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Looking back


…arbitrary screening on


academic criteria was missing hidden talent, and this talent was


discovered through using the right assessments to match the right people to the right role.


Social mobility in student recruitment: one year on


At the 2015 AGR Student Recruitment Conference, Alex Linley, CEO, Capp chaired a roundtable discussion on social mobility in student recruitment. In this article, he looks back over developments in this area during the last year, as well as looking forward to what we can expect in the year to come.


What do we mean by social mobility? Social mobility refers to how a person fares in life relative to their social background. In simple terms for recruitment, we define this as where “your background doesn’t define your future opportunities. You do.”


During the 2015 AGR roundtable, there was much discussion about whether social mobility was best considered as being about ‘finding hidden talent’, or whether it was about ‘positive discrimination’ and ‘bending the rules’ to allow different groups of people to progress.


The panel shared a clear view that enabling social mobility should be about finding hidden talent, specifically through attracting and assessing diverse candidates in ways that identify a person’s potential and match for the role.


One of the biggest barriers to this happening in reality is the use of arbitrary screening criteria and the


20 Graduate Recruiter | www.agr.org.uk


unwitting tolerance of adverse impact in assessments. Insights from Nestlé, EY and Lloyds Banking Group showed how these challenges were overcome.


Better assessment Employers often use arbitrary screening criteria, such as UCAS points, degree class, or even university attended, as ways of managing their recruitment volumes. Unfortunately, these approaches simply exacerbate the structural blockers that already exist to social mobility.


This is changing, however, and the last year has seen significant progress made. Employers including Nestlé, EY and Lloyds Banking Group are all using better assessment to identify talent, match the right people to the right roles, and improve the diversity and social mobility of the people they hire.


For example, Nestlé were recognised with three AGR Awards for their work in this area: Best School Leaver Strategy


Award, Best Diversity & Inclusion Strategy Award, and the Best of the Best Award. These awards were in recognition of Nestlé’s work in removing arbitrary screening criteria in their recruitment process, and instead using psychometric and behavioural assessments that were proven to be predictive of subsequent performance.


Through this approach, Nestlé used a Situational Strengths Test, an Engineering Mindset Assessment, and the Capp Numerical Reasoning Test. They found that 44% of applicants during the campaign would not have been able to apply previously (previous criteria required a 2.1 degree and 300 UCAS points), and that 22% of hires would not have met these previous screening criteria.


Clearly, arbitrary screening on academic criteria was missing hidden talent, and this talent was discovered through using the right assessments to match the right people to the right role.


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