A report written by a House of Lords Select Committee praises a new system of recruitment used by Deloitte, which aims to diversify their intake of graduate talent. Baroness Jean Corston, author of the report and chair of the Committee on Social Mobility, criticised the use of informal recruitment like word of mouth, arguing that it undermines social mobility and fails to offer young people from minority backgrounds the same opportunities as their peers.
Baroness Corston encouraged businesses to follow Deloitte’s lead by utilising contextual recruitment. Contextual recruitment is when companies take a number of factors into consideration when deciding whether someone is qualified for a role. The report states: “Deloitte consider academic qualifications alongside a range of other background factors. This means that a candidate will be recognised if they gained three Bs rather than three As at A-Level if their school’s average was three Ds. Deloitte has also removed the names of educational institutions from applications, and their recruitment process involves games which test entrepreneurship and freedom of thought.”
The system of contextual recruitment was set up by a recruitment agency called Rare, based in London, which specialises in diverse recruitment. Josh Oware, from Rare, says: “Using information about people’s background is clearly scalable. It’s not an idea reserved for an employer recruiting in huge batches. It’s something that can be applied at all scales.”
“If it does fall down to that method [word of mouth], then some people are missing out. You are disadvantaging those that have done brilliantly because your process isn’t built to assess fairly and comprehensively.”
Rare also hosts programmes with top companies like HSBC, which results in graduates being offered a place on graduate programmes that ordinarily they might not have been eligible for.
While the House of Lords report denounces word of mouth as a form of recruitment on the basis that individuals from poorer backgrounds may not have access to networks that can secure these sorts of roles, HR Review recently published an article stating the exact opposite. According to them, the journal Organization Science found that recruitment by word of mouth can actually increase diversity.
“Although employees do tend to refer job seekers for jobs who are their same gender and race, this alone does not cause segregation issues”, says Robert Leeming, writer for HR Review. “What is more important, the study found, are the referral rates, as there are some groups that recruit more heavily than others. The study found that immigrant groups sometimes go from being small minorities in a workplace to being big majorities because their members recruit more actively within their local community.”
Whether or not word of mouth recruitment inhibits or encourages diversity in the workplace seems to depend on the company and career sector in question. When it comes to investing in creative recruitment systems like the one above, big companies like Deloitte have more scope to do so. Small and medium enterprises may struggle with providing the funding and manpower that creating a new system requires. They might also be reluctant to do something they perceive to be quite risky, since contextual recruitment could lead to hiring candidates that are (on paper) less qualified than other employees. However, the risk of hiring a person who in the end demonstrates a skills mismatch exists despite the method of recruitment, and of course regardless of the candidate’s economic or social background.
Contextual recruitment challenges the idea that top talent comes only from the best schools and the best universities. It allows job-seekers from every background to aspire to work for the best firms in the country, and it encourages these companies to realise that even though people may not meet traditional requirements or expectations, they still have a lot to offer. Deloitte has done well to recognise this and deserves praise for its effort.
