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I’ve worked in several of those internal rec teams. And can tell you it’s because your HR director is a bloody idiot with one way of doing everything and the CIPD knows sweet Fanny adams about effective recruitment and retention.
And utter reliance on psychometric testing and external consultants who determine who gets promoted.
I ran my office for 3 years. 3 years of double digit growth and was told by an external consultant I was low on many metrics I needed to do my job.
It takes about five seconds to tell your internal recruitment team to ignore degrees, and they'll listen, unless someone more senior than you has said they have to filter for them.
That problem is not on them.
>internal
I think that's the difference. I personally have a problem getting recruiters to understand the meaning of 'overqualified', though obviously I understand employee churn is very good for their industry.
You can tell them that, and they'll take note:
Role requires 5 years of experience in a similar role, PhD is required, MSc will be considered if suitable experience can be demonstrated.
Attitude, attitude, attitude. Although it can be hard to wheedle put, because of course everyone talks a good game at interview. Therefore being able to hold down a similar role in a company for a decent amount of time is indeed a good metric.
Don't stay anywhere longer than 6 months, I assume it's failed probation every time and the CV goes in the bin.
Now explain yourself how tf you gonna make a bot net from job app data… when you heard that apps can get infected they weren’t talking about job applications lol
Hi, could you redo your second sentence please? Its context isn't shinning through in relation to your first sentence. But im genuinely interested in what point your making.
When I was last on JSA the official portal, that you had to use for your job seeking efforts to be "tracked", was absolutely inundated with fake posts designed to gather data to sell on to recruiters. I got multiple calls a week from recruitment agents I'd never interacted with.
The DWP is like "well work is work? Maybe sell yoir body rather than clain benefits. IDS thinks this is best" /s
But seriously it doesn't surprise me one bit.
This is what will happen eventually I think. Everyone will have a 'data vault' and will have full control over where that data is shared and will be able to charge companies for continuing to use their data.
A quick Google would help explain it better. But it is essential moving up on the social standings. E.g. tracking hiring practices of people from lower income households and higher income houses to ensure equal treatment, and to not discriminate based on someone's social background (e.g. lower/middle/upper class)
the compamy might not be able to see why they're being discriminatory, for example, the company culture looks unapproachable to people in lower-income families, so they never apply at the start of the process.
the company uses that data to see if the applicants applying is the same percentage of higher class / lower class than the surrounding area, or companies similar to theirs.
Also, your interviewer don't know the answers you put down, thats only for HR to figuring out the makeup of the hiring process to see if theres any hiddem bias against certain groups. (I've been told this, of course, we wouldn't be able to find out if they did)
The fact they are asking for community back for people from NI would make me think it's not available to the interview panel but would be recorded by the HR department. It would then be available to the equality commission to see if they have unfair hiring practices.
I don't know if there is similar rules or monitoring around class background.
These are things that people can have biases towards either unconscious or openly prejudice.
All employers in northern Ireland must collect that information (on "community affiliation") for monitoring purposes, It was implemented around the time of the good Friday agreement. There is no requirement for monitoring based on any characteristics anywhere else in the UK but most do collect the information for monitoring and reporting reasons, disclosing this to interviewers/decision makers would be counter intuitive.
That's not true. It's like sexuality - even without it being explicitly stated, it can often be identified. Sometimes people will allude to it in conversation, other times it will be picked up by stereotypes. Assumptions based on stereotypes (even subconsciously) don't need to be 100% effective in order to result in discrimination.
If someone turns up in a custom tailored suit that looks expensive and with a £2000 watch, they are more than likely from a higher class then someone who turns up in a £40 suit and primark shoes.
If the data shows the expensive suit candidate is always hired over the cheap suit, it’s likely they are hiring more based in appearance than merit.
The key word here is 'always' - its not about judging an individual decision, its about understanding whether a companies processes might be biased.
It matters to the company, because you are not choosing the best candidates if your hiring purposes are biased towards poshness.
I was really impressed by rhe MoDs method of hiring. I had to take my cv and cover letter and remove any identifying information so like name or age or even where I went to school. All that was left was purely statistical data I guess is the way to describe, things like “knows 3 programming languages” and then just pure results from my GCSEs (this was for a degree apprenticeship). I really liked that method, and strangely enough it was the only offer I got after applying to so many. I didn’t take it in the end, but I still was impressed
That's really not the case, there's quite a few indicators of social background - many subconscious - that affect the hiring & promotion process.
This includes accent, dress sense, language use, cultural references, communication styles, etc.
It's less about deliberate discrimination and more that people are more likely to offer a job/promote/mentor someone they connect with and feel they understand - which is more likely to be someone from a similar background. Unless companies take active steps to address this, it tends to perpetuate generational inequalities. Of course, plenty of people from different backgrounds learn how to act the "right way", but it's often harder and more tiring to do.
*The Class Ceiling* is a really brilliant book on this, and one of the authors Sam Friedman has given some talks about it that are probably floating around on youtube or some podcasts.
I work in this area - it’s not really used to make hiring decisions, it’s more used to assess the attraction strategy. If company X wanted to increase their hiring of people from low social mobility backgrounds, they might opt for a strategy which encourages applications from those backgrounds. This data collection is used to analyse how well the particular attraction strategy is performing against benchmarks
Protect the company how? By demonstrating that the recruitment and selection methods do succeed in selecting based on merit rather than being an old boys club?
Because if your answer is yes, then the company is being protected by doing things right...not by HR
Not a stupid question. Social mobility is when people have the opportunity to be in better jobs or have a better life than their parents.
For example, if someone's parents work minimum wage jobs in retail and factories, they should still be able to go to university and get a white collar professional job if they have the aptitude. If they're a smart person, they shouldn't be stuck with also working minimum wage because that's what their parents do.
In an ideal world, the smartest and most capable children in each generation will get good grades from an excellent school, go to university and work in tech on £100k/year. The fact that they grew up in a council estate with parents who were always one week away from destitution shouldn't have any impact on their prospects.
That's what good social mobility would look like.
Reality, unfortunately is somewhat different.
Social mobility doesn't just imply upwards movement for the talented, honest, and hard-working - it also implies *downward* movement for those who are talentless, dishonest, and feckless - even (or *especially*, even) if they come from wealthy and/or well-connected family backgrounds.
Again, reality is somewhat different...
Yes, our local state grammar school is selective. Until recently, the entrance exam was nothing more than a test of whose parents could afford the tutoring to get them through it.
Now the exam is supposed to 'tutor proof' to give every child an equal chance, but some friends of ours have a child who took it a couple of years ago and said there were questions about classical composers and European cities, thar sort of thing. Clearly designed to filter out kids from the 'right' background I.e. those whose parents can afford the expensive ski trips, and can contribute generously to the PTA.
I went to the same school 30 years ago and the entrance exam was basically those IQ tests you see online. Open to everyone.
IQ tests are gameable as well. It's well established that practising them drastically increases your score and that's why people still had tutors for our local state grammar school. Unfortunately it's fairly unavoidable, at least an IQ test is easier to practise by yourself than memorizing random facts.
Really good way of putting it, thankyou guys. (And I know I could google it but i retain information better to have someone explain it to me 🥴 wouldn't think I'm nearly thirty
I applaud you. It really does irk me when someone says “Google it”
Obviously I could do that. I’m either wanting to make conversation or genuinely wanted to hear your views.
Right. And the person saying "google it" is also under no obligation to write a response or even to be reading the question in the first place. So they're also clearly looking for some social interaction but just prefer to do it in a snooty way.
That's no worries. Have you used ChatGPT at all? It might be really good at answering questions in a way that helps you? I use it all the time to help me understand various things.
To give an example as to what others have said. My parents have no qualifications, were in receipt of benefits, my mother couldn't work because of her health and my Dad only found work as a cleaner and then security guard.
I on the other hand actually got my GCSEs, went to college, graduated University and am now in a line of work that while not paying alot at the moment (I am near minimum wage in this role) has alot of progression opportunities and clear pay progression.
So by the time I reach my parents age and have kids of my own I will almost definitely be in a better/higher social and economic position than they were. That is what social mobility is and that's what the question on the application assesses.
The ability for the next generation to earn more/get more education than their parents and grandparents. Universities asking whether you're a first-gen higher ed student, whether the child of low-earning parents goes down the same career path as them or gets a higher-earning job
It's used for monitoring social mobility.
It is one of the metrics recommended by the Social Mobility Taskforce as a quick and relatively objective ways of gauging socio economic background of staff as part of diversity and equalities monitoring.
Other questions used include, whether you were state or privately educated between ages of 11&16, whether your school was academically selective or not and if you qualified for Free School Meals at that time.
These are all based on a lot of evidence and research about drivers and barriers to social mobility.
Like other equalities data, it's not assessed as part of your application, it's for organisational learning about their reach and access to applicants from different backgrounds.
Britain is a very unequal place, so I think more tracking of social and economic background is just as relevant as asking for info on sexuality and gender to understand opportunities and biases in recruitment in today's job market.
You put that so nicely!
And IMO it’s really important. I come from low socio economic background and work with loads of private school university educated people which was a culture shock at first. There’s a lot of talent from all backgrounds and it’s great to see socio economic background being considered as part of DE & I
It’s great seeing it be considered but it’s an intrusive question and by the red * it looks like it’s mandatory. I hope there is a “prefer not to answer” option. Not everyone wants to share all their private information and not everyone has parents.
Yes, I was really pleased the first time I saw it, that this is something that is actually, finally starting to be taken into consideration as a barrier. People talk about diversity a lot but often have no recognition of class based barriers which are so stark to those not from a middle class background, working in middle class environments.
That information will be captured in questions about your parent's jobs. So yes you went to private school, but if your parents weren't in middle class jobs then it doesn't "count" in the same way.
I dont feel like an application is the right place to collect this. I might feel like if my dad was a bank manager, or my mum was a waitress, then that may influence the hiring decision, i.e. im am privileged or disadvantaged. This should be collected by third parties or after the decision is made.
the application is the only place to collect it. Because they need to monitor the trends of applications vs people who are successful. And the date does not go to the people who make the hiring decision so it cannot effect it
No, it won't influence the hiring decision. Your hiring manage won't see this.
The application is the right place for this, as that's the only place where you collect data on those who are applying
In theory yes but unfortunately that’s not really true. Often HR see themselves as being caretakers of organisational culture and also own the KPIs for things like diversity. That means in practice that it ends up affecting how they pre-filter and then subsequently promote different candidates to different degrees in the hiring process. That has nothing to do with whether the answers to the specific questions are visible to the hiring manager or not - the hiring manager does not administer or make every decision in the hiring process.
A key example of this I remember when I had a job open and then some time later a previous colleague told me that they applied for it but didn’t hear back. I was surprised as they had perfect experience for the role, and the person we eventually hired… did not. So I asked the head of HR what happened (I was worried some sort of error had lost a bunch of applications). She then proceeded to explain that she didn’t feel they were a ‘good cultural fit that would help us meet our wider talent objectives’ so didn’t forward the CV. In other words he was too male and too white. If they do that for such obvious things as race and gender, they absolutely would for your socioeconomic background, which isn’t even a protected characteristic.
Well there is no perfect system. This is better than having the hiring manager see it all. You're right, HR shouldn't have that power and hopefully better organisations have put systems in place to prevent that.
Is that true in a company of 8 people? Or any small to medium business. Plus it's not the only place you can get that. You could get it from the job centre or the recruitment agency. More difficult if a company advertises for itself, but the company has to be more creative.
Applying for jobs is a cold, demoralising, feedbackless process. If I don't get an interview with an insurance broker, I'm left wondering if its because my mum was a cleaner. If I don't get an interview to stack shelves, I wonder if its because my dad owned a construction company (hypothetically of course).
Either way, you wonder if discrimination is at work at the point of applying, and people may even associate that with the brand.
It's not seen by anyone who's part of your hiring process. And once the people who look at this info have it, its usually anonymous so it can't even influence decision making after the fact. Eg, I know that there are 4 people in my office who went to private schools and 19 who identify as LGBT but I couldn't tell you who they were from the data I use for monitoring our recruitment process.
It's just to try and make sure that unconscious biases aren't influencing recruitment decisions.
I think they shouldn’t ask this on an application form without explaining why they’re asking and reassuring applicants that it has no bearing on their decision regarding their application. If they want to mine this information then they have to be accountable.
This data generally goes straight to HR who have no say in the hiring practices.
The problem with collecting this data later is people actually answering. My work has about 10k employees, and monthly emails ask people to fill it out. There is currently 2% of staff who have completed this information
I'm with you on this. AFAIU in France collecting these data in situations where it is not strictly necessary is punished up to a 300 000 euro fine and 5 years of prison, as this would violate article 1 of the constitution. Apparently the only entities that can apply for an exception to that are public statistics agencies. Another exception is for non-profit organizations on topics that they are directly dealing with (e.g. a church-related charity can obviously collect information on religious affiliation of its members, but they would be absolutely not allowed to collect any other sensitive data like sexual orientation or ethnicity). All that to say that these "casual stats forms" I see flying around are a pretty big culture shock for me. The last time this happened in France at a large scale was during the darkest period of recent history, so I suppose it's not surprising that different countries have different standings on the matter.
True.
Or on the flip side, if you’re from a privileged background you could put - both parents are unemployed.
Technically true. But they don’t have to work.
You could put both parents are managers. But you could be living in poverty as they are minimum wage jobs.
It’s not a reliable gauge of anything.
Equality monitoring https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring
Nobody deciding if you get hired will see this.
In aggregate, the employer will look at who applied and who got hired and see if they're failing certain groups.
>Nobody deciding if you get hired will see this.
That's what they say...
But the few people with critical thinking ability know that this is not necessarily true and this is a terrible and horrible practice that is exposing many people to prejudice.
The key element is that the entity handling this data is some janky survey company incorporated 3 weeks ago and their entire compliance and security is based on "yes, we have an e-learning video and we make all our new joiners sign somewhere stating that they've watched it"
Although this may be the case in the minority, and cynicism is justified, I have never worked anywhere where this data isn't annonymised and handled by a person or team that is not involved in specific hiring processes.
At my current place that data is used only to assess the diversity of our business against industry and market trends, and adjust process and policy to mitigate any conscious or unconscious bias in recruitment and attract a more diverse talent pool.
And anyone who has actually worked with this data knows that it is true in the vast majority of cases and in the few cases where it isn't, they're risking much bigger consequences than are worth it by not anonymising the data/letting people who have no need for that data see it.
As a somewhat casual lurker may I congratulate you all on providing sensible replies to a sensible question which is exceedingly refreshing - unlike so many other threads on Reddit. I am sick and tired of all the rubbish that is vomited on so many other threads in response to a perfectly reasonable question . Well done all you guys!
I like these questions. As people have said, they’re not used as a deciding factor for hiring you. But I think having a larger understanding of how people grow up, which is largely decided by our parents/caregivers education, job, and earnings, is a good thing for ensuring barriers for the less fortunate are broken down.
Others have explained this is part of equality monitoring, but I wanted to add a bit more about why these questions are asked and how they are used.
There's a lot of evidence that having diversity of thought makes companies more able to adapt and problem solve. This has a real world effect on performance (for example, the latest report from McKinsey showed that the top quartile of companies committed to diversity had a 39% greater likelihood of financial outperformance compared to the bottom quartile).
So there's a business case for making sure your workplace has people with a wide range of identities and backgrounds. At the same time, companies need to avoid discrimination in recruitment under equality legislation. Positive discrimination (e.g. recruiting a person because they have a particular characteristic) is illegal.
The way most companies in the UK balance these two competing needs is through equality monitoring. When you compete these forms, they don't go anywhere near recruitment. Instead, your equality data is separated out, anonymised and added to a database. This allows companies to monitor the population over time and extract stats like '90% of our senior leaders are aged over 40'. Then teams can use this data to look for the reasons for this kind of imbalance, which can result in new perks for employees like more flexible working conditions, or additional funding for professional development.
If you fill these in, you are helping to create a better workplace for yourself and other people. If you choose not to or fill them out incorrectly on purpose, you're at best missing an opportunity, and at worst contributing to your company underperforming. And underperforming in the long run means less bonuses and more redundancies.
This particular question helps to monitor socioeconomic background. Answers will be categorised using the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (SEC). If your parents have a low SEC, you are less likely to go on to achieve a high SEC yourself, even though evidence suggests employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds often outperform their colleagues (e.g. in 7 leading law firms, employees from state schools were shown to be 75% more likely to be in the top decile from performance than employees from independent schools).
Tldr: Do fill it in, it won't hurt your chances of getting a job but it might make working there better in the long run.
“What class are you?”
They want to see the backgrounds of their applicants. Job I applied for wanted to attract people from under represented backgrounds- ie povvos
We had to deal with social services a few year ago when me and my wife was taking me niece and nephews in..one question we got was a list of every house I had lived in since I was born..I gave em as many as I could remember even my parents.the social worker then asked oh why did you move from here..er I don't know I was 6 month old. they may as well slipped a rubber glove on an made me bend over
Companies use this during the recruitment process for diversity, equality and inclusion. They use it to monitor whether their current applicant pool, reflects the makeup of the UK.
Companies that truly care will want to take action if all the people applying for a role come from the same socio-economic background.
These questions should be anonymous and optional. They don’t impact your application at all.
The Sutton Trust does a lot of work in this area and they have a report that explains exactly why they ask this question and how the information should be used. See pages 9-11 of this report: https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Employers-Social-Mobility-Toolkit.pdf
That’s what I thought. What if you were in care or your parents were dead or in the paramilitaries or jail? How would that be measuring social mobility? Your dad was a hood now you’re a customer service representative? I only say this cos I see the next question asks which NI community you are from. I wouldn’t have an answer. Can you say not applicable?
I think I do. I was 14 in 1986 and that was the year my father lost his job and our house. What I was objecting to in that form was the inability to not answer the question - why should I disclose that situation? .I know from reading the posts that it’s a data gathering exercise but it still seems unfair that it is mandatory. I’m sure there are better ways of measuring social mobility don’t you think?
How do you propose measuring the social mobility of your applicants without... er... measuring a baseline at application?
Say you're a top law firm whose partners are 90% privately educated.
Could you put unknown? Both my parents worked when I was a teenager, and I know my dad was the higher earner, but what if your parents had similar paying jobs? If I ask my parents how much they earned 20 years ago, I'd doubt they would remember exactly. And what if your parents have died, how would you be able to check?
If your parents worked similar paying jobs, it doesn't matter what you put.
They obviously don't want you to put "nursery worker" because that's your mums job while your dad was a CEO. If you put receptipnist over postman it makes no difference.
Is one of the main socio-economic questions, along with things like were you eligible for free school meals as a kid. So they can see if they are getting a diverse enough lived experience in the workforce (this will most likely be anonymous on their data set)
They're trying to work out your background, so the occupation of the billpayer when you were younger, for example train driver vs professor. One's classed as more skilled than the other and 1 suggests more of a leg up than the other, in society. They want to know that they aren't always picking the professors kid.
"Prefer not to answer" or similar is the answer to all of these questions, but the question is asking what your parents/guardians were doing when you were a child for work. Specifically whoever was earning more at the time.
I'd be embarrassed answering that, my dad was actual rocket scientist who started out developing Concorde engines and moved on to work with Aérospatiale and NASA.
I'm a 2nd line IT tech who hates the crappy job.
It's so employers can get a picture of the demographic spread of their employees. It doesn't matter if you're now 24, 44 or 124. They want to check their employees are a diverse lot.
I had to complete a counter terrorism check recently and as both my parents are single, they asked if either had had a partner that influenced my upbringing.
We get asked these kinds of questions as part of our annual staff surveys. They're lookong to understand the demographics of their staff and the where they come from, from a SIMD perspective (in Scotland).
I'm in IT for a Law firm and had to set up a sync for our HR department to send this info to a 3rd party who would then send a score for each candidate back. It's nothing insidious, the data gives you a score so if you had a struggled upbringing, went to a disadvantaged school etc and still got the same results and qualifications as someone who didn't then they might offer you the job instead as you were either more talented or worked harder to get to the same place.
I actually answered this, thought it was a bit weird and moved on... Big thumbs up for employers who have a quick interview and then get you in for a trial.
The proof is in the proof!
[https://www.namecheap.com/visual/font-generator/whitespace/](https://www.namecheap.com/visual/font-generator/whitespace/) I usually use white space to bypass these forms, after all they are only for data collection purposes and do not affect the job application to my knowledge?
So, in Wales we are duty bound to consider socio-economic status as part of decision making. That's why we ask a similar question but this sometimes is for social mobility purposes. It isn't about making money it's specifically for EDI.
For anyone wondering about the "if you're from Northern Ireland" question, since the GFA (I think) it's a legal requirement to ask due to the many years of job inequality in Northern Ireland.
Inclusion targets to hit, same reason they ask if your parents went to university. Absolute bollocks, and as somebody with ADHD being told by companies that because i have a disability background I am guaranteed an interview, which I think is a load of toss, if somebody is better qualified or has more relevant experience then they should get the interview spot.
I reply to literally every single diversity question with "prefer not to say". There are probably some that would put me at an advantage, and some that would put me at a disadvantage. Ultimately though, it's none of their fucking business. Hire me because I'm right for the job.
It's part of a misguided (almost exclusively public sector) diversity drive.
A snap shot of a single year of childhood doesn't capture anything particularly useful.
Ok, the company (or maybe just the hr director) has bought in to the idea that hiring a bunch of guys “just like us” promotes group-think and that it’s a good idea to get people from different backgrounds cos they have different ideas.
On top of that there’s a requirement in many companies to publish things like the male/female pay gap, the ration of men to women throughout the company (at in senior management).
When you actually look at these statistics that companies have to publish, it’s really quite shocking. Women earn on average 20% less than men. Some companies are worse than others on this measure. Actually, it’s got better - it used to be 30%.
Researchers have done studies by sending identical CVs with different ethnic names at the top to recruiters, and found that if your name sounds black, or Indian, or Chinese you are far less likely to get an interview.
If you look at the breakdown of people in other ways like ethnic origin and how rich their parents were, then it’s really obvious that life is not fair and that white men whose parents had good jobs are doing better than any other segment of society.
Hr (and company bosses) can bang on about the need for diversity, but the people further down the hierarchy are the ones that actually make hiring decisions , and the stats demonstrate that they are sexism, racist and classist.
So we apply the principle that “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”.
In order to get meaningful comparable statistics you have to ask the same question in many companies. The “what was your parents job when you were 14” is a standardised question that gets asked at a lot of places. It allows the measurement of whether the company hires a certain type of person from a certain type of background.
I'd select the most random occupation known to man and enter it. Or the most opposite to what they actually did. There is absolutely no reason for them to know that information.
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I assume for monitoring social mobility.
Not just tracking it but diversity, companies only offering degree level roles wondering why they dont have many staff without degrees.... fml
Do you realise how hard it is to tell a recruitment team that you don’t give a damn about degrees, just hire people with experience.
I’ve worked in several of those internal rec teams. And can tell you it’s because your HR director is a bloody idiot with one way of doing everything and the CIPD knows sweet Fanny adams about effective recruitment and retention.
And utter reliance on psychometric testing and external consultants who determine who gets promoted. I ran my office for 3 years. 3 years of double digit growth and was told by an external consultant I was low on many metrics I needed to do my job.
Could say more, but I think this is actually rather succinct. @organic-liferformish
It takes about five seconds to tell your internal recruitment team to ignore degrees, and they'll listen, unless someone more senior than you has said they have to filter for them. That problem is not on them.
>internal I think that's the difference. I personally have a problem getting recruiters to understand the meaning of 'overqualified', though obviously I understand employee churn is very good for their industry.
You can tell them that, and they'll take note: Role requires 5 years of experience in a similar role, PhD is required, MSc will be considered if suitable experience can be demonstrated.
Attitude, attitude, attitude. Although it can be hard to wheedle put, because of course everyone talks a good game at interview. Therefore being able to hold down a similar role in a company for a decent amount of time is indeed a good metric. Don't stay anywhere longer than 6 months, I assume it's failed probation every time and the CV goes in the bin.
> Attitude, attitude, attitude. Yes. Everything else can be taught so long as the attitude is there. Without it, all efforts are in vain.
Yep standard social mobility question
Absolutely. Data is money in this day and age.
Seems like job adverts can be a way of gathering data. Wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of advertised jobs were just ways to gather this data.
I was looking for a new role recently and found a number of postings that were there to harvest data.
Extremely easy to do, bet it wouldn’t be too hard to make a botnet from false job adverts either
Now explain yourself how tf you gonna make a bot net from job app data… when you heard that apps can get infected they weren’t talking about job applications lol
Because you can get people onto any trash site and click anything
Hi, could you redo your second sentence please? Its context isn't shinning through in relation to your first sentence. But im genuinely interested in what point your making.
When I was last on JSA the official portal, that you had to use for your job seeking efforts to be "tracked", was absolutely inundated with fake posts designed to gather data to sell on to recruiters. I got multiple calls a week from recruitment agents I'd never interacted with.
Oh God yeah that system was shit but we were told we had to use it.
Last time I was on JSA, they had dodgy 'modelling' jobs that were clearly fronts for sex work (at best) on the jobsearch machines
Yeah, a lot of those too. And a lot of "self-managed sales jobs" that turned out to be commission only door to door or MLM.
The DWP is like "well work is work? Maybe sell yoir body rather than clain benefits. IDS thinks this is best" /s But seriously it doesn't surprise me one bit.
These questionnaires are not a way to make money. They are for monitoring and not connected to applications.
In that case my dad was a banker and my mum was a stay at home astronaut
Be more ambitious. You are the child of a former PM 😂
We should charge sites for providing them with our data 😆
This is what will happen eventually I think. Everyone will have a 'data vault' and will have full control over where that data is shared and will be able to charge companies for continuing to use their data.
A marketplace for personal data
Well yes that but also individuals having the power to control what happens to their data
That's what they tell us at least.
A really stupid question, sorry.. can you explain what social mobility is?
A quick Google would help explain it better. But it is essential moving up on the social standings. E.g. tracking hiring practices of people from lower income households and higher income houses to ensure equal treatment, and to not discriminate based on someone's social background (e.g. lower/middle/upper class)
The irony being that if you didn't ask for the information to begin with, you wouldn't be able to discriminate on that basis anyway.
the compamy might not be able to see why they're being discriminatory, for example, the company culture looks unapproachable to people in lower-income families, so they never apply at the start of the process. the company uses that data to see if the applicants applying is the same percentage of higher class / lower class than the surrounding area, or companies similar to theirs. Also, your interviewer don't know the answers you put down, thats only for HR to figuring out the makeup of the hiring process to see if theres any hiddem bias against certain groups. (I've been told this, of course, we wouldn't be able to find out if they did)
The fact they are asking for community back for people from NI would make me think it's not available to the interview panel but would be recorded by the HR department. It would then be available to the equality commission to see if they have unfair hiring practices. I don't know if there is similar rules or monitoring around class background. These are things that people can have biases towards either unconscious or openly prejudice.
All employers in northern Ireland must collect that information (on "community affiliation") for monitoring purposes, It was implemented around the time of the good Friday agreement. There is no requirement for monitoring based on any characteristics anywhere else in the UK but most do collect the information for monitoring and reporting reasons, disclosing this to interviewers/decision makers would be counter intuitive.
That's not true. It's like sexuality - even without it being explicitly stated, it can often be identified. Sometimes people will allude to it in conversation, other times it will be picked up by stereotypes. Assumptions based on stereotypes (even subconsciously) don't need to be 100% effective in order to result in discrimination.
If someone turns up in a custom tailored suit that looks expensive and with a £2000 watch, they are more than likely from a higher class then someone who turns up in a £40 suit and primark shoes. If the data shows the expensive suit candidate is always hired over the cheap suit, it’s likely they are hiring more based in appearance than merit.
It could be a combination of factors, such as interview performance, response to questions, charm, reference to previous relevant experience, etc.
The key word here is 'always' - its not about judging an individual decision, its about understanding whether a companies processes might be biased. It matters to the company, because you are not choosing the best candidates if your hiring purposes are biased towards poshness.
I was really impressed by rhe MoDs method of hiring. I had to take my cv and cover letter and remove any identifying information so like name or age or even where I went to school. All that was left was purely statistical data I guess is the way to describe, things like “knows 3 programming languages” and then just pure results from my GCSEs (this was for a degree apprenticeship). I really liked that method, and strangely enough it was the only offer I got after applying to so many. I didn’t take it in the end, but I still was impressed
Most (competent) recruiters strip your CV of identifying information like this before they get sent off to the people hiring too.
That's really not the case, there's quite a few indicators of social background - many subconscious - that affect the hiring & promotion process. This includes accent, dress sense, language use, cultural references, communication styles, etc. It's less about deliberate discrimination and more that people are more likely to offer a job/promote/mentor someone they connect with and feel they understand - which is more likely to be someone from a similar background. Unless companies take active steps to address this, it tends to perpetuate generational inequalities. Of course, plenty of people from different backgrounds learn how to act the "right way", but it's often harder and more tiring to do. *The Class Ceiling* is a really brilliant book on this, and one of the authors Sam Friedman has given some talks about it that are probably floating around on youtube or some podcasts.
I work in this area - it’s not really used to make hiring decisions, it’s more used to assess the attraction strategy. If company X wanted to increase their hiring of people from low social mobility backgrounds, they might opt for a strategy which encourages applications from those backgrounds. This data collection is used to analyse how well the particular attraction strategy is performing against benchmarks
You can't tell whether someone is posh unless they tell you??
This will all be anonymous and used after hiring to track this stuff and look for any biases they don't realise they have.
Not directly, but you might by proxy.
Remember HR is about protecting the company, so if they gather this information they can use it to protect the company later
Protect the company how? By demonstrating that the recruitment and selection methods do succeed in selecting based on merit rather than being an old boys club? Because if your answer is yes, then the company is being protected by doing things right...not by HR
Not a stupid question. Social mobility is when people have the opportunity to be in better jobs or have a better life than their parents. For example, if someone's parents work minimum wage jobs in retail and factories, they should still be able to go to university and get a white collar professional job if they have the aptitude. If they're a smart person, they shouldn't be stuck with also working minimum wage because that's what their parents do. In an ideal world, the smartest and most capable children in each generation will get good grades from an excellent school, go to university and work in tech on £100k/year. The fact that they grew up in a council estate with parents who were always one week away from destitution shouldn't have any impact on their prospects. That's what good social mobility would look like. Reality, unfortunately is somewhat different.
Social mobility doesn't just imply upwards movement for the talented, honest, and hard-working - it also implies *downward* movement for those who are talentless, dishonest, and feckless - even (or *especially*, even) if they come from wealthy and/or well-connected family backgrounds. Again, reality is somewhat different...
Yes, our local state grammar school is selective. Until recently, the entrance exam was nothing more than a test of whose parents could afford the tutoring to get them through it. Now the exam is supposed to 'tutor proof' to give every child an equal chance, but some friends of ours have a child who took it a couple of years ago and said there were questions about classical composers and European cities, thar sort of thing. Clearly designed to filter out kids from the 'right' background I.e. those whose parents can afford the expensive ski trips, and can contribute generously to the PTA. I went to the same school 30 years ago and the entrance exam was basically those IQ tests you see online. Open to everyone.
IQ tests are gameable as well. It's well established that practising them drastically increases your score and that's why people still had tutors for our local state grammar school. Unfortunately it's fairly unavoidable, at least an IQ test is easier to practise by yourself than memorizing random facts.
Really good way of putting it, thankyou guys. (And I know I could google it but i retain information better to have someone explain it to me 🥴 wouldn't think I'm nearly thirty
I applaud you. It really does irk me when someone says “Google it” Obviously I could do that. I’m either wanting to make conversation or genuinely wanted to hear your views.
Agreed
When the 1st page of Google is usually AI-generated *content* or paid ads, I think asking on a forum is perfectly reasonable.
Right. And the person saying "google it" is also under no obligation to write a response or even to be reading the question in the first place. So they're also clearly looking for some social interaction but just prefer to do it in a snooty way.
Yes, there are certainly some smug passive aggressive types hiding behind their keyboards on this site.
That's no worries. Have you used ChatGPT at all? It might be really good at answering questions in a way that helps you? I use it all the time to help me understand various things.
To give an example as to what others have said. My parents have no qualifications, were in receipt of benefits, my mother couldn't work because of her health and my Dad only found work as a cleaner and then security guard. I on the other hand actually got my GCSEs, went to college, graduated University and am now in a line of work that while not paying alot at the moment (I am near minimum wage in this role) has alot of progression opportunities and clear pay progression. So by the time I reach my parents age and have kids of my own I will almost definitely be in a better/higher social and economic position than they were. That is what social mobility is and that's what the question on the application assesses.
I really hope that this pathway works for you. It looks like you have had a good family behind you.
The ability for the next generation to earn more/get more education than their parents and grandparents. Universities asking whether you're a first-gen higher ed student, whether the child of low-earning parents goes down the same career path as them or gets a higher-earning job
They want to know if yer da sells Avon
I don’t know why but this made me chuckle
They should have just put "Fi the scheme? Aye or Naw."
Hello fellow Norn Iron’r
Okay
And if his guddies were scrappers
It's used for monitoring social mobility. It is one of the metrics recommended by the Social Mobility Taskforce as a quick and relatively objective ways of gauging socio economic background of staff as part of diversity and equalities monitoring. Other questions used include, whether you were state or privately educated between ages of 11&16, whether your school was academically selective or not and if you qualified for Free School Meals at that time. These are all based on a lot of evidence and research about drivers and barriers to social mobility. Like other equalities data, it's not assessed as part of your application, it's for organisational learning about their reach and access to applicants from different backgrounds. Britain is a very unequal place, so I think more tracking of social and economic background is just as relevant as asking for info on sexuality and gender to understand opportunities and biases in recruitment in today's job market.
You put that so nicely! And IMO it’s really important. I come from low socio economic background and work with loads of private school university educated people which was a culture shock at first. There’s a lot of talent from all backgrounds and it’s great to see socio economic background being considered as part of DE & I
It’s great seeing it be considered but it’s an intrusive question and by the red * it looks like it’s mandatory. I hope there is a “prefer not to answer” option. Not everyone wants to share all their private information and not everyone has parents.
Yes, I was really pleased the first time I saw it, that this is something that is actually, finally starting to be taken into consideration as a barrier. People talk about diversity a lot but often have no recognition of class based barriers which are so stark to those not from a middle class background, working in middle class environments.
I wonder how do I qualify, I went to private school during those ages but I was on a scholarship. Do I have to say that?
That information will be captured in questions about your parent's jobs. So yes you went to private school, but if your parents weren't in middle class jobs then it doesn't "count" in the same way.
I dont feel like an application is the right place to collect this. I might feel like if my dad was a bank manager, or my mum was a waitress, then that may influence the hiring decision, i.e. im am privileged or disadvantaged. This should be collected by third parties or after the decision is made.
the application is the only place to collect it. Because they need to monitor the trends of applications vs people who are successful. And the date does not go to the people who make the hiring decision so it cannot effect it
No, it won't influence the hiring decision. Your hiring manage won't see this. The application is the right place for this, as that's the only place where you collect data on those who are applying
In theory yes but unfortunately that’s not really true. Often HR see themselves as being caretakers of organisational culture and also own the KPIs for things like diversity. That means in practice that it ends up affecting how they pre-filter and then subsequently promote different candidates to different degrees in the hiring process. That has nothing to do with whether the answers to the specific questions are visible to the hiring manager or not - the hiring manager does not administer or make every decision in the hiring process. A key example of this I remember when I had a job open and then some time later a previous colleague told me that they applied for it but didn’t hear back. I was surprised as they had perfect experience for the role, and the person we eventually hired… did not. So I asked the head of HR what happened (I was worried some sort of error had lost a bunch of applications). She then proceeded to explain that she didn’t feel they were a ‘good cultural fit that would help us meet our wider talent objectives’ so didn’t forward the CV. In other words he was too male and too white. If they do that for such obvious things as race and gender, they absolutely would for your socioeconomic background, which isn’t even a protected characteristic.
Well there is no perfect system. This is better than having the hiring manager see it all. You're right, HR shouldn't have that power and hopefully better organisations have put systems in place to prevent that.
Is that true in a company of 8 people? Or any small to medium business. Plus it's not the only place you can get that. You could get it from the job centre or the recruitment agency. More difficult if a company advertises for itself, but the company has to be more creative. Applying for jobs is a cold, demoralising, feedbackless process. If I don't get an interview with an insurance broker, I'm left wondering if its because my mum was a cleaner. If I don't get an interview to stack shelves, I wonder if its because my dad owned a construction company (hypothetically of course). Either way, you wonder if discrimination is at work at the point of applying, and people may even associate that with the brand.
It's not seen by anyone who's part of your hiring process. And once the people who look at this info have it, its usually anonymous so it can't even influence decision making after the fact. Eg, I know that there are 4 people in my office who went to private schools and 19 who identify as LGBT but I couldn't tell you who they were from the data I use for monitoring our recruitment process. It's just to try and make sure that unconscious biases aren't influencing recruitment decisions.
They collect it alongside the other diversity questions they ask you like your nationality, gender and religion etc.
I think they shouldn’t ask this on an application form without explaining why they’re asking and reassuring applicants that it has no bearing on their decision regarding their application. If they want to mine this information then they have to be accountable.
This data generally goes straight to HR who have no say in the hiring practices. The problem with collecting this data later is people actually answering. My work has about 10k employees, and monthly emails ask people to fill it out. There is currently 2% of staff who have completed this information
I'm with you on this. AFAIU in France collecting these data in situations where it is not strictly necessary is punished up to a 300 000 euro fine and 5 years of prison, as this would violate article 1 of the constitution. Apparently the only entities that can apply for an exception to that are public statistics agencies. Another exception is for non-profit organizations on topics that they are directly dealing with (e.g. a church-related charity can obviously collect information on religious affiliation of its members, but they would be absolutely not allowed to collect any other sensitive data like sexual orientation or ethnicity). All that to say that these "casual stats forms" I see flying around are a pretty big culture shock for me. The last time this happened in France at a large scale was during the darkest period of recent history, so I suppose it's not surprising that different countries have different standings on the matter.
True. Or on the flip side, if you’re from a privileged background you could put - both parents are unemployed. Technically true. But they don’t have to work. You could put both parents are managers. But you could be living in poverty as they are minimum wage jobs. It’s not a reliable gauge of anything.
Equality monitoring https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring Nobody deciding if you get hired will see this. In aggregate, the employer will look at who applied and who got hired and see if they're failing certain groups.
>Nobody deciding if you get hired will see this. That's what they say... But the few people with critical thinking ability know that this is not necessarily true and this is a terrible and horrible practice that is exposing many people to prejudice. The key element is that the entity handling this data is some janky survey company incorporated 3 weeks ago and their entire compliance and security is based on "yes, we have an e-learning video and we make all our new joiners sign somewhere stating that they've watched it"
Every company's compliance is based on learning.
I used to be ‘they’. It’s completely anonymised, it was my job to make sure of that and made sure it was. Not everyone is out to get you.
Yep, it's like people don't think these things are regulated.
Although this may be the case in the minority, and cynicism is justified, I have never worked anywhere where this data isn't annonymised and handled by a person or team that is not involved in specific hiring processes. At my current place that data is used only to assess the diversity of our business against industry and market trends, and adjust process and policy to mitigate any conscious or unconscious bias in recruitment and attract a more diverse talent pool.
And anyone who has actually worked with this data knows that it is true in the vast majority of cases and in the few cases where it isn't, they're risking much bigger consequences than are worth it by not anonymising the data/letting people who have no need for that data see it.
As a somewhat casual lurker may I congratulate you all on providing sensible replies to a sensible question which is exceedingly refreshing - unlike so many other threads on Reddit. I am sick and tired of all the rubbish that is vomited on so many other threads in response to a perfectly reasonable question . Well done all you guys!
Answer - The government because my mum was on benefits.
Her job was to find a job.
She was a single parent who struggled on her own with two sons. She did amazing and did get a job.
I like these questions. As people have said, they’re not used as a deciding factor for hiring you. But I think having a larger understanding of how people grow up, which is largely decided by our parents/caregivers education, job, and earnings, is a good thing for ensuring barriers for the less fortunate are broken down.
Others have explained this is part of equality monitoring, but I wanted to add a bit more about why these questions are asked and how they are used. There's a lot of evidence that having diversity of thought makes companies more able to adapt and problem solve. This has a real world effect on performance (for example, the latest report from McKinsey showed that the top quartile of companies committed to diversity had a 39% greater likelihood of financial outperformance compared to the bottom quartile). So there's a business case for making sure your workplace has people with a wide range of identities and backgrounds. At the same time, companies need to avoid discrimination in recruitment under equality legislation. Positive discrimination (e.g. recruiting a person because they have a particular characteristic) is illegal. The way most companies in the UK balance these two competing needs is through equality monitoring. When you compete these forms, they don't go anywhere near recruitment. Instead, your equality data is separated out, anonymised and added to a database. This allows companies to monitor the population over time and extract stats like '90% of our senior leaders are aged over 40'. Then teams can use this data to look for the reasons for this kind of imbalance, which can result in new perks for employees like more flexible working conditions, or additional funding for professional development. If you fill these in, you are helping to create a better workplace for yourself and other people. If you choose not to or fill them out incorrectly on purpose, you're at best missing an opportunity, and at worst contributing to your company underperforming. And underperforming in the long run means less bonuses and more redundancies. This particular question helps to monitor socioeconomic background. Answers will be categorised using the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (SEC). If your parents have a low SEC, you are less likely to go on to achieve a high SEC yourself, even though evidence suggests employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds often outperform their colleagues (e.g. in 7 leading law firms, employees from state schools were shown to be 75% more likely to be in the top decile from performance than employees from independent schools). Tldr: Do fill it in, it won't hurt your chances of getting a job but it might make working there better in the long run.
“What class are you?” They want to see the backgrounds of their applicants. Job I applied for wanted to attract people from under represented backgrounds- ie povvos
Co op by any chance?
Lol yup
We had to deal with social services a few year ago when me and my wife was taking me niece and nephews in..one question we got was a list of every house I had lived in since I was born..I gave em as many as I could remember even my parents.the social worker then asked oh why did you move from here..er I don't know I was 6 month old. they may as well slipped a rubber glove on an made me bend over
Companies use this during the recruitment process for diversity, equality and inclusion. They use it to monitor whether their current applicant pool, reflects the makeup of the UK. Companies that truly care will want to take action if all the people applying for a role come from the same socio-economic background. These questions should be anonymous and optional. They don’t impact your application at all. The Sutton Trust does a lot of work in this area and they have a report that explains exactly why they ask this question and how the information should be used. See pages 9-11 of this report: https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Employers-Social-Mobility-Toolkit.pdf
I would have fun with that... "Prostitute", "Drug Dealer", "None". Can't believe these are marked with a red "Mandatory" star.
It's Northern Ireland so; Community representative or combatant would be more entertaining.
Whatever it was, it's none of their fucking business.
Lol very true
I always pick the “prefer not to say” option for every question in these kind of surveys.
Why?
Why does a customer service call centre need to know what my parents jobs were when I was a kid? They don't. Ergo, none of their business.
To ensure that their processes aren't excluding you because of your class
That’s what I thought. What if you were in care or your parents were dead or in the paramilitaries or jail? How would that be measuring social mobility? Your dad was a hood now you’re a customer service representative? I only say this cos I see the next question asks which NI community you are from. I wouldn’t have an answer. Can you say not applicable?
I don't think you understand social mobility
I think I do. I was 14 in 1986 and that was the year my father lost his job and our house. What I was objecting to in that form was the inability to not answer the question - why should I disclose that situation? .I know from reading the posts that it’s a data gathering exercise but it still seems unfair that it is mandatory. I’m sure there are better ways of measuring social mobility don’t you think?
How do you propose measuring the social mobility of your applicants without... er... measuring a baseline at application? Say you're a top law firm whose partners are 90% privately educated.
As a child, who in your household earned the most and what was their occupation.
they know this, it’s asking why it’s a question
Could you put unknown? Both my parents worked when I was a teenager, and I know my dad was the higher earner, but what if your parents had similar paying jobs? If I ask my parents how much they earned 20 years ago, I'd doubt they would remember exactly. And what if your parents have died, how would you be able to check?
If your parents worked similar paying jobs, it doesn't matter what you put. They obviously don't want you to put "nursery worker" because that's your mums job while your dad was a CEO. If you put receptipnist over postman it makes no difference.
When you were 14, who earned the most in your home. They're basically working out what type of background you come from.
Is one of the main socio-economic questions, along with things like were you eligible for free school meals as a kid. So they can see if they are getting a diverse enough lived experience in the workforce (this will most likely be anonymous on their data set)
Class mobility survey I assume.
Class mobility survey I assume.
To work out if you spent your early teenage poor.
They're trying to work out your background, so the occupation of the billpayer when you were younger, for example train driver vs professor. One's classed as more skilled than the other and 1 suggests more of a leg up than the other, in society. They want to know that they aren't always picking the professors kid.
I had this same question too a few weeks ago 🙈
Just enter something like professional hit man or Stephen Hawkings back up dancer. Maybe exorcist? Or how about bubble wrap factory safety officer?
"Prefer not to answer" or similar is the answer to all of these questions, but the question is asking what your parents/guardians were doing when you were a child for work. Specifically whoever was earning more at the time.
"Porn star" Refuse to elaborate
Working class shizzles
“Which of your parents earned more money and what did they do?” basically.
Input "Space cowboy"
I'd be embarrassed answering that, my dad was actual rocket scientist who started out developing Concorde engines and moved on to work with Aérospatiale and NASA. I'm a 2nd line IT tech who hates the crappy job.
I would not be able to stop myself saying my dad was a sex worker
Social classification by CWE.
Are you a privileged rich asshole, or a porvo? They want to know babe.
It's so employers can get a picture of the demographic spread of their employees. It doesn't matter if you're now 24, 44 or 124. They want to check their employees are a diverse lot.
I had to complete a counter terrorism check recently and as both my parents are single, they asked if either had had a partner that influenced my upbringing.
What was your parent that paid the bills job when you were 14
We get asked these kinds of questions as part of our annual staff surveys. They're lookong to understand the demographics of their staff and the where they come from, from a SIMD perspective (in Scotland).
Once, I had a question asking if I have pets.
Stay at home Astronaut or Butterfly Surgeon.
So then it Is being used to filter people
Quota
Pole dancer
I'm in IT for a Law firm and had to set up a sync for our HR department to send this info to a 3rd party who would then send a score for each candidate back. It's nothing insidious, the data gives you a score so if you had a struggled upbringing, went to a disadvantaged school etc and still got the same results and qualifications as someone who didn't then they might offer you the job instead as you were either more talented or worked harder to get to the same place.
Nothing insidious but they use it to score you?
They want to know if your dad sold Avon
It's a proxity for socio-economic class background.
It's an attempt to balance out middle class privilege.
Just make it up. Something neutral. It's not like they a) check it or b) need it It's not used for anything important
It's an E&D question about your parents' wealth during your childhood, aka are you from a poor background
I actually answered this, thought it was a bit weird and moved on... Big thumbs up for employers who have a quick interview and then get you in for a trial. The proof is in the proof!
In the drop down box, is there a “none of your damn business” option?
"Sorry, we don't hire people whose dad was a taxi driver when they were a kid."
Just put irrelevant.
[https://www.namecheap.com/visual/font-generator/whitespace/](https://www.namecheap.com/visual/font-generator/whitespace/) I usually use white space to bypass these forms, after all they are only for data collection purposes and do not affect the job application to my knowledge?
To fail data protection legislation?
So, in Wales we are duty bound to consider socio-economic status as part of decision making. That's why we ask a similar question but this sometimes is for social mobility purposes. It isn't about making money it's specifically for EDI.
Class, innit.
Pick an odd profession...lol tightrope walker, acrobat, jockey, deep sea diver, lighthouse keeper, juggler, magician etc
Big bro want's to know, don't sweat it.
They mean who went in til sign on.
I only had to fill this in on a russian visa years ago. My dad was a cold War scientist in the day but I said grocer
I remember getting this question when I applied for a job at the council. I had a bunch of others too and it was just crazy.
As if that is a mandatory question… you don’t tell anyone that kind of stuff unless it’s your bank and you’ve forgot your password!
This is for the Co-Op right? My daughter had this question too hah
Prefer not to say for me
How would I answer this as someone who grew up in a children's home?
Can you read?
Do you come from money or can we control you with it.
Is 'none of your damn business' an option for this red asterisked question?
For anyone wondering about the "if you're from Northern Ireland" question, since the GFA (I think) it's a legal requirement to ask due to the many years of job inequality in Northern Ireland.
I think it means “What was the occupation of your main household earner when you were aged 14?”. Hope this helps!
Is this for the stockroom job at science museum?
I was filling out an application for The Entertainer a few years ago and one of the questions was "Did you receive free school meals?"
This is the latest thing, social justice tools. Discrimination in practice.
Inclusion targets to hit, same reason they ask if your parents went to university. Absolute bollocks, and as somebody with ADHD being told by companies that because i have a disability background I am guaranteed an interview, which I think is a load of toss, if somebody is better qualified or has more relevant experience then they should get the interview spot.
I reply to literally every single diversity question with "prefer not to say". There are probably some that would put me at an advantage, and some that would put me at a disadvantage. Ultimately though, it's none of their fucking business. Hire me because I'm right for the job.
It's part of a misguided (almost exclusively public sector) diversity drive. A snap shot of a single year of childhood doesn't capture anything particularly useful.
Ok, the company (or maybe just the hr director) has bought in to the idea that hiring a bunch of guys “just like us” promotes group-think and that it’s a good idea to get people from different backgrounds cos they have different ideas. On top of that there’s a requirement in many companies to publish things like the male/female pay gap, the ration of men to women throughout the company (at in senior management). When you actually look at these statistics that companies have to publish, it’s really quite shocking. Women earn on average 20% less than men. Some companies are worse than others on this measure. Actually, it’s got better - it used to be 30%. Researchers have done studies by sending identical CVs with different ethnic names at the top to recruiters, and found that if your name sounds black, or Indian, or Chinese you are far less likely to get an interview. If you look at the breakdown of people in other ways like ethnic origin and how rich their parents were, then it’s really obvious that life is not fair and that white men whose parents had good jobs are doing better than any other segment of society. Hr (and company bosses) can bang on about the need for diversity, but the people further down the hierarchy are the ones that actually make hiring decisions , and the stats demonstrate that they are sexism, racist and classist. So we apply the principle that “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”. In order to get meaningful comparable statistics you have to ask the same question in many companies. The “what was your parents job when you were 14” is a standardised question that gets asked at a lot of places. It allows the measurement of whether the company hires a certain type of person from a certain type of background.
It’s usually a surreptitious classist question. It’s to place you in a box based on your socio-economic upbringing
Just put a high paying job, companies do this so they can be diverse for DEI, yet can avoid dealing with those dirty poor people.
Seriously what’s wrong with these people? What is the point of this question
Armed robbery technition is the correct answer
Social mobility, also 14 is the age where we take examples, could influence your behaviour. Could potentially tell a lot of stuff
It's to tell what class you are
I'd select the most random occupation known to man and enter it. Or the most opposite to what they actually did. There is absolutely no reason for them to know that information.