
Firm 'hides' university when recruits apply - tankenmate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34384668
======
irl_zebra
School: ______________*

Extracurriculars: Staff Writer for the Harvard Crimson; Summer Internship with
Professor David Malan CS50

~~~
arethuza
In the UK I can imagine non-Oxbridge Universities having "Oxford Clubs" for
people who applied but didn't get into Oxford... (and Cambridge clubs as well
- membership would presumably be mutually exclusive).

NB even 20 years ago there were clubs that solely seemed to exist so that the
members could rotate the top job between them so they could all have
"President of the XYZ Club" on their CVs.

------
kqr2
I wonder if a form of Gresham's Law (bad money drives out good) [1] may come
into play. Basically if all university diplomas are effectively considered
equal, then candidates from top tier schools will instead apply to places
where they perceive their diploma carries more weight. In other words, if we
think of a diploma as a form of currency, candidates will prefer to spend it
at a place where it is valued more highly.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law)

~~~
wpietri
I cannot think of a happier outcome than companies who value fancy credentials
over effectiveness ending up with the employees who would be upset that
they're being evaluated on how they actually perform rather than the prestige
of their degree. Then I'd never have to work with anybody like that again.

------
afarrell
This has been proposed as a way to fight rising college costs
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-
subsidies...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/)

------
supernova87a
Interesting sentiment and maybe well intentioned. But regardless of whether
you like it or not, the university provides a strong filtering mechanism on
the quality of your applicants. It is highly correlated with successful
application. So they may try this, but quickly back off at having got rid of a
very highly correlated screening input.

~~~
flashman
"Having attended a specific university" isn't as strong a predictor of
performance as you might think. Even "having attended university" isn't a
particularly strong filtering mechanism, as E&Y recently dropping the degree
threshold shows: [https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-
dr...](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-drops-degree-
classification-threshold-graduate-recruitment)

~~~
gambiter
As an aside, it's funny that both articles use the same stock image.

------
nl
Note that this is the BBC, and applies to Deloitte UK. It is unclear if it
applies to Deloitte worldwide.

The university system in the UK is completely different to in the US, so
hypotheses around it being to do with the cost of university or student loans
need substantial adjustments to make sense in the UK context.

~~~
cgtyoder
Can you say more about the differences? I don't know what they would be at all
- I thought they were very similar.

~~~
rahimnathwani
1) Many degrees are 3 years rather than 4.

2) Tuition fees for UK/EU students are capped at 9k GBP (13.6k USD) per year.

~~~
nl
Also, student loans are pretty different[1]. For example, the only company
allowed to give them is a non-profit, and they get cancelled if they have been
outstanding for a (fairly long) period of time[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_Ki...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_Kingdom#Repayment_and_interest)

------
roymurdock
10 days ago EY drops the 2:1 degree requirement [1] for UK applicants...now
Deloitte feels the need to one up them by removing college branding from the
consideration altogether. Next up is PWC rejecting any applicant with a
college degree and poaching them right out of high school instead :)

[1] [https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-
dr...](https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ernst-and-young-drops-degree-
classification-threshold-graduate-recruitment)

~~~
knight17
PwC, and other Big 4 and even small accounting firms in the UK already have a
school leavers program.

You join the firms out of school, they will ask you to register with
ICAEW/ACCA and study to become a chartered accountant (CPA in the US), the
firm will provide you with books, exam fees and tuition fees while you earn on
the job. After three years while your peers finishing up at university you
will have a solid work history with great qualifications with no debt. You can
even get a degree if you join ACCA for just ₤200 for submitting a thesis and
no additional exams.

While in the US, to become a CPA, you would need masters level education in
most cases to even appear for the CPA exams. UK and almost all commonwealth
countries have programs and institutes that offer professional qualification
opportunities with even more prestige than the average university route.
Accountancy is one of the few fields where one can get-qualified-on-job in the
Anglosphere (US, Canada excluded).

ICAEW : [http://careers.icaew.com/school-students-
leavers](http://careers.icaew.com/school-students-leavers)

ACCA :
[http://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/qualifications/accountancy-c...](http://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/qualifications/accountancy-
career/ukschoolleaver.html)

ACCA + B.Sc (Hons.) :[http://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/help/oxford-
brookes.html](http://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/help/oxford-brookes.html)

~~~
pcr0
> While in the US, to become a CPA, you would need masters level education in
> most cases to even appear for the CPA exams.

Source? This sounds ludicrous.

~~~
huac
[http://www.ais-cpa.com/outside.html](http://www.ais-cpa.com/outside.html)

"Most states have adopted a 150 university semester hour educational
requirement. A few states require only a four year university degree."
Depending on how your hours are calculated, I think 150 might require a year
of grad school generally. My school does 3 hours of class per week x 5 classes
per semester x 8 semesters = 120 hours.

On the other extreme, the CFA institute requires 4 years of experience to sit
the CFA exams.

~~~
knight17
I just checked the CFA Institute website. They say you must have a "bachelor's
(or equivalent) degree or be in the final year" of one OR four year work
experience (in any field) OR combined education + work experience of four
years.

I think what you are saying is true for using the designation (becoming a
chartered holder)--you need to have the practical experience of four years.

CFA Enrolment eligibility :
[https://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/register/Pa...](https://www.cfainstitute.org/programs/cfaprogram/register/Pages/index.aspx)

Experience required :
[https://www.cfainstitute.org/community/membership/process/Pa...](https://www.cfainstitute.org/community/membership/process/Pages/work_experience.aspx)

------
MichaelGG
Are they doing this just for social aspects? The article doesn't cite any hard
reason why they'd do this. You'd think that with so many applicants and
positions, they'd have lots of data that'd let them know if university
attended is a good predictor of performance.

As well as the opposite: If folks of different background really "innovate
differently", then again, they should have the data to prove this. Like "while
Xs only make up 5% of our workforce, 15% of all good-whatevers come from
them".

Or at least, they should investigate after this experiment is tried out and
determine if it had real impact.

~~~
michaelt

      You'd think that with so many applicants
      and positions, they'd have lots of data
    

It's easy to gather data about whether the hires you made were good hires.

It's difficult to gather data about whether the rejections you made were good
rejections.

------
c3534l
This is interesting as an accounting student. The big 4 audit firms which hire
the bulk or entry-level accountants have traditionally played favorites with
schools. This comes as quite a surprise to me because they haven't really
shown any effort otherwise about not picking favorite schools. Although this
is across the pond, so maybe it'll be different in the US.

------
cottonseed
I've about to hire and I've been thinking trying to build a process that
blinds to as much as possible: gender, race, age, university, previous
employers. What else? If you're doing this, please get in touch, I'd like to
talk about how you go about it.

~~~
jlg23
Picture, name, address and family situation.

The term for that process is "anonymized application" in German speaking
countries. In Switzerland they made good experiences with that (German
article:
[http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/nano/gesellschaft/149883/in...](http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/nano/gesellschaft/149883/index.html)).

In my opinion, the best way to ensure that you are "blinded" properly: Find
someone from a minority who is conscious of the obstacles people from
minorities face. Tell that person "I'm a racist, misogynist, idiot full of
prejudices. Make sure I can only hire based on qualification." Have that
person screen all applications and black out all revealing information. This
could be a perfect short-term gig for a 2nd year student in a relevant field
(relevant to the social aspects of the hiring process, not the positions you
hire for).

PS: Explicitly listing the things you do not want in an application in the job
post will probably help out weed people who cannot even follow simple
instructions ;)

~~~
sokoloff
Why wouldn't such a person that you hired ONLY pass along resumes of
minorities (or edit and sabotage the resumes of the majority candidates)?
After all, you've hand-picked them to be someone conscious of the struggles
AND told them that you're racist, misogynistic, prejudiced, and an idiot...

~~~
retbull
Get an envelope. Put the number of resumes in it on the front. Sign it. Get
back that number of resumes.

Seriously this isn't a hard problem to solve.

This should be standard practice for all businesses though I don't think that
it will happen any time soon. All application processes should be as double
blind as possible. So 2 people collect the resumes they number then and send
it off to the redactor. The redactor send the envelope to HR/hiring manager.
Then from that people should be selected. When interviewed people should be
administered a test to look for competence if necessary and if not only then
the interview should be conducted in such a way that the persons background,
race, and gender should be obscured.

I understand that much of the value of a person on a team is how well they get
along with the people who they work with so this needs to be addressed. Either
with some kind of trail period where their coworkers can file complaints but
they have to be weighed against their productivity as judged by a neutral
party so people can't just vote minorities and/or genders off the island per
say.

This is infeasible to implement but would be fair.

------
harryc2011
They seem to focus their campus recruitment events
([http://www.deloitte.co.uk/aem/student-events-
calendar.cfm](http://www.deloitte.co.uk/aem/student-events-calendar.cfm))
heavily towards the Russell Group universities (Oxbridge, London, Durham etc.)
If they want a more diverse talent pool, why don't they hold more events
further afield?

------
cusackalex
huge reflection of the commoditization of education. Essentially the only
thing they're checking for now is 'did you go to college?' The top 10-20
schools will continue to standout, but outside of the 'name brands' the
education is perceived as all being on the same level

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Who's to say the top 20 schools are really that good, though? They're on top
thanks to arbitrary, 'commodity' rankings.

------
emmab
Why is half the article in quotes?

~~~
dang
It must be quoting from some source that isn't linked. If anyone can find it,
we might change the URL to it. HN generally prefers original sources.

~~~
masterzora
The article appears to be based on this press release:
[http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-
releases/articles...](http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-
releases/articles/largest-british-business-to-adopt-contextualised-
recruitment.html)

~~~
dang
Somehow I can't bring myself to switch to that corpspeak. If people disagree
we can do it though.

------
jostmey
This graph says everything you need to know about higher education:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-
update-2011-1](http://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-update-2011-1)

I would suggest that academia is in a bubble, but many of the top Universities
are sitting on massive endowments. They have a nearly endless supply of cash.

~~~
phkahler
Government involvement in student loans is the direct cause of that.

~~~
bdamm
Are you saying governments shouldn't create policy that allows student loans?

~~~
dogma1138
No they shouldn't when loans are guaranteed to cover your tuition and for the
most part you are guaranteed a loan prices soar because there is no incentive
to lower the costs, the uni's make more money, and banks and the government
makes more money, and student are stuck with the bill.

This doesn't mean that governments shouldn't fund publicly accessible higher
education, it just means that they need to do it in a smarter way.

Picking up the cheque (permanently or temporarily) always results in
inflation, we see this in health care, we see this in housing, we see this in
education.

~~~
jeza
I agree that student loans don't do the student much justice and there must be
a smarter way of funding education. In Australia our HECs loan system
essentially funds research which may benefit society as a whole but hardly
benefits students when course content is in some cases years out of date. As
it's a loan system that graduates don't repay until their income reaches a
certain threshold (essentially an extra tax), with government approval this
has allowed course fees to creep upwards.

I don't agree with the general comment on inflation. For instance, I'm not
aware of Australia's medicare system leading to higher medical treatment
costs. If anything it provides a base level of care and limits the amount that
any private medical provider could provide.

In any case I'm certain that private insurance companies facilitate the same
kind of inflation as they don't seem too concerned about the cost of services
rendered when they can simply pass that onto their customers as a higher
premium (which they in turn benefit from). At least where government spending
is concerned, inflation can be managed.

