5 ms·

I would argue: it depends. I live and work in London ; the only places where I've seen recruiters or job ads specifically ask for a 'red brick' or 'top ten' un

I would argue: it depends. I live and work in London ; the only places where I've seen recruiters or job ads specifically ask for a 'red brick' or 'top ten' university degrees is the financial domain. They specifically ask and check for a top ten university in order to hire you for most jobs, be it analyst or IT consultant. I would also argue that the pay scales you get there reflect this. Most startups I've seen, again in London, dont really care where you are coming from. I used to work with one which basically said 'we dont care how you look or where you finished uni or even if you did, we just want you to be a) hard working b) smart working c) eager to learn'. Worked very good for them as they are now a successful business and most people have stuck around for years. I now work in a "top 3" uni in central London and we also dont care where yo u got your degree from. Our job ads are, by law, neutral - we are not able to distinct between candidates based on university alone. Again, works fine for us. It doesn't matter where you went, it only matters what you are. At the end of the day, I myself did not finish a 'big name' university,far from it, and its worked out well for me.

ottbot 16y ago
I'm doing my MSc at potentially the same "top 3" uni in central London, after getting my undergraduate from a school much lower on the league tables. The biggest thing I've noticed, not considering any sort of academic rigor/quality differences, is the amount of on campus recruiting and outreach from big name employers in finance and engineering. It seems like there's someone on campus from DB, Barclays Capital, EY, Lehman, etc, everyday for the first month or so of the year. There's also things like opportunities to apply for McLaren racing sent from the department office -- things like that didn't exist at my old uni. It's not necessarily the case that these things would be unattainable, but you're much more aware of these opportunities at big name schools. The biggest boon comes if you're interested in entering the financial sector, or if you're really set on following the whole "graduate scheme" path. But like you suggest, it doesn't really matter outside of that.
gaius 16y ago
It's also a means to filter out the hundreds of CVs, many of which will be sent "on spec", from people who just send a CV to every job ad, down to a level at which someone can actually read them. Certainly it is the case that once upon a time, any degree was a "leg up" in your career, back when only 10% of school leavers went. Nowadays, that the last government set out to get 50% of school leavers into college, only Russell Group degrees still have that advantage - everywhere else adds little to your prospects above good A-levels.
ig1 16y ago
Not true, it's perfectly legal to distinguish candidates by university. It's not a protected category. (I'm not a lawyer; but I have had training in the legal aspects of hiring and I run a job board)
- ffffruit 16y ago
  Are you 100% sure? Doesn't the whole 'equal opportunities' scheme dictate that you cant ?
  - ig1 16y ago
    Yes I used to work for one of the largest employer of graduates in the UK and we looked at this. Equal opportunities is about not discriminating on the basis of gender, race or disability. Also various bits of legislation also prohibit discrimination on the basis of financial status, nationality, religious or political beliefs and sexual orientation (although these don't normally come under the "equal opportunities" banner). You can legally use performance correlation in hiring (people who went to X tend to do well, so we'll prefer to hire people who went to X), as long as it doesn't violate one of the legislated areas. In the legislated areas you can only discriminate on where there's evidence for a link. So for example you can favour Computer Science students for Developer jobs over non-CS students even though that contains an implicit gender bias.

ottbot 16y ago

I'm doing my MSc at potentially the same "top 3" uni in central London, after getting my undergraduate from a school much lower on the league tables. The biggest thing I've noticed, not considering any sort of academic rigor/quality differences, is the amount of on campus recruiting and outreach from big name employers in finance and engineering. It seems like there's someone on campus from DB, Barclays Capital, EY, Lehman, etc, everyday for the first month or so of the year. There's also things like opportunities to apply for McLaren racing sent from the department office -- things like that didn't exist at my old uni. It's not necessarily the case that these things would be unattainable, but you're much more aware of these opportunities at big name schools. The biggest boon comes if you're interested in entering the financial sector, or if you're really set on following the whole "graduate scheme" path. But like you suggest, it doesn't really matter outside of that.

gaius 16y ago

It's also a means to filter out the hundreds of CVs, many of which will be sent "on spec", from people who just send a CV to every job ad, down to a level at which someone can actually read them. Certainly it is the case that once upon a time, any degree was a "leg up" in your career, back when only 10% of school leavers went. Nowadays, that the last government set out to get 50% of school leavers into college, only Russell Group degrees still have that advantage - everywhere else adds little to your prospects above good A-levels.

ig1 16y ago

Not true, it's perfectly legal to distinguish candidates by university. It's not a protected category. (I'm not a lawyer; but I have had training in the legal aspects of hiring and I run a job board)

ffffruit 16y ago
Are you 100% sure? Doesn't the whole 'equal opportunities' scheme dictate that you cant ?
- ig1 16y ago
  Yes I used to work for one of the largest employer of graduates in the UK and we looked at this. Equal opportunities is about not discriminating on the basis of gender, race or disability. Also various bits of legislation also prohibit discrimination on the basis of financial status, nationality, religious or political beliefs and sexual orientation (although these don't normally come under the "equal opportunities" banner). You can legally use performance correlation in hiring (people who went to X tend to do well, so we'll prefer to hire people who went to X), as long as it doesn't violate one of the legislated areas. In the legislated areas you can only discriminate on where there's evidence for a link. So for example you can favour Computer Science students for Developer jobs over non-CS students even though that contains an implicit gender bias.