Raising social mobility
October 11, 2015 3:20 PM Subscribe
Three of the four largest global accountancy firms in the U.K. have announced changes to their hiring processes. In particular, Deloitte announced that it will "begin using a school-blind hiring process to help address unconscious bias." Interviewers will no longer have access to details of an applicant's school or university until an offer has been made. The announcement marks the start of Deloitte’s inaugural Social Mobility Week.
In May this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers announced that it had changed its recruitment policy to help further diversify its graduate intake. "The Big Four firm said that part of the reason for the decision lay in the fact that high A level grades were disproportionately awarded to pupils from affluent backgrounds."
According to the OECD, intergenerational earning, wage and educational mobility vary widely across OECD countries. Mobility in earnings, wages and education across generations is relatively low in France, southern European countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. By contrast, such mobility tends to be higher in Australia, Canada and the Nordic countries. (Source (warning: long PDF))
In May this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers announced that it had changed its recruitment policy to help further diversify its graduate intake. "The Big Four firm said that part of the reason for the decision lay in the fact that high A level grades were disproportionately awarded to pupils from affluent backgrounds."
According to the OECD, intergenerational earning, wage and educational mobility vary widely across OECD countries. Mobility in earnings, wages and education across generations is relatively low in France, southern European countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. By contrast, such mobility tends to be higher in Australia, Canada and the Nordic countries. (Source (warning: long PDF))
that's really cool.
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2015
posted by Annika Cicada at 3:59 PM on October 11, 2015
I was at a work conference a few weeks ago, and talked to a company who had switched to cv blind admissions for its Management Trainee programme. It was a big success for them, and we're looking at doing the same.
posted by frumiousb at 4:13 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by frumiousb at 4:13 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
So, Chad, did you like polo or tennis better?
posted by benzenedream at 4:25 PM on October 11, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 4:25 PM on October 11, 2015 [13 favorites]
Yachting, actually.
posted by symbioid at 4:43 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 4:43 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is fucking huge.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:54 PM on October 11, 2015
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:54 PM on October 11, 2015
What about candidate names? In the UK, one certainly can deduce social class and background, at least probabilistically, from personal names. If the interviewer knows that they're talking to a Geoffrey or Frances rather than, say, a Darren or Tracy, they can make assumptions about class/educational background from that and rationalise them as “culture fit”. (And that's to say nothing about ethnicity, also encoded in names.)
posted by acb at 5:00 PM on October 11, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:00 PM on October 11, 2015 [14 favorites]
I am not normally a prescriptivist, but unconscious bias drives me nuts.
posted by snofoam at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by snofoam at 5:02 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Hey wow, this is really awesome.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:51 PM on October 11, 2015
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:51 PM on October 11, 2015
I am feeling better each day about my choice of Crazy Go Nuts University.
posted by 4ster at 5:53 PM on October 11, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by 4ster at 5:53 PM on October 11, 2015 [16 favorites]
UK is not the only place where school, activities and family name are drivers of what people do to choose an applicant with a "cultural fit", one that has the same background and school.
There are a lot of ways to push that into a resume: volunteer work, honors, projects, etc.
It is a step, but one that throws a bone while maintaining large amounts of discretion based on wealth and political connections.
posted by kadmilos at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2015
There are a lot of ways to push that into a resume: volunteer work, honors, projects, etc.
It is a step, but one that throws a bone while maintaining large amounts of discretion based on wealth and political connections.
posted by kadmilos at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2015
Good luck constructing a hiring process that doesn't have large amounts of discretion though.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Wolfdog at 6:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't suppose this affects US hiring does it?
The Big Four are usually structured so that each country has its own "member firm" that operates as an indepdent partnership, with the partners in that country being the ownership and management for that country alone. There's nothing quite like the international headquarters that a publicly-traded multinational would have with the authority to set worldwide recruitment practices.
That said, within each worldwide Big Four metafirm, the senior and managing partners in different countries work together and coordinate all the time, and if this has good results in Britain, I expect some of the US member firms will start picking it up from them in a year or two.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
The Big Four are usually structured so that each country has its own "member firm" that operates as an indepdent partnership, with the partners in that country being the ownership and management for that country alone. There's nothing quite like the international headquarters that a publicly-traded multinational would have with the authority to set worldwide recruitment practices.
That said, within each worldwide Big Four metafirm, the senior and managing partners in different countries work together and coordinate all the time, and if this has good results in Britain, I expect some of the US member firms will start picking it up from them in a year or two.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 6:33 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
Wolfdog: "Good luck constructing a hiring process that doesn't have large amounts of discretion though."
Yeah. I think the best we can do is identify obvious opportunities for discrimination and try to block those. But a hiring manager has to have *some* discretion, not everything is quantifiable.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah. I think the best we can do is identify obvious opportunities for discrimination and try to block those. But a hiring manager has to have *some* discretion, not everything is quantifiable.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:53 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Having talked to someone who I've known for a long time who is actually implementing this on the ground - it is a genuinely meritocratic step, and within the confines of the industry, to be applauded. Economic diversity is no joke and UK firms do a poor job for upward mobility in this regard.
Hiding disappointment that now more working class people will grow up to be cogs in the management consulting machine - grinding their peers out of work in the name of efficiency, financializing everything - but still....
posted by lalochezia at 9:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [6 favorites]
Hiding disappointment that now more working class people will grow up to be cogs in the management consulting machine - grinding their peers out of work in the name of efficiency, financializing everything - but still....
posted by lalochezia at 9:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [6 favorites]
Perhaps this means that the owning class feels secure in its position and wants enough meritocracy to hire the best cogs.
posted by clew at 9:51 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 9:51 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
Cynically I had similar thoughts though more along the line of this being a way to depress wages by widening the applicant pool especially with lower class people who might have lower wage expectations.
posted by Mitheral at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2015
posted by Mitheral at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2015
I'm really torn on this one. On the one hand, I support more diversity and less bias in hiring, and anything process- or systems-realated that can take some of that bias choice out of the hands of humans sounds positive.
On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging narrative in our current installation of capitalism that corporations are legitimate organisations to drive social change. With the unchallenged but favourable-to-them PR implications that they can and will do this for no other motive than altruistic social good.
posted by terretu at 11:52 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging narrative in our current installation of capitalism that corporations are legitimate organisations to drive social change. With the unchallenged but favourable-to-them PR implications that they can and will do this for no other motive than altruistic social good.
posted by terretu at 11:52 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]
I dunno, I'm trying to get to a point where I care more about effects than intentions. If the sum total of a corporation's efforts are beneficial, I'm trying not to care about whether they do it for the cashflow or the altruism.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:01 AM on October 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:01 AM on October 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
OK so I work for one of these firms (though not in the UK). I would say that this is almost certainly self-interested, but not necessarily in a bad way. I'd say it's much more about ensuring that your firm gets the absolute best talent, and about ensuring that you have the diversity in your teams to solve your clients' problems. [I mean, the people introducing these policies, they obviously know about the problems with groupthink and non-diverse teams]. So a firm that actively works not to discriminate is benefiting both itself and its workers, even out of pure self-interest.
That said: I used to work for a large UK law firm. And I'd look at the intake of new lawyers. And they were quite well-balanced gender wise, and the firm had an active LGBT group, and they certainly weren't all white. But they all had very upper-class accents. And that's not something you can hide, even if you don't look at schools, or grades. Related to that, you can look at someone's external interests: hobbies include yachting? Spent a gap year in an exotic part of the world? Interned at Goldman Sachs? Even captain of the school rugby team might be a sign of their background.
So I think that this is a welcome move, but they're going to have to be very careful to avoid picking up on other signals of background, and making biased decisions based on those.
[Incidentally, there's more to what we do than "grinding [people] out of work in the name of efficiency" - our consultants work on all sorts of things - health and safety, cybersecurity, running new IT projects. Though I wouldn't deny that the HR consultants would sometimes recommend changes that lead to job losses. But that's a really small part of what these firms do].< /needlessly defensive >
posted by Pink Frost at 1:22 AM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
That said: I used to work for a large UK law firm. And I'd look at the intake of new lawyers. And they were quite well-balanced gender wise, and the firm had an active LGBT group, and they certainly weren't all white. But they all had very upper-class accents. And that's not something you can hide, even if you don't look at schools, or grades. Related to that, you can look at someone's external interests: hobbies include yachting? Spent a gap year in an exotic part of the world? Interned at Goldman Sachs? Even captain of the school rugby team might be a sign of their background.
So I think that this is a welcome move, but they're going to have to be very careful to avoid picking up on other signals of background, and making biased decisions based on those.
[Incidentally, there's more to what we do than "grinding [people] out of work in the name of efficiency" - our consultants work on all sorts of things - health and safety, cybersecurity, running new IT projects. Though I wouldn't deny that the HR consultants would sometimes recommend changes that lead to job losses. But that's a really small part of what these firms do].< /needlessly defensive >
posted by Pink Frost at 1:22 AM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging narrative in our current installation of capitalism that corporations are legitimate organisations to drive social change. With the unchallenged but favourable-to-them PR implications that they can and will do this for no other motive than altruistic social good.
Dunno. I think many of the companies with aggressive Corporate Responsibility strategies (think Patagonia, Body Shop or IKEA) also stress that they are far from altruistic to do so. They argue that this kind of doing good is also good business and critical for long term business sustainability. Would you rather other companies didn't follow their example?
posted by frumiousb at 1:24 AM on October 12, 2015
Dunno. I think many of the companies with aggressive Corporate Responsibility strategies (think Patagonia, Body Shop or IKEA) also stress that they are far from altruistic to do so. They argue that this kind of doing good is also good business and critical for long term business sustainability. Would you rather other companies didn't follow their example?
posted by frumiousb at 1:24 AM on October 12, 2015
I work for the UK Civil Service, on its graduate training scheme (albeit my graduation was quite a while ago). They are very, very conscious of diversity, and part of that is manifested in the application process being as blind as it can usefully be. So, for the final in-person part of the process after a bunch of online tests, there were several role-playing type exercises followed by an interview, all conducted by assessors who were given no information about you except your name. They scored you against particular competencies, and if your overall score exceeded a certain threshold then you were offered a place.
It was a really unusual interview compared to others I've had, even ones that were technically competency-based interviews. There was no "I see you worked on [thing] in your last position, tell me more about that", and pretty much zero interest in specifically what you had done professionally as opposed to how you had done it (and even then, with explicit instructions that your competency examples didn't have to come from your work life at all - I think I used conflict resolution among my warring neighbours as one of mine).
It's not entirely blind recruitment and never can be, really. There's a lot you can tell about someone just from their name and accent just for a start. There are a lot of ways for unconscious bias to play out, and there is a hazy overlap between 'soft skills' useful for professional success and markers of particular social status (if you're at ease in that kind of environment, if you're confident about your own abilities, if you already feel like you belong in a leadership role... which category do those fit in?). But it's good and it's a start, and I found it interesting that one of the interview questions was something like "Why is diversity important to the Civil Service?", where they were clearly looking for an answer that gave it more than lip service.
I'm sure that firms like Deloitte have a hefty dose of self-interest in implementing schemes like this. That is not a bad thing, though, since they actually do benefit from having a more diverse workforce. If we imagine that they should be doing this for altruistic reasons, we are saying that a diverse workforce would be less beneficial to them - that obviously the best candidates would be upper middle class white male blah blah blah, but that it would/should be a charitable act for firms to reach out to people who don't fit in that category as well. And I don't like the implication behind that at all.
posted by Catseye at 2:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
It was a really unusual interview compared to others I've had, even ones that were technically competency-based interviews. There was no "I see you worked on [thing] in your last position, tell me more about that", and pretty much zero interest in specifically what you had done professionally as opposed to how you had done it (and even then, with explicit instructions that your competency examples didn't have to come from your work life at all - I think I used conflict resolution among my warring neighbours as one of mine).
It's not entirely blind recruitment and never can be, really. There's a lot you can tell about someone just from their name and accent just for a start. There are a lot of ways for unconscious bias to play out, and there is a hazy overlap between 'soft skills' useful for professional success and markers of particular social status (if you're at ease in that kind of environment, if you're confident about your own abilities, if you already feel like you belong in a leadership role... which category do those fit in?). But it's good and it's a start, and I found it interesting that one of the interview questions was something like "Why is diversity important to the Civil Service?", where they were clearly looking for an answer that gave it more than lip service.
I'm sure that firms like Deloitte have a hefty dose of self-interest in implementing schemes like this. That is not a bad thing, though, since they actually do benefit from having a more diverse workforce. If we imagine that they should be doing this for altruistic reasons, we are saying that a diverse workforce would be less beneficial to them - that obviously the best candidates would be upper middle class white male blah blah blah, but that it would/should be a charitable act for firms to reach out to people who don't fit in that category as well. And I don't like the implication behind that at all.
posted by Catseye at 2:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [10 favorites]
That is not a bad thing, though, since they actually do benefit from having a more diverse workforce.
What makes anyone think that the result should be more "diversity". Elite schools produce minority graduates who will be affected by this the same as their oppressor peers.
Actually, it seems to me that Deloitte is looking for talent and they have decided that where a candidate went to school has a large distorting effect on how smart such applicants are perceived and how highly they are evaluated (which should be a surprise to no one.)
By eliminating this bias, they are simply weeding out deadbeats and any diversity that results will be the result of remorseless capitalist efficiency and not socialist state planning.
posted by three blind mice at 4:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
What makes anyone think that the result should be more "diversity". Elite schools produce minority graduates who will be affected by this the same as their oppressor peers.
Actually, it seems to me that Deloitte is looking for talent and they have decided that where a candidate went to school has a large distorting effect on how smart such applicants are perceived and how highly they are evaluated (which should be a surprise to no one.)
By eliminating this bias, they are simply weeding out deadbeats and any diversity that results will be the result of remorseless capitalist efficiency and not socialist state planning.
posted by three blind mice at 4:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't deny that the HR consultants would sometimes recommend changes that lead to job losses. But that's a really small part of what these firms do].< /needlessly defensive >
The world just keeps getting shittier, but somehow it's never actually anyone's fault.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:08 AM on October 12, 2015
The world just keeps getting shittier, but somehow it's never actually anyone's fault.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:08 AM on October 12, 2015
I'm sure that firms like Deloitte have a hefty dose of self-interest in implementing schemes like this. That is not a bad thing, though, since they actually do benefit from having a more diverse workforce. If we imagine that they should be doing this for altruistic reasons, we are saying that a diverse workforce would be less beneficial to them - that obviously the best candidates would be upper middle class white male blah blah blah, but that it would/should be a charitable act for firms to reach out to people who don't fit in that category as well. And I don't like the implication behind that at all.
The guy I know says this ABSOLUTELY true. The uni graduates who he talked with - and is hiring! - outside the Russell Group* were more willing to learn, instantly better teamworkers, and less likely after a month to be like "enough with the spreadsheets when do I get to meet the VPs?" and more like "let's get this job perfect".
Culturally elite institutions promulgate (I think, partially unknowingly) a masters-of-the-universe-in-waiting attitude that my friend is kind of sick of.
*(like the Ivy league in the US)
posted by lalochezia at 7:32 AM on October 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
Ernst & Young recently dropped its requirement for all applicants to have a 2:1 degree or better and specific A level results. Now you don't need to have good academic results, you only need to have graduated from university to apply for its three-year training scheme.
Is KPMG doing anything similar? They risk looking out of date if they keep up the barriers.
There is a hefty dose of practicality here -- it doesn't cost much to let another few thousand people do the online tests that kick off recruitment at the Big 4, and it will certainly throw up some talented people who wouldn't have had a chance before.
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 7:35 AM on October 12, 2015
Is KPMG doing anything similar? They risk looking out of date if they keep up the barriers.
There is a hefty dose of practicality here -- it doesn't cost much to let another few thousand people do the online tests that kick off recruitment at the Big 4, and it will certainly throw up some talented people who wouldn't have had a chance before.
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 7:35 AM on October 12, 2015
On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging narrative in our current installation of capitalism that corporations are legitimate organisations to drive social change. With the unchallenged but favourable-to-them PR implications that they can and will do this for no other motive than altruistic social good.
I'm a pretty cynical crone, but I'd like to think that every institution and every person can be *a* force forsocial change. Do some people and institutions buy into social change out of self-interest? Absolutely. But I've always believed that consequences matter more than motives, at least most of the time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:39 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm a pretty cynical crone, but I'd like to think that every institution and every person can be *a* force forsocial change. Do some people and institutions buy into social change out of self-interest? Absolutely. But I've always believed that consequences matter more than motives, at least most of the time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:39 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
I applied once with one of said firms and having seen the last few people waiting in the room for the final interview, I can understand why they changed their policy.
posted by ersatz at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2015
posted by ersatz at 9:31 AM on October 12, 2015
I once had a very heated discussion with a VP of HR for my ex-employer (leading oilfield services company aka Big Blue) when I was in the HR function. The company's policy was that the leading Field Engineer program recruited from "Ambassador" universities around the world, the Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial tiers in the UK. For the Field Specialist program (allegedly less demanding, but the same training, just without a fixed time frame) we were supposed to hire Technical College graduates (BTEC rather than BEng/BSc).
My argument was why are we turning our back on good candidates for a college decision they made when they were 18 and didn't even know the company existed? I kid you not, I had candidates with 1st class degrees in Mathematics and Astrophysics (rocket scientists!) from good UK universities that wouldn't be eligible if this guy had had his way. After much debate from me and my manager, we won an exemption for the UK, but other regions got stuck with the blinkered status quo.
The rocket scientist and the mathematician both hired on and oddly enough, kicked the ass of the Field Engineer class that hired on at the same time. Give people the opportunity and they'll thrive.
posted by arcticseal at 2:13 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
My argument was why are we turning our back on good candidates for a college decision they made when they were 18 and didn't even know the company existed? I kid you not, I had candidates with 1st class degrees in Mathematics and Astrophysics (rocket scientists!) from good UK universities that wouldn't be eligible if this guy had had his way. After much debate from me and my manager, we won an exemption for the UK, but other regions got stuck with the blinkered status quo.
The rocket scientist and the mathematician both hired on and oddly enough, kicked the ass of the Field Engineer class that hired on at the same time. Give people the opportunity and they'll thrive.
posted by arcticseal at 2:13 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging narrative in our current installation of capitalism that corporations are legitimate organisations to drive social change. With the unchallenged but favourable-to-them PR implications that they can and will do this for no other motive than altruistic social good.
No one should lionize any corporation, not even non-profit organizations or Tesla, but should we discount corporations from society so completely? They're made up of people. They can have agendas that happen to benefit the social good. If corporations are people, we shouldn't make them into brahmin but they need not be pariahs either.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:31 PM on October 13, 2015
No one should lionize any corporation, not even non-profit organizations or Tesla, but should we discount corporations from society so completely? They're made up of people. They can have agendas that happen to benefit the social good. If corporations are people, we shouldn't make them into brahmin but they need not be pariahs either.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:31 PM on October 13, 2015
Is KPMG doing anything similar? They risk looking out of date if they keep up the barriers.
I wondered about that too. On their UK careers page, there is a paragraph that reads: "We are committed to diversity and inclusion. To ensure we recruit the best student talent regardless of background, we operate a ‘CV blind’ recruitment policy at our telephone interview stage. Your interviewer will have no prior knowledge of your educational background - just your name, graduate position and contact number."
So it seems that this is happening at the phone interview stage, which is a good start. However, after the phone interview, it seems the process still allows for potential school bias?
posted by cynical pinnacle at 2:09 PM on October 14, 2015
I wondered about that too. On their UK careers page, there is a paragraph that reads: "We are committed to diversity and inclusion. To ensure we recruit the best student talent regardless of background, we operate a ‘CV blind’ recruitment policy at our telephone interview stage. Your interviewer will have no prior knowledge of your educational background - just your name, graduate position and contact number."
So it seems that this is happening at the phone interview stage, which is a good start. However, after the phone interview, it seems the process still allows for potential school bias?
posted by cynical pinnacle at 2:09 PM on October 14, 2015
Especially in the UK, the phone interview would be vulnerable to accent bias, wouldn't it?
posted by Chrysostom at 2:16 PM on October 14, 2015
posted by Chrysostom at 2:16 PM on October 14, 2015
« Older Now you see me now you don't. | “I made it a point to live with all the guys I... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Ruki at 3:45 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]