Diversity and inclusion

Engineering graduate recruitment practices: what is needed to improve outcomes for minority engineering graduates?

12/06/2018

CRAC's research has established that employment outcomes for recent UK engineering graduates of ethnic minority background are less positive than for their white counterparts, even after controlling for factors such as attainment and university attended. The extent of these differences is greater for engineering graduates than for those studying other subjects. This project, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, will investigate engineering employers' graduate recruitment practices and where they could be enhanced to improve outcomes for UK engineering graduates of ethnic minority background and deliver a more diverse graduate workforce.

CRAC is planning investigations with a carefully selected purposive sample of engineering employers, to understand their approaches to graduate recruitment, their procedures and practice. This will include attraction, recruitment and selection stages, as well as some insights into early career progression. Findings will be benchmarked against best practice in other sectors. From these insights, recommendations will be made for enhancements to practice. We expect to conduct interviews with a sample of employers during autumn 2017.

Representatives of engineering employers are invited to express interest in participation by contacting Project Director Robin Mellors-Bourne