Simply getting people from certain backgrounds to university does not in itself mean social mobility has been enabled – fair and balanced recruitment to the professions is the next step.

This is according to Henry Morris, founder of social enterprise upReach, which aims to improve access to the professions for undergraduates from less privileged backgrounds.

“What we argue is that these are students who may not self-select and if they do, they can under-perform their potential during the recruitment process – we help to up skill them to be work-ready during the process.”

The organisation will be building relationships with potential partner universities and employers through to November, before starting a pilot programme with at least two universities from this January.

Morris says upReach is interested in working with employers from multiple sectors, including recruitment, although its four target industries are law, professional services, consulting and banking.

He defines the jobs that the company will be looking at as those that require a degree, as roughly defined by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

Morris says that the benefits to partner employers would be firstly “early access to a pool of great talent”, secondly giving existing employees a chance to develop mentoring skills, and “finally, and only finally, partnership gives CSR benefits, that they can be seen publicly to be doing something good”.

Comments

• Henry's organisation UpReach provides a valuable service to potential recruiters. Tackling some of the issues that prevent promising candidates from accessing good quality entry level roles is vital and ensures that candidates from less supported backgrounds are given the stepping stone required to be considered for such roles. I wish UpReach the best of luck with progressing their initiative.