Social Mobility in the UK is pretty shocking — that’s the unsurprising conclusion of the ever-impressive Bridge Group‘s latest report. Particularly amongst the graduate population there’s significant evidence that social class impacts on careers, irrespective of academic achievements.

Fixing such a many-sided problem will be a sticky business, but I applaud their recent efforts to try and foster an industry wide lexicon for discussing classifications of disadvantage – something in which Rare Recruitment are ahead of the field.

We believe the Fair Hiring Project, or at least the approach we advocate (investing to level the playing field wherever possible) can be a part of the solution. That’s not just a hypothesis, but based on the fact that both McKinsey and Grant Thornton are now quietly intervening in their graduate candidates’ experience with one-to-one coaching support. Both of have done so without fanfare, but to us they provide evidence that leaving candidates to fend for themselves will reinforce advantages of social privilege and damage attempts to hire the long-term best in our fast-changing economy.

We are delighted to see world-class companies intervening to support candidates. Whilst we believe that a sophisticated learning platform offers better-value and a scaleable solution where coaching programmes canoot — we can only applaud their commitment and hope they will share some statistics about the positive impact they are having on social mobility or their brand amongst young people.

Finally… we believe that graduate or formal hiring schemes are only one route into corporate and professional life and that’s why a ‘catch all’ online solution ,whilst imperfect, is the most realistic and powerful way to start changing norms in hiring.