The company made the change in hopes of increasing diversity in its workforce overseas. “Academic qualifications will still be taken into account and indeed remain an important consideration when assessing candidates as a whole, but will no longer act as a barrier to getting a foot in the door,” Maggie Stilwell, EY’s managing partner for talent, told the Huffington Post.
“Our own internal research of over 400 graduates found that screening students based on academic performance alone was too blunt an approach to recruitment.
“It found no evidence to conclude that previous success in higher education correlated with future success in subsequent professional qualifications undertaken.”
EY, which is one of the leading graduate recruiters in the U.K., previously required recruits to have a 2:1 and the equivalent of three B grades at A-level. Instead, the company will now decide which applicants to interview based on online tests.
Only 4 percent of the company’s British senior management are currently from ethnic minorities and fewer than one in five are female.
EY did not respond to questions about whether the company’s American division had similar requirements and planned to make any changes. However, some companies in the United States have already begun looking at online testing as a way to screen initial recruits and increase diversity.
