Does opting out of contextual recruitment info affect my applications?

Hi all,

I've been applying to some first-year schemes, and I've noticed almost every firm uses Rare Recruitment's contextualised recruitment info, or some variant of it unique to them.

Usually, I opt out of disclosing anything - even though I'm sure some of the points, like working during school, postcode, and ethnicity would work in my favour, I'm not really comfortable providing such information to law firms. I don't trust firms with so much personal information, especially with how frequent data breaches are, and when applications are so long it saves time to opt out of everything. Wherever possible, I put "Prefer not to say".

My question is, does this make a significant difference to my application? At the review stage, it seems as though law firms will see I have refused to disclose it. I'm wondering if it gives an impression that I don't care about taking the time to enter it, or if not having the algorithm rank me, it disadvantages my application.

Has anyone heard anything from Graduate Recruitment teams/their university career departments about this? Should I start entering the criteria?

Reply 1

chalbliagtelle

I wouldn't think it does, but it really depends on the firm. Putting 'prefer not to say' or opting out in any other way would not ever disadvantage your application. From what I've heard in some instances GR don't even see the data and just use it for stats collecting e.g. seeing the % of BAME candidates they have recruited that year. However likewise I know some firms do look at it to put people's achievements etc in context. I would say the only way to find out really would be asking GR either at an open day or at a law fair or something.

Edit: just editing to clarify - even if you were to fill out the form and you weren't a member of a disadvantaged group or anything it's still really, really unlikely to disadvantage your application. Recruitment in any business or firm often has 'quotas' but they're not as strict as to give a disadvantaged group member an advantage.

(edited 3 years ago)

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Articles for you

The Student Room Group Privacy Notice

Btec results day 2024: what to expect

What is an LLM and how could it benefit your career?

Powerful questions business students forget to ask their career advisers