Do target universities even exist in the UK, or is it really about target demographics

Is the advantage of attending a target university minimal in the UK? It seems that target students do perform better at the interview stage, but in UK recruiting where getting to the interview itself is often the biggest hurdle, it appears that attending a target university offers no substantial advantage for landing interviews over semi-targets or even non-targets. This might be different if we focus only on Oxbridge (excluding UCL, Warwick, LSE, etc.), but even then, the difference may not be that significant.

Or is it due to the fact that target universities—especially London-based ones—have a disproportionately high number of Asian students (particularly internationals), whom HRs don't bother with? If so, DEI in the UK would appear to be operating at an extreme level. One might argue that there is more self selection at semis and non-targets but I dont think this is the case since essentially everyone has access to the Bristol trackr nowdays.

It’s true that the overall summer cohort is still skewed towards target universities, but there are also far more applicants from those universities, and kids from targets tend to perform better at the interview stage as well.

2 Comments
 

Where did you get these stats from? There’s a mountain of bullshit online and this strikes me as a part of the pile.

Target/semi-target advantage over non-target is utterly vast. Seriously, non-targets don’t even get looks without fantastic experience (which they mostly don’t have, because they’re at non-targets).

Difference between targets and semis is less insane, but still definitively large. The UK’s structured recruitment pipeline (I.e. minimal networking impact for campus recruitment, screeners and points systems) means you just have to pad stats.

You might get hardo semi-target take the spot over a half-assed target applicant but the fact those are comparable says enough. Then again, the one thing that’s consistent abode all is that the job market is a travesty at present.

 

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