Teach First job applicants will get in-person interviews after more apply using AI
One of the UK’s biggest recruiters is accelerating a plan to switch towards more frequent face-to-face assessments as university graduates become increasingly reliant on using artificial intelligence to apply for jobs.Teach First, a charity which fast-tracks graduates into teaching jobs, said it planned to bring forward a move away from predominantly written assignments – where AI could give applicants hidden help – to setting more assessments where candidates carry out tasks such as giving “micro lessons” to assessors.The move comes as the number of people using AI for job applications has risen from 38% last year, to 50% this year, according to a study by the graduate employment specialist Bright Network.Patrick Dempsey, the executive director for programme talent at Teach First, said there had been a near-30% increase in applications so far this year on the same period last year, with AI playing a significant role.Dempsey said the surge in demand for jobs was partly due to a softening in the labour market, but the use of automation for applications was allowing graduates to more easily apply for multiple jobs simultaneously.
“The shift from written assessment to task-based assessment is something we feel the need to accelerate,” he said.Dempsey said much of the AI use went undetected but there could be tell-tale signs.“There are instances where people are leaving the tail end of a ChatGPT message in an application answer, and of course they get rejected,” he said.A leading organisation in graduate recruitment said the proportion of students and university leavers using AI to apply for jobs had risen to five out of 10 applicants.Bright Network, which connects graduates and young professionals to employers, found half of graduates and undergraduates now used AI for their applications.
More than a quarter of companies questioned in a survey of 15,000 people will be setting guidelines for AI usage in job applications, in time for the next recruitment season,Kirsten Barnes, head of the digital platform at Bright Network, said employers had noticed a “surge” in applications,“AI tools make it easier for candidates of any age – not just graduates – to apply to many, many different roles,” she said,“Employers have been saying to us that what they’re seeing is a huge surge in the volume of applications that they’re receiving,”Breakthroughs in AI have coincided with downward pressure on the graduate and junior jobs market.
Dartmouth Partners, a recruitment agency specialising in the financial services sector, said it was increasingly seeing applicants using keywords written in white on their CVs.The words are not visible to the human eye, but would instruct a system to push the candidate to the next phase of the recruitment process if a prospective employer was using AI to screen applications.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionVacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped by 32% since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, according to research released last month by the job search site Adzuna.These entry-level jobs now account for 25% of the market in the UK, down from 28.9% in 2022, it found.
Last month, another job search site, Indeed, reported that university graduates were facing the toughest job market since 2018, finding the number of roles advertised for recent graduates had fallen 33% in mid-June compared with the same point last year.The Institute of Student Employers said the graduate and school-leaver market as a whole was not declining as rapidly as reported, however.Its survey of 69 employers showed job vacancies aimed at graduates were down by 7% but school-leaver vacancies were up by 23% – meaning there was an overall increase of 1% in a market earmarked for AI impact.Group GTI, a charity that helps students move into employment, said job postings on UK university careers job boards were up by 8% this year compared with last year.Interviews with graduate recruitment agencies and experts have found that AI has yet to cause severe disruption to the market for school and university leavers – but change is inevitable and new joiners to the white-collar economy must become skilled in AI to stand a chance of progressing.
James Reed, the chief executive of the Reed employment agency, said he “feels sorry” for young people who have racked up debt studying for degrees and are encountering a tough jobs market.“I think universities should be looking at this and thinking quite carefully about how they prepare young people,” he said.He added that AI would transform the entire job market.“This change is fundamental and five years from now it’s going to look very different – the whole job market,” he said.
Reform wants to cut council diversity roles. The problem is there are already barely any
Councils run by Reform UK have an average of fewer than 0.5 diversity and equality roles each, it has emerged, calling into question the party’s stated aim to save significant sums of money by cutting such jobs.According to freedom of information requests, across the 10 Reform-run English councils there was a combined 4.56 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs connected to equality and diversity, not including roles required by law such as those for inclusion in education, including for pupils with disabilities.Even using an assumed average full-time salary of £50,000, cutting all the roles would save the Reform-run councils slightly less than 0
Unite attacks Angela Rayner over ‘abhorrent’ handling of Birmingham bin strikes
Angela Rayner has been accused of handling the Birmingham bin workers’ strike in a “totally and utterly abhorrent” way by the Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham.Graham told BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme: “Angela Rayner refuses to get involved, and she is directly aiding and abetting the fire-and-rehire of these bin workers, it is totally and utterly abhorrent.”In a heated interview, Graham said the deputy prime minister had also failed to turn up to a recent meeting with Graham at an event, saying: “She doesn’t want to talk about this issue, because she knows that what is happening is abhorrent, but she does not want to intervene.”A party source told the Guardian that Rayner had to attend an urgent statement in the house led by the prime minister instead of going to the event and described Graham’s claims as “baseless”.Graham added that Rayner had been a member of the union for 10 years but may have left of her own accord over the last quarter because “she’s seen the mood music”
Starmer and Reeves promised honesty about public finances. Can they stay the course?
During the first televised debate in the run-up to last summer’s general election, Keir Starmer used a phrase that received enthusiastic – and unanticipated – applause from the Salford audience.“I don’t pretend there’s a magic wand that will fix everything overnight,” he told them. Labour strategists were surprised by the clapping, and encouraged him to deploy the line again in future.The prime minister, his aides said, entered office determined not to fall into the same trap as many leaders before him of making promises that were never going to be kept because of the state of the public finances.For her part, Rachel Reeves arrived at the Treasury intent on hammering home the message the Tories were to blame for the sorry state of the nation’s books
Zarah Sultana launches fundraising drive for new leftwing party
Zarah Sultana has launched a fundraising drive and supporter sign-up page under her own name as she pushes on with plans for the formation of a new leftwing party.The Coventry South MP, who announced last Thursday that she would be co-leading the new party with Jeremy Corbyn, used the platform ActionNetwork to gather supporters. The landing page has so far recorded more than 64,000 “actions taken”.But the move has caused further unease within the emerging left alliance, with organisers fearing control over donations and data might become concentrated within Sultana’s camp.After Sultana announced her co-leadership plan, Corbyn made a separate statement noting “discussions were ongoing”
Nearly 60 Labour MPs call for UK to immediately recognise Palestinian state
Nearly 60 Labour MPs have demanded the UK immediately recognises Palestine as a state, after Israel’s defence minister announced plans to force all residents of Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah.The MPs, who include centrist and leftwing backbenchers, sent a letter to David Lammy on Thursday warning they believed Gaza was being ethnically cleansed.They are urging the foreign secretary to take immediate steps to prevent the Israeli government from carrying out its Rafah plan, and to go further and recognise Palestinian statehood immediately.The letter was sent just after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, made a similar plea at a joint press conference with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister.The MPs wrote: “It is with great urgency and concern that we are writing to you regarding the Israeli defence minister’s announcement on Monday of his plans to forcibly transfer all Palestinian civilians in Gaza to a camp in the ruined city of Rafah without allowing them to leave
MPs and political candidates face ‘industrial’ levels of abuse, minister says
MPs and political candidates are facing “industrial” levels of intimidation and harassment, a minister has warned, as the government outlines plans for stricter punishments for those found guilty of abuse.Rushanara Ali, the minister for democracy, said her colleagues were suffering worse harassment than ever before and warned this was deterring many young people from becoming politically active.With two MPs having been killed in recent years and multiple candidates saying they were harassed during last year’s election campaign, the government says it is acting before further acts of violence are committed.“In the time that I’ve been an MP, we’ve lost colleagues – my friend Jo Cox, Sir David Amess,” Ali said. “We also had the horrific situation of Stephen Timms being attacked in the first week that I was elected in 2010
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