Job applications screening for privilege.

If it is included in a job application form it looks like discrimination.

Elegran - monitoring is not biased.
It is just monitoring.
If you are born into privilege you tend to have a head start.

Germanshepherdsmum

If it’s investment or merchant banking or fund management, they are known for recruiting the privileged so this could well be an attempt to increase diversity. I don’t know about other areas of the finance sector.

I didn’t get the impression that gender history had been asked about elegran, simply the gender the applicant identifies as.

Yes it’s investment!
He works in impact investing, it’s not full of “Hoorays”.

The way to get a workforce who are not hampered by their parents' lack of education when they were 11 - 18 is to make sure that education in all schools is up to the highest standard and that all pupils take advantage of the education that is available to them, whatever the level their parents reached

You don't achieve it by biasing your recruitment toward those you assume have less education because of their background - what motivation is that for pupils to get any qualifications? Just bunk off school, you'll go to the top of the employmment short list, ahead of the others.

I suspect this is detached (as Doodledog suggests).

The reason is probably privilege monitoring.

A study by the Debrett’s Foundation found that 72% of privileged Britons admitted to using familial connections in the jobs area. People who were from well educated families are more likely to have those connections.
As your son is already experienced in his field I'm sure it must be monitoring rather than part of selection.

If it’s investment or merchant banking or fund management, they are known for recruiting the privileged so this could well be an attempt to increase diversity. I don’t know about other areas of the finance sector.

I didn’t get the impression that gender history had been asked about elegran, simply the gender the applicant identifies as.

He hasn’t applied for a job in about 8 years, he has been previously been headhunted within his sector, this is a big surprise to him.

If no-one can legally ask someone whether they used to be a different gender, then it cannot be legal or undiscriminatory to ask people applying for a job. It may be OK to discuss this in an interview if the applicant raises the subject, but surely what matters is the suitability of the applicant for the position applied for?

The whole point of the drive for inclusiveness is that people should not be discriminated against for their gender choice or their parents' education (or lack of it) but should be judged for themselves.

Germanshepherdsmum

I have never seen questions like that asked. Which sector is this?

Finance sector.

Can you point to the law which is breached by these questions TwiceAsNice?

I don’t think this is even legal

What sector. I have changed jobs recently. Questions about parents education, FSM certainly werent asked, and that was public sector employees.

Are the questions on a somehow detachable part of the application form?

If so, they are probably something that won't be looked at when screening, but used to monitor the backgrounds of applicants so that the company/organisation can (a) ensure that they target ads to get a wider range of applicants and (b) that if, say, they find that 75% of applicants are from a particular demographic but nobody from that group is ever employed, then they need to look at the interview process.

I think they are looking to tick boxes. My first thought on reading about the questions about a person's parents was that it isn't any of their business. I think I'd class it with a woman being asked about what her husband does or what she'll do about childcare.

There's more than one kind of diversity and I fear that sometimes people are focussing on irrelevances.

Suitability for the job is surely the most important thing but, of course, people can learn a job on the job. that used to be more common.

That sounds rather intrusive giving such personal information on a job application which may not even be offered.

I have never seen questions like that asked. Which sector is this?

Goodness knows - I am quite surprised they are allowed to ask these questions.