Deloitte becomes largest British business to adopt contextualised recruitment

The move means the global accountant becomes the largest British business to enter into a partnership with Rare, a specialist in diversity recruitment.

The partnership will give Deloitte’s recruiters a range of standardised data on candidates’ economic background and personal circumstances, allowing them to make more informed choices about candidates by considering the context in which their academic achievements have been gained.

The announcement marks the start of Deloitte’s inaugural Social Mobility Week and forms part of a comprehensive package of measures which the firm hopes will help it to access a more diverse pool of talent, whilst also contributing to the societal challenge of improving social mobility by increasing opportunity for and investing in the development and training of young people.

Steve Williams, senior partner for Deloitte in Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: “Improving social mobility is one of the UK’s biggest challenges. For us, there is also a clear business imperative to get this right. In order to provide the best possible service and make an impact with our clients, we need to hire people who think and innovate differently, come from a variety of backgrounds and bring a range of perspectives and experience into the firm. We truly value this difference.

“Our response to this challenge reflects the value we place in the UK’s education system and the hard work that young people and teachers put in to achieve good exam results. Contextualisation allows us to recognise these important qualifications for young people, whilst also ensuring that for example, 3Bs at A Level in a school where the average student achieves 3Ds, is identified as exceptional performance.”

The other measures announced by Deloitte include:

Mr Williams added: “At Deloitte, we are working hard to ensure that our talent pool is diverse and reflects the make-up of today’s society. We want to show that everyone can thrive, develop and succeed in our firm based on their talent, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or any other dimension that can be used to differentiate people from one another. This includes an individual’s social or economic background, which we know continues to be used to hold some people back.

“We believe the variety of interventions announced today will enable us to deliver on our social mobility objectives. They build on established programmes already in place to improve social mobility and employability throughout our profession and society as a whole, including our Deloitte Social Innovation Pioneers initiative and the Deloitte Access programme.”