Who, What, When, Where, Why: What is name-blind recruitment and how can it help ReachOut young people?

Earlier in the autumn, the Prime Minister announced that leading UK universities and companies must remove candidates’ names from their application forms in order to tackle the danger of “unconscious bias” against students from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

This announcement came amid fears that BAME students are unfairly losing out to their white peers on university places and graduate jobs owing simply to their race.

In 2012, Jorden Berkeley, a black 22-year-old graduate from London who had spent four months applying for jobs with no success, said that a careers adviser suggested she should “whiten” her CV by using her middle name – Elizabeth – instead. After making this simple yet degrading change, Jorden started to get call backs for most, if not all, of the jobs for which she applied.

This shocking anecdote is underpinned by an alarming study into the Russell Group of leading UK universities conducted by Vikki Boliver, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Durham University. Boliver discovered that, between 2010-2012, 55% of white applicants received places at this prestigious group of universities, compared with just 36% of ethnic minority applicants.

More worryingly, separate analysis has shown that young people in the UK who currently attend private secondary schools are twenty two times more likely to get accepted into top universities, compared to those on free school meals.

Further research conducted in the US suggests that unconscious bias extends beyond just university applications. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently released a paper which found that ‘job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one call back; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one call back.’

When we bring gender into the equation, the inequality deepens yet again. According to the All Party Parliamentary Group chaired by Tottenham MP David Lammy, when compared to their male BAME counterparts, BAME women face an even greater challenge to enter the labour market. In a recent report, the APPG identified that unemployment rates among ethnic minority women have remained consistently higher than for white women since the 1980s. In 2011, the unemployment rate for BAME women was 14.3%, while the unemployment rate for white women was less than half of this at 6.8%!

In the light of such findings, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that UCAS, the country’s university admissions service, will carry out name-blind applications from 2017. Following suit, some of the country’s largest graduate and apprentice-level employers – including the BBC, the NHS, local government, KPMG, HSBC, Deloitte and Virgin Money – will also begin using name-blind recruitment in order to tackle any unconscious bias towards candidates from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

In the 2015-16 academic year, 90% of the 794 disadvantaged young people we are supporting through weekly, one-to-one mentoring come from BAME backgrounds. While our mentors are already supporting these youngsters to develop their character in order to improve their academic attainment and future life chances, we are very pleased to see top universities and employers implementing name-blind recruitment practices.

Our partner in the Fair Education Alliance, Teach First, has been using name-blind applications for six years now and is a shining example of best practice on this front. Since putting name-blind applications into use, the calibre of applicants looking to join their Leadership Development Programme has remained strong while the diversity of their cohort has increased. 42% of their intake are the first in their family to go to university, 27% were on free school meals when at school and 15% are BAME, compared to just 7% of the whole teaching workforce.

While we still have a very long way to go in our fight against educational inequality in the UK, name-blind applications demonstrate the importance of organisations working together to ensure that all young people can access opportunities that allow them to develop and grow, regardless of their background. These changes in recruitment practice will only make it easier for BAME young people like those whom ReachOut supports to make a successful transition into further education and the world of work. We welcome them. 

Volunteer Spotlight: Jane Sidebottom

Jane is a senior Civil Servant in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She volunteers as a mentor on a ReachOut Academy project in east London.

“I’ve loved being involved with Reachout over the last ten years. It’s grown from a new organisation to an established part of the community, with more and more participants each year. I’ve been a regular mentor with them for three years and what keeps me coming back are three things.

First and foremost, it’s a lot of fun. It is so energising at the end of a busy day to arrive in a classroom full of people who have all had a very different day from you and to spend an hour with them. You never know what that is going to involve – with those I mentor I’ve discussed everything from the Maths and English tasks set by the session leader, to choosing GCSEs, A levels and career paths, the causes of World War One, irregular French verbs and the latest school gossip. I’m certainly not an expert in all those things, but as a mentor I don’t necessarily need to be – my job is to listen and ask questions to help others stretch themselves and reach their potential, in and outside school.

Second, I think it’s important for all of us to have as much contact with as diverse a group of people as possible. In the hour a week I spend with a group of teenagers and their mentors I usually get a different perspective than from my other friends or colleagues. That shapes my view of the world and has had an impact on the way I think about a lot of things – from politics to who should go out with who on Made In Chelsea. And I hope that works the other way around too. I hope that through their contact with me, the kids I mentor can see that the path I’ve taken and career I’ve chosen are also open to them.

Third, it’s easy. Finding an hour a week is something most people can manage, and that’s all Reachout asks of you. You can easily see what a difference that makes, whether in the space of the hour you spend with the person you mentor, or over the months as the stories come through of improved performance and behaviour at school or other achievements. That contributes to a strong feeling of community and I’m really proud to be part of that.”