Discrimination in recruitment to be addressed blind applications
It has been announced by the government that the public and private sector who have a combined responsibility of employing 1.8 million people within the UK will operate a recruitment process ‘name blind’ in an effort to address discrimination.
What does this mean? Basically, graduate recruitment applications will no longer have the names of the applicant visible, the idea being that it will reduce the possibility of discrimination as applicants will be assessed on their skills aptitude and potential. A commitment to the scheme has come from a number of leading graduate employers.
A roundtable discussion was hosted by David Cameron with the aim of encouraging organisations to recruit on a ‘name blind’ basis to address discrimination.
The Prime Minister said: “I said in my conference speech that I want us to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality in our country today. Today we are delivering on that commitment and extending opportunity to all. If you’ve got the grades, the skills and the determination this government will ensure that you can succeed.”
In his speech to the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister cited research that showed people with white-sounding names were almost twice as likely to receive job call-backs as candidates with ethnic-sounding names.
There is a commitment from the Civil Service to introduce a name-blind recruitment for all roles below Senior Civil Service (SCS) level. Top graduate recruiters such as KPMG, HSBC, Deloitte, Virgin Money, BBC, NHS, learndirect and local government are joining organisations like Teach First by adopting a commitment to deliver name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles.
How will this work in practice? Does it mean that all applications will have to go through HR departments who will then have to allocate a recruitment number, and what about organisations who encourage their recruiting managers to deal direct with applicants? Whilst the need to eliminate discrimination is understood will this process actually lead to elimination?
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