Poshness test discriminates against working class research finds
Working class people are missing out on top jobs because they fail the “poshness test”, according to a social mobility charity.
Research from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that more than two-thirds of the job vacancies in elite legal and city firms are filled by university graduates who have been through private or grammar schools.
The commission found recruiters were swayed by a candidate’s accent, where they holidayed and their family background even to the detriment of qualifications.
It found that when a working-class youth in on the first rung of the career ladder, he or she is likely to be passed over for promotion because of “the tendency of more senior professionals to promote in their own image and thus misrecognise merit,” the commission said.
One employer admitted his firm’s recruitment practices were loaded against young working-class applicants. But he asked: “How much mud do I have to sift through in that population to find that diamond?”
Working-class backgrounds are being systematically locked out of top jobs
Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister, chairs the commission.
He said: “This research shows that young young people with working-class backgrounds are being systematically locked out of top jobs.
“Elite firms seem to require applicants to pass a ‘poshness test’ to gain entry. Inevitably that ends up excluding youngsters who have the right sort of grades and abilities but whose parents do not have the right sort of bank balances.
“Thankfully, some of our country’s leading firms are making a big commitment to recruit the brightest and best, regardless of background.
“They should be applauded. But for the rest this is a wake up and smell the coffee moment.
“In some top law firms, trainees are more than five times likely to have attended a fee-paying school than the population as a whole. They are denying themselves talent, stymieing young people’s social mobility and fuelling the social divide that bedevils Britain. ”
Recruiting practices are now so skewed in favour of “poshness” that many of the firms’ own senior executives who took part in the research would have not been hired under the criteria used.
Dr Louise Ashley, of Royal Holloway, University of London, who led the research, urged firms to recruit from a wider range of applicants.
“Selection processes which advantage students from more privileged backgrounds remain firmly in place,” she said.
