ITV will use Rare's CRS to recruit a new trainee lawyer into its Trailblazer Apprenticeship program, which launched in December. The selected apprentice will work within the business while studying, commencing in September 2016 and qualifying as a solicitor in August 2022. Though the broadcaster's legal team is the first in-house department to sign up to the CRS, the system is already in use at a suite of law firms including Hogan Lovells, Ashurst, Macfarlanes, RPC, Travers Smith, Baker & Mackenzie and Withers, as well as the entire Magic Circle. The recruitment initiative, endorsed by Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger, places applicants' experience and education within the context of their individual economic background and personal circumstances in order to help identify those with the greatest potential, rather than those with simply the most impressive CVs.
Stepping-up social mobility
Rare's recruitment method aims to improve the social diversity of trainees by 'hardwiring social mobility metrics into firms' existing graduate recruitment Applicant Tracking Systems.' Firms and businesses signed-up to the scheme will cross-reference candidate application responses with two Rare databases—one with the examination results of more than 3,500 UK secondary school and university students, the other with over 2.5 million UK postcodes—in order to develop a 'contextualised' profile for every candidate. The system was praised by Lord Neuberger in October as an innovative way to help boost the diversity of law firm trainees without implementing recruitment quotas.
Wider talent pool
ITV is the first company to offer an in-house Trailblazer solicitor apprenticeship, a social mobility scheme backed by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Education. Not only will using the CRS to recruit its first Trailblazer apprentice help gifted applicants overcome 'blunt grade thresholds', it will also secure access to a wider pool of legal talent for ITV, suggests general counsel and company secretary Andrew Garard. 'Rare's software enables ITV to conduct an intelligent search of candidates who might otherwise be missed,' he said. 'We recognise that not all grades are comparable as they need to be seen in the context of the learning environment [in which] they are achieved.' Sources: Legal Week, Legal Cheek, Rare Recruitment
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