The Times: Jobs algorithm lets poor leapfrog the privileged

City firms are to be offered a free new recruitment tool that raises the A-level grades of job applicants who attended weak state schools by up to three grades, putting them ahead of many privately educated candidates.

It means an applicant who achieved three Bs at A level would be treated in the recruitment process as though they achieved three As if they qualified for several categories of disadvantage.

There are already computerised models used by employers to identify candidates from poor backgrounds but these do so by “flagging” applicants who out-performed their peer groups in challenging circumstances, rather than inflating their exam grades.

Institute of Student Employers

REAL (Relative Education Attainment Level) is a free research and evidence-based contextual recruitment tool that adjusts students’ grades by taking into account fourteen indicators of disadvantage such as school performance decile, free school meal eligibility and postcode data. This means that A-level grades of applicants who attended weak state schools are raised by up to three grades, putting them ahead of many privately educated candidates. Designed to have maximum impact on social mobility, the tool makes contextualised grades available to all employers, regardless of their size and budget.

Recruiters are using the tool so they can identify a candidate’s actual A-level results and their contextualised grades as well as indicators of disadvantage that have been flagged by an applicant. It is helping them to find talent that would previously have been hidden.