We’re piloting a contextual recruitment tool on the Pupillage Gateway system to boost social mobility at the Bar. We’ve partnered with Rare to integrate the Rare Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) into the Gateway’s applicant tracking system. This system is already used by more than 25 chambers in their own recruitment systems with the first Bar client introducing it in November 2018.
In this blog, our Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Corporate Social Responsibility Sam Mercer and Equality and Diversity Consultant Rachel Krys answer questions you might have about the system and how it works. Plus, representatives from Landmark Chambers share their experience of using the Rare CRS over the past few years.
What is contextual recruitment?
Sam and Rachel: Contextual recruitment helps recruiters to look at the context in which candidates received their grades and helps highlight applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who have outperformed their peers. Contextual recruitment enables employers to evaluate applicants based on a better understanding of their circumstances and potential. It should help them identify high achievers who may have faced challenges which they have overcome.
How does it impact the recruitment process?
Sam and Rachel: By identifying candidates who are from a disadvantaged background, or are academic outperformers, recruiters can assess a candidate’s achievements in the context of their academic and socio-economic background, and their personal circumstances. Recruiters can then consider adjustments to its recruitment process (as part of a positive action programme). Organisations normally use contextual recruitment when shortlisting applicants.
How does the Rare system work?
Sam and Rachel: Candidates will be asked to complete an additional, optional set of contextual questions as part of their application via the Gateway. This data will then be processed by Rare using an algorithm to generate ‘flags’ which indicate a relative level of disadvantage or an indication of where an individual has outperformed their peers. Recruiters will be able to pull ‘flag’ data from the Gateway system – they will see the response in general but will not see the detail of applicants’ answers. Recruiters, having decided how to use the data, can then adjust their recruitment process.
What data will aspiring barristers be asked to provide?
Sam and Rachel: It’s not mandatory for candidates to answer the contextual questions. However, aspiring barristers will asked to provide information about three different areas:
- Their academic background and the school they attended
- Their personal circumstances, for example if they have care experience, caring responsibilities or have sought asylum
- Their socio-economic background, for example if they qualified for free school meals or if they had to work to support their studies
How will the data be used by chambers and employers?
Sam and Rachel: We recommend use of this data primarily in the first sift (shortlisting) and suggest recruiters consider contextual information only for those applicants which meet the minimum qualifying criteria but fall into a ‘maybe/borderline’ group.
Additional contextual data for this group should help identify those candidates who may warrant going into the next round, given their achievements/how they have potentially overcome a disadvantaged background.
We don’t recommend recruiters look at the whole applicant cohort as contextual data will not transform a poorly qualified applicant into a realistic pupillage contender.
Are applicants at a disadvantage if their application doesn’t trigger any social mobility indicators?
Sam and Rachel: All chambers and employers recruit candidates based on objective criteria and are looking for those who have the potential to be excellent barristers. The contextual recruitment information provides an extra data point to support the identification of those with the potential to succeed at the Bar, and supports rather than replaces the qualification criteria chambers are interested in.
This means that applicants whose background doesn’t trigger a ‘flag’ aren’t at a disadvantage – if they meet the criteria and are in the top tranche they will go on the shortlist – but it does help those who may have experienced disadvantages earlier in life to show their full potential.
Landmark Chambers first partnered with Rare in 2021 and used its contextual recruitment system in its pupillage and mini-pupillage recruitment process. Scott Lyness KC, Head of Landmark’s Pupillage Committee, and Natasha White-Foy, Landmark’s HR Manager, discuss why contextual recruitment is important and how they have found the Rare system.
Why is contextual recruitment important to your chambers?
Scott and Natasha: Landmark receives a high number of applications to our pupillage programme. This is both an accolade to our reputation as a leading training provider as well as a challenge for the recruitment panel. The majority of our pupils go on to apply for tenancy to become a full member of chambers. We encourage this and select the very best pupils who will enrich chambers and the Bar more widely. In addition to academic success and work experience, we highly value skills and attributes that are less easily evidenced: resilience, enthusiasm and tenacity. These cannot be conveyed by grades or a chronology of mini-pupillages, which is why contextual recruitment is so vital in understanding the individual story behind each applicant.
A person who achieves a 2:1 degree whilst having to work full time and care for a close relative deserves the same scrutiny as a person achieving a First without those challenges. Similarly, three As at A Level cannot compare with three A*s but where the three As were achieved in a school whose historical average was three Cs, that individual deserves a closer look. As part of a robust, fair and open recruitment system, contextual recruitment plays a valuable role in helping us find individuals who would likely have failed the test of traditional vetting processes.
How has your chambers found the Rare system? What difference has it made to your recruitment process?
Scott and Natasha: The Rare system adds several layers to an already detailed application process, which has its drawbacks in terms of staff resources and processing time. This is vastly outweighed by the enhanced picture we build of applicants and the additional confidence we have in our selection process.
The Rare data were provided in a clear format that, once parameters were agreed, was quick to integrate and used to help make selections. We have found that the Rare data have significantly increased the number of applicants that make it through the initial stages. This has consequently had the effect of increasing the workload at each stage, but the results speak for themselves. We know that we are drawing out the very best pupils that will make very successful barristers. In the process, we are making modest contributions to increasing diversity at the Bar and making a career in law more accessible to people from a far broader range of experiences and achievements.
How has contextual recruitment been received by the Bar and aspiring barristers?
Scott and Natasha: Landmark’s Pupillage Committee and members of chambers who are aware of the use of Rare as part of the selection process have welcomed use of Rare as part of their wider commitment to ensuring wide and fair access to the profession. Although its use places an extra burden on identified executive members of the committee when considering marking scores at the different stages of the process, it gives significant confidence that the selection process is doing as much as it can to ensure that those who would rightly benefit from contextual marking do not slip through the net and are given the opportunity to proceed through the process. The ‘flag’ system, once established, is straightforward to use (and respects confidentiality), which is of significant help when decisions need to be made quickly at successive stages. Contextual marking has become indispensable to Chambers.
Barrister at Landmark Chambers Rebecca Sage, who was called to the Bar in 2021, shares her perspective on why contextual recruitment is important.
Rebecca: Coming from the solicitor side of the profession, the Bar is markedly less diverse in terms of the background of applicants - and so it is extremely important to have in place processes which help to challenge ‘traditional’ assumptions. And whilst academic achievement is rightly valued, it is not sufficient to succeed in - and enjoy - a career at the Bar. Being able to think quickly, having a good measure of resilience, and the confidence to set healthy boundaries, are key. In my view, there's no point in recruiting pupils who are academic superstars with extensive mooting experience and mini-pupillages, if they lack the other attributes which will allow them to stay at the Bar long-term. Contextual recruitment must help in assessing these wider attributes.
Read more on contextual recruitment.