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UK/R.O.I GAF - Thread of geopolitical confusion

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Now that sounds wonderful. Would suit my boy, who is just coming up to A-levels but really really doesn't fancy the idea of uni and wants to get out there and DO stuff. Serious stuff. He's a smart lad and can do numbers in his head better than anyone I've ever met (unfortunately crap at exams though, but given the exams he has had I can see why - he is too smart for the questions and answers what they actually asked rather than what they thought they had asked).

Heh, I had a similar problem. Where I would answer the actual question and give the exam boards answers they didn't want. My teachers had to drill into me to dumb down the answers I gave and my grades turned around very suddenly.
 

Seanbob11

Member
Went to Handmade Burger Co. last night with my girlfriend. 2 burgers, 2 drinks, chips and dip for £10. Tasted fantastic too, would highly recommend!
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Heh, I had a similar problem. Where I would answer the actual question and give the exam boards answers they didn't want. My teachers had to drill into me to dumb down the answers I gave and my grades turned around very suddenly.

Yeah, I see this all over. I called back the exam scripts for a bunch of my law students - they'd been given zero marks for a question and I didn't believe even these (fairly thick) students would have got it that wrong. Turned out the exam board had allocated all the marking to History grads who knew fuck all about law and couldn't understand what was right and what was wrong. On review they all got full marks for that question and that meant two grades difference. That was about two-thirds of the class - who can you trust these days? Nobody, that's who.
 

Meadows

Banned
Jesus, a 1st as a prerequisite for a grad job?!

I've seen a hell of a lot of job ads around and I've never seen that before. Can't really see the reason for it, there are a lot more important things than academic prowess (work experience, charisma, hobbies etc), so to put such a high, arbitrary bar on a job seems weird, only 10% of students get a 1st and the ones I know who are on course aren't the kind of people I'd want to hire (withdrawn, bad at presentations, never participate in seminars).

Ah well, guess I'm not a recruiter.
 

Suairyu

Banned
stop switching avatars you cunts
I say, chap, there's no need for that kind of language now, is there? We're all very impressed about you ability to maintain a romantic relationship but I don't feel that leaves you entitled to be such an uncouth bloody savage.
 
Jesus, a 1st as a prerequisite for a grad job?!

I've seen a hell of a lot of job ads around and I've never seen that before. Can't really see the reason for it, there are a lot more important things than academic prowess (work experience, charisma, hobbies etc), so to put such a high, arbitrary bar on a job seems weird, only 10% of students get a 1st and the ones I know who are on course aren't the kind of people I'd want to hire (withdrawn, bad at presentations, never participate in seminars).

Ah well, guess I'm not a recruiter.

Does your girlfriend know you feel this way about her?
 
Jesus, a 1st as a prerequisite for a grad job?!

I've seen a hell of a lot of job ads around and I've never seen that before. Can't really see the reason for it, there are a lot more important things than academic prowess (work experience, charisma, hobbies etc), so to put such a high, arbitrary bar on a job seems weird, only 10% of students get a 1st and the ones I know who are on course aren't the kind of people I'd want to hire (withdrawn, bad at presentations, never participate in seminars).

Ah well, guess I'm not a recruiter.

If everybody has got a degree nowadays, you need an easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Redbrick? Yea? First? Yes, I imagine that would narrow the pool down easily for recruiters.
 

Meadows

Banned
If everybody has got a degree nowadays, you need an easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Redbrick? Yea? First? Yes, I imagine that would narrow the pool down easily for recruiters.

I could also limit recruitment to left handed people. That'd knock out 90% too.

Does your girlfriend know you feel this way about her?

haha, Management is different, to get a 1st you need to do loads of presentations, case studies etc
 
Jesus, a 1st as a prerequisite for a grad job?!

I've seen a hell of a lot of job ads around and I've never seen that before. Can't really see the reason for it, there are a lot more important things than academic prowess (work experience, charisma, hobbies etc), so to put such a high, arbitrary bar on a job seems weird, only 10% of students get a 1st and the ones I know who are on course aren't the kind of people I'd want to hire (withdrawn, bad at presentations, never participate in seminars).

Ah well, guess I'm not a recruiter.

You watch your tongue, I got a first... :(
 
I could also limit recruitment to left handed people. That'd knock out 90% too.



haha, Management is different, to get a 1st you need to do loads of presentations, case studies etc

Now you're getting it although that wouldn't serve as much of a purpose as the 1st requirement.
 

Meadows

Banned
Now you're getting it although that wouldn't serve as much of a purpose as the 1st requirement.

I dunno, imo good at writing essays =/= good at a job.

Sure it's an advantage, but who would you rather hire, a 1st student that got a 71% and has literally no job experience or a 2:1 student that got 67% and worked a couple of internships and a couple of part time jobs, and spoke two languages on top of English?
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
If everybody has got a degree nowadays, you need an easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Redbrick? Yea? First? Yes, I imagine that would narrow the pool down easily for recruiters.

Yes, but not necessarily in a productive way. I certainly wouldn't want to limit things in that way, and nor (thankfully) would anyone I've been employed by. It just seems counter-productive.
 
I dunno, imo good at writing essays =/= good at a job.

Sure it's an advantage, but who would you rather hire, a 1st student that got a 71% and has literally no job experience or a 2:1 student that got 67% and worked a couple of internships and a couple of part time jobs, and spoke two languages on top of English?

I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it but I imagine recruiters must get so many application forms nowadays that they look for easy ways to reduce the burden. I've been in shortlistings where the person in charge has halved the pile and chucked one half in the bin without looking. Others that have instantly dismissed apps that didn't have the numbers of the points of the job/person spec they were addressing. People are lazy fucks.

The way things are though, all things being equal of course most employers would go for the first.
 

f0rk

Member
who would you rather hire, a 1st student that got a 71% and has literally no job experience or a 2:1 student that got 67% and worked a couple of internships and a couple of part time jobs, and spoke two languages on top of English?

They wouldn't have a requirement for a first if there wasn't already plenty of people meeting that as well as having good work experience and stuff.
 

Kentpaul

When keepin it real goes wrong. Very, very wrong.
Spicey chicken ontop of chips & cheese with a 10inch full house pizza from my local Indian takeaway joint was my breakfast, dinner and supper all In one (I even had the salid with it cause I'm eating healthy these days.
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
They wouldn't have a requirement for a first if there wasn't already plenty of people meeting that as well as having good work experience and stuff.

There are plenty of other ways to filter the candidates, of course, though, many of which might lead to far better results.
 
Without wanting to go into too much detail, we take on 5 people a year in my department for the graduate programme and we got about 100 applicants per position available, all with firsts and all with a range of experience and backgrounds. Last year we didn't have the requirement and we got about 500 applicants per place, the five people we took on all had firsts anyway.

It is more about the devaluation of degrees that has led to the management adding that requirement. It doesn't really bother me either way, in fact we find that people with firsts tend to be more varied in background than those that apply with 2.1s who tend to be middle class and suburbian. It's sad that we've had to introduce these measures, but even so I don't see it making a material difference to our recruitment. Also it's not like people with 2.1s are barred from working for us, they just aren't eligible for the graduate programme for my department any more. Other departments may or may not have it, and they can always apply directly for jobs or other more direct approaches. One guy camped in our head office lobby for 8 days from 7am to 11pm each day until he was seen by one of the recruitment managers. I think they were impressed by his perseverance!
 

Kentpaul

When keepin it real goes wrong. Very, very wrong.
Pics or GTFO. That sounds awesome.

IMG_0432.jpg


that orange nann at the back is peshwari naan.

Always a must when i get a takeaway (god damn you weed i'm on a diet!)
 

defel

Member
My experience with many of the internship schemes and grad schemes Ive applied for, mainly financial firms in London and North Eastern USA, has been incredibly frustrating. I know that I possess many of the soft skills employers want and if I got to the interview stage I would stand a very good chance of being successful. Unfortunately to get to the interview stage the number of hoops applicants have to jump through simply weeds out many qualified candidates. Im sure there are plenty of geniuses from the LSE/UCL who manage to get through to interviews who turn out to be unemployable.
 

Meadows

Banned
My experience with many of the internship schemes and grad schemes Ive applied for, mainly financial firms in London and North Eastern USA, has been incredibly frustrating. I know that I possess many of the soft skills employers want and if I got to the interview stage I would stand a very good chance of being successful. Unfortunately to get to the interview stage the number of hoops applicants have to jump through simply weeds out many qualified candidates. Im sure there are plenty of geniuses from the LSE/UCL who manage to get through to interviews who turn out to be unemployable.

yeah I'm similar, I'm really good with people and make friends quickly, I'm sure I could get a job if I got an interview but that seems hard.
 

Lirlond

Member
I've been wanting to ask, but not wanting to get the Americans involved, what's your opinion on the Scouts? I see it get bashed a lot online only to find the majority are bashing the Boy Scouts of America, who seem to run in the opposite direction of every other major Scouting country. Just wondering if people in the UK feel the same way.

(All the ads are for healthier eating and bupa, lol)
 

CHEEZMO™

Obsidian fan
I've been wanting to ask, but not wanting to get the Americans involved, what's your opinion on the Scouts? I see it get bashed a lot online only to find the majority are bashing the Boy Scouts of America, who seem to run in the opposite direction of every other major Scouting country. Just wondering if people in the UK feel the same way.

About the BSA or our scouts?
 

Meadows

Banned
I was a scout. It was a good laugh and kept me and other lads off the streets and out of our parents hair every Thursday
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Anyone tried the British citizenship test on the Channel 4 website? It's part of the program that was on tonight about Bradford.

I failed.

I failed. :(

Though I'm pretty sure they got the answer to the drinking problem wrong. I remember looking it up and it said 14 is the age for alcohol with a meal and an adult. Unless of course wine is a magical exception to this law.

Always thought scratch card were for over 15s. Doesn't the sign have a cross though a 15? Guess that's just something I saw as a kid and never bothered to look further into.
 

Meadows

Banned
Sad news today about PC david rathband, can ever imagine the mindset people are in before they take their own life :(

he should have been instituted, he's seemed manically depressed for months and months and on his twitter he said "RIP David Rathband" a couple of days before he killed himself (the police visited but thought he was okay).

We need to treat suicidal people more carefully in the UK, Rathband should never have been allowed to be alone when he was clearly in such a vulnerable state.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
50%

Fuck you, that's a pass where I come from. Which (I guess I should be lucky) is the UK.
 

CHEEZMO™

Obsidian fan
54%

I guessed pretty much every single one apart from the NHS question, which I knew.

Edit: And the St. George's Day question.
 

GJS

Member
The data is great, there is barely any difference between ages, region or whether you were born in the UK or not, the majority are all in the 25-50% fail mark.
 

Cindres

Vied for a tag related to cocks, so here it is.
56% or 58%, Forgot what I got, did it last night.

Ah well, guess I'd better pack up then.
 

8bit

Knows the Score
54%, which is fine as I don't plan to ever go back. I think the questions are wrong though, why ask about the Huguenots when it would be more culturally relevant to ask who the blue guy in In The Night Garden is?
 

Suairyu

Banned
33%

But if this is the method actually used in citizenship tests then we're letting in a bunch of nobheads. Absolutely no practical questions in there at all, such as "how many pints must you have consumed before a donner kebab becomes tasty?"
 
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