Equality, diversity and inclusion: how does it affect career opportunities?

We aim to include material on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout our webpages. It’s a work in progress that will probably never be finished, and we acknowledge that it is not where we would like it to be yet! In the short term we are using this space to gather resources that might be useful to students who are traditionally underrepresented at university, in graduate employment generally or in a particular industry.

EDI is an issue being given increasing attention by graduate employers and there are a lot of charities, organisations and employer-led initiatives focusing on this.

Many employers are keen to increase diversity in the workforce for a variety of reasons:

  • Wanting to better represent their clients, customers, service-users or stakeholders
  • Improve decision-making and harness the creativity and innovation that comes from having a team of people with a variety of experiences and perspectives
  • Because many groups of people have suffered in accessing work or in the work environment because of their identity and it's important to fight prejudice in all spheres of life

There is growing recognition that EDI initiatives and resources exist to help address historic inequality and help employers to become more inclusive and diverse. They are not there to imply students from certain demographics need help to become the ‘type of person’ employers want or to suggest some sort of deficit or failure.

Black students will find other relevant resources at Black Advisory Hub including sector specific information.

Mature students will find some interesting insights through our Mature Students’ Careers Q&A Video series

Please look at our newsletters

ACAS has a webinar on Understanding your employability rights

 

If you have a disability or long-term health condition, we have put together some information and specialist advice which may help you to understand your rights and get support to reach your career goals.

More information

Students are often keen to know whether employers’ commitment is genuine or a ‘tick box’ exercise.  One way to do this is to ask employers and their current & former employees. Employers tell us that they take a positive view of people pro-actively getting in touch and raising questions and concerns they may not have thought of can be helpful in them attracting future talent. If an organisation seems to react negatively to this conversation, this could be a sign that it might not be a good fit for you.

You might also want to follow/connect with people who are actively interested in EDI on social media.

You can also check employer websites and social media feeds to find out whether they engage in community events and campaigns or support and promote staff networks for underrepresented groups.

Our Mature Students Careers Q&A video series offers employer insights and advice for any students, including opinions on the advantages of hiring mature students

For disability-friendly employers, please see our disability support pages

The list isn’t exhaustive, but we hope it’s a starting point

Employers may choose to advertise vacancies with diversity-focused websites such as Vercida or Diversity Link or they may be members of diversity focused professional networks such as inclusive companies or Employers network for equality and inclusion (ENEI)

For HE;

  • Advance HE's Race Equality Charter helps institutions in their work to identify and address the barriers facing Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students
  • The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research.

Some job adverts might say they ‘particularly welcome’ applicants from certain communities that they have traditionally found difficult to attract.

Campaign groups also rank employers on diversity indicators.

It’s worth bearing in mind that lists such as these tend to prioritise large organisations with the resources to engage with them. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and organisations not featured on the lists may still be welcoming and inclusive. 

Find out more about researching employers who share your values.

To hear about some former and current Cambridge students’ stories, go to our blog and apply the ‘Graduate/Alumni’ stories filter. We are continuing to build this resource, including stories from diverse and underrepresented groups (and if you have a story of your own to share- we would love to hear it!).

The 'Black Career Journeys' playlist on our YouTube channel includes discussion about bringing your full self to work.

Target jobs have recordings of their Student Pride event where they talked to LGBTQ+ employees about their workplace experiences.  

Many industries have mentoring schemes, networks or communities that enable employees from underrepresented or marginalised groups to connect and support one another. Please look at our career sector a-z for schemes that are specific to one industry. We have collected some here that work across a range of industry sectors.

Comms:

Creative industries:

Engineering:

Entrepreneurship:

Government & policy:

Law:

PR

Third Sector:

Tech:

We try to keep this list up to date, but schemes vary from year to year. If you are aware of any omissions, please let us know.