The dirty secret of graduate recruitment

Big article in the Guardian today about how employers fudge the issue on graduate recruitment. Instead of openly stating that they only want Oxbridge applicants, they now fudge the issue by targeting their marketing to specific institutions plus a Ucas points bar. OK, some Oxbridge applicant who only get a 2.2 or a 3rd fall through the net[shame!], but it certainly disbars a huge percentage of graduates. It is time that the dishonest recruitment practices that abound were outlawed. Just because you didn't go to Oxbridge, a Russell group, or redbrick university, it doesn't mean that you are a second class graduate. Surely diversity in the workplace is to be applauded, and everybody deserves the same chance. The artificial filter that is Ucas points should go, leaving all graduates to compete on their degree results, not on previous achievements. 'Good' graduates don't just come from the handful of elite universities, and it is time recruitment practices changed to ensure equal opportunities for all. As a careers adviser in a so called 'new university', I am pleased that the Guardian has had the courage to bring this secret practice into the open, as my students have been, and continue to be discriminated against in the graduate labour market solely on the fact that they are not from an 'elite' university.

Degrees of separation