I say certainly for women in employment there appears to be evidence that the strategies used to remove barriers to womens participation in certain sectors has no particular impact.

It’s a standard question on university forms - not for staff appointments which are qualifications and research based, but on student applications. Nobody would lose or gain a place because of their answer, but institutions and departments within them can see how many ‘non-traditional’ applications and acceptances they have. It can easily be drilled down to a course level, too.

I have applied for positions in 5 local authorities over the last 20 years, never been asked about my parents education.
I have interviewed candidates for positions at a local authority within the last year, obviously I know about data gathering for sex disability etc, I have never seen data gathering on parents background.

Galaxy

Applied for a job in the public sector six months ago, if you mean an equality form with regard to age, sex, disability, etc then yes. Questions on parents education no.

We were requested, not required, to fill in such forms over 20 years ago in our public sector. That applied to existing employees.
It is data-gathering.

Funny Fleurpepper from your politics I’d have expected you to be more egalitarian.

Doodledog's already said it: questions're not part of the selection, they're checking the life chances profile of those applying for their jobs, and that allows them to see if there are particular sections of society that are applying for a lot of their jobs but not getting the expected ratio of job offers. If monitored properly, a big business can then check that they are not, consciously or unconsciously, discriminating during the selection process & thereby not always getting the best person for the job,
The theory works better than the practice - but if the applicant doesn't want to answer the questions they can tick"prefer not to say". (or leave blank). The selection panel will never see the screening questions, they are retained - anonymously I believe - in the HR data so that the business has access to them. For instance if they were facing accusations of institutional racism & had statistics that showed a higher rate of successful applications from BAME candidates, they could use that as a positive to reassure current staff, the public & potential applicants.

Foxygloves

Fleurpepper

if looking for signs of 'privilege' I am surprised they don't ask about Private Education. Children who were privately educated during Covid had a MASSIVE advantage, and probably got much higher exam results.

And you were no doubt delighted with your grandchildren’s achievements as I remember you telling us what an excellent private school they went to.

Yes, absolutely. Does not make any difference to what I said.

I really don't think that employers look for gay, working class disabled applicants .

The questions are not screening out the privileged - they are checking that the ads are being seen by, and not discouraging people outside of the 'traditional' demographic (public-school educated white men from 'top' universities). Nobody will know from these questions whether anyone's son or daughter is a disabled lesbian of colour, but they will know whether nobody from any of those groups has applied, and whether 1000 (eg) gay people have applied and none of them has been appointed. This means that they can ensure that the ads are not putting people off, that they are positioned in channels where 'non-traditional' candidates will see them, and that there are no exclusionary or discriminatory practices or policies in the interview process.

The privileged will keep their privilege - don't worry. It's just that there might be some competition from groups who might otherwise have been missed.

Fleurpepper

if looking for signs of 'privilege' I am surprised they don't ask about Private Education. Children who were privately educated during Covid had a MASSIVE advantage, and probably got much higher exam results.

And you were no doubt delighted with your grandchildren’s achievements as I remember you telling us what an excellent private school they went to.

My son graduated with a first class degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University. He applied to Harvard to do a post graduate degree and was offered a place, but it came without any funding/scholarship. His friend graduated the same course and university with a 2:1 degree and applied to Harvard and was offered a place to do a post graduate degree, with funding/scholarship. She joked to me to me that she was ‘the ethnic quota’ because although English with an English mother, her father was originally from Iran and the surname was clearly not English. She was also female.
Perhaps my son should have written that he was gay on his application and that might have ticked the necessary box! We, as teachers, having supported him, his brother, and his sister all through university, could not afford the twenty thousand pounds required for the one year of study at Harvard so he didn’t go.
He has done well though and is now a practicing barrister at a top set of chambers in London.

Lexisgranny

When our eldest child started school, parents were interviewed by the HeadMistress of the Infant School who asked these sort of questions. It was a State school.

Our daughter was asked at primary school what her Father did.
She told staff he gave money to people that didn’t have any.
Staff were under the impression he worked for a charity.
He was a banker🤣

When our eldest child started school, parents were interviewed by the HeadMistress of the Infant School who asked these sort of questions. It was a State school.

Germanshepherdsmum

Positive discrimination, I would suggest. There are a lot of kids who don’t get the opportunities they are worthy of because they have no quiet space to do their homework. They tend to come from poor families with little in the way of academic qualifications. If you can work your way through that you’ll be a good bet as an employee.

This was reallymuch more so during Covid. No computer and internet no quiet space to work, no books around, as well as no regular teaching.

Kids from middle class background had it all, apart from 100% lessons via Zoom, etc- which only students in Private Schools did.

Not a good move NotSpaghetti.

I can only comment as regards law firms Riverwalk. Until you reach a sufficient level of seniority a cv with university details is required - and certainly for would-be trainees much importance is attached to the university attended, with a 2:1 from a top university trumping a first from one of the lesser ones. And amongst the top universities, Oxbridge isn’t necessarily given preference as students are often viewed as having been spoon fed through the tutorial system unlike, say, the LSE where it’s very much a matter of thinking for yourself, sinking or swimming. I know this from personal experience and from comments made by banking friends.

He could always call and ask the HR team if it bothers him?

Just an idea.