When you look at the number of job applications completed by each group, BAME students are completing 45% more applications than their white counterparts.
Official figures show that there are record numbers of BAME students attending university, and while this is encouraging a recent report showed that universities were still leaving BAME students behind. While this may well be the case, our own report highlights that there’s an appetite among BAME students that just isn’t being matched by their white counterparts. When you look at the number of job applications completed by each group, BAME students are completing 45% more applications than their white counterparts.
Women, in particular, are applying for more jobs than both their white counterparts, with a full 50% more applying for jobs.
Black males are applying for 75% more jobs than their white counterparts
Our data shows an even starker divide when you break down both ethnic groups and gender. The data shows that black males are completing 75% more applications than white men are in comparison to the number of overall black and white males on our platform respectively.
So what does this mean? Why are people within the BAME community applying at a much higher rate? Usmaan Qureshi, Customer Success Manager at Debut Careers says ‘There are likely to be multiple factors at play here. Segmentation by ethnicity is interesting but of course, the groups are not homogenous and should not be seen to all have the same characteristics and drivers.
For some, this will be a reaction to the known issue of bias, both conscious and unconscious bias, which are proven to exist. By being more proactive BAME students may be calculating that they can counter the impact of this. What is especially interesting is the groups most likely to suffer a negative impact from bias, black men and women, are the most proactive in seeking to mitigate it.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the applicants on Debut are likely to come from the top educational tiers, so when we see that white students apply to fewer roles it is likely that they are more confident that they will get interviews with their chosen employers.
We also looked at how social mobility factors impacted the number of applications. The impact was much smaller, only 5% difference.
Within the Asian community there was a huge focus from family on education and work ethic, combined with a strong preference for professional jobs over more vocational ones, or jobs in the arts.’
Peter Roch, our community manager seconded this. ‘The expectations within many black families are that their children will work harder to their careers. If your friends are applying for 5 jobs, you will apply for 50.’
BAME candidates most encouraged by ‘invitation to apply’
Further showing their eagerness to get the right job after they graduate, BAME students are responding at much higher rates to invitations to apply. Our unique system, that matches jobs to the candidate, invites people we deem as right for a role to apply. BAME students are significantly more likely to follow through with an invitation, with 72% of BAME males applying and a staggering 92% of BAME females completing an application when they’re invited.
Whatever the reasons for BAME candidates have that they feel they need to apply for more jobs, Debut Careers can help them to find the perfect graduate job. We understand what it takes to get graduates placed into their ideal roles, and are here to put the perfect job in front of its ideal candidate.