Bakers and HogLov sign up to use Rare’s innovative contextual recruitment tool

Baker & McKenzie and Hogan Lovells are the first two firms to plan to integrate a new contextual recruitment tool in their online application systems, in time for the 2015-16 graduate recruitment season.

The new tool, developed by diversity specialists Rare, is designed to hardwire social mobility metrics into a firm’s existing system, enabling that firm to take a candidate’s economic background and personal circumstances into account when being assessed. The hope is that by contextualising the performance of individual applicants, stand-out candidates should be more easily identified.

Rare explains that the firms will be able to assess a candidate’s academic performance against the overall performance of their school, providing a context for how the grades were achieved. Rare’s managing director, Raph Mokades, said: "For instance, someone who gets AAA at A Level from a very high performing school may be underperforming relative to the average attainment at that institution, whereas someone who gets AAA at A Level from a school where the average is DDE, whose parents may not have attended university and who lives in a deprived postcode, is outstanding – even if he or she does not have glistening work experience and extracurricular activities."

Sarah Gregory, Baker & McKenzie’s diversity & inclusion partner, said: "By integrating contextual recruitment into our own graduate application processes we will be setting a new benchmark for social mobility. This underpins our vision to be a truly inclusive organisation and is testament to our determination to improve access to the legal profession; one of our key commitments as a Social Mobility Business Compact Champion."         

Tom Astle, Hogan Lovells’ graduate recruitment partner, said: "At Hogan Lovells we are committed to ensuring diversity, inclusion and fairness is at the forefront of recruiting decisions. We welcome this as a quantum leap in objective and reliable methods of screening applications, enabling those from less privileged backgrounds to shine through. We are therefore delighted to be working with Rare on this very important development in graduate recruitment selection which is set to revolutionise how we select candidates."