The dire consequences of Britain’s student-loan racket are no longer a secret. They have become a major talking point in recent weeks. Contrary to the claims of UK chancellor Rachel Reeves, the system is anything but ‘fair and reasonable’. Equally unfair is the graduate-jobs crisis. Youth unemployment in London has now reached 18 per cent, while in the UK as a whole, it hit an 11-year high at the end of 2025. To complete the trifecta, there is the less tangible (but equally pressing) matter of how graduates are treated while navigating the job market.
Ironically, those tasked with graduate employment (typically human-resources departments) preach inclusivity, respectful workplace behaviour and ‘people-centricity’. To examine whether these values are put into practice, I’ll walk you through a typical graduate recruitment process – though calling it a ‘process’, which implies some kind of structure and eventual conclusion, is generous.
First, you’ll submit your application. On many job descriptions, you see the ominous phrase ‘minority groups encouraged to apply’, which seems to be a heavy hint that if you’re white, straight and male you probably shouldn’t bother. You are asked to trawl through various questions about your ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. I’ve known people to lie about their sexuality, and even their ethnicity, with one friend from the Mediterranean claiming to be mixed race.
If they pass this racial screening, graduates are invited to submit CVs and cover letters, which are frequently written by AI. This is hardly a moral failing, given that they are then read by AI and ultimately rejected by AI. So-called human resources have engineered a system that is, in practice, the least-human process imaginable.
The lucky few are then instructed to complete ‘assessments’. Since companies tend to use the same assessment providers, the good news is that you have likely completed them before. Maths graduates from top universities must do maths assessments. Everyone is made to complete personality tests. Occasionally, you play games involving stopping stopwatches at designated times. The value of your academic record, even for those with strong academic records, is zero.
A tiny percentage will then reach the ‘interview’ stage. But no, this is not an interview in the traditional sense. Instead, you answer five questions to your laptop camera while eyeing up the recording of yourself, which are then submitted to be ‘reviewed’ (usually by AI again). If you do speak to a human, it will rarely be in person, but online.
Now you are firmly ‘in the process’. You have submitted a CV, a cover letter, your family and sexual history, a nervy, stuttering video of yourself and, perhaps three months in, you might even have spoken to a real person. But you’re not quite finished yet. Months later still, you might hear you have reached another stage. Though more likely, you will never hear from the company again – or else receive a letter informing you of your rejection, with little explanation as to why. I still receive the occasional rejection email, despite having not submitted a job application since September.
One friend woke up on the day of his final-round interview to be told that the position no longer existed. The same friend reached an assessment centre, only to find every interview slot booked up. He was informed that no more would be added. Another graduate told me he reached the final interview stage only to be ghosted. Two months later, he received an email explaining that the role had been removed. Such stories are common. Most out-of-work graduates have many.
Senior management has handed too much power to HR departments, which have created processes that are automated, outsourced and designed to minimise difficult decision-making. HR is the fastest-growing industry in the UK, and much of that growth resides in what David Graeber called ‘bullshit jobs’. If HR ‘executives’ create months-long processes with eight different stages, they can justify hiring more HR ‘executives’ to help run them. Their inefficiency is self-rewarding.
This experience, compounded by a regressive student-loan system and a failing graduate-job market, will have tangible consequences for politics. If the Labour government refuses to address these concerns, young people will only continue to abandon traditional parties for those that promise real, radical change. No one should be surprised when the reckoning comes.
Jake Weston works on comms and press at the Academy of Ideas. This is an edited version of a piece that appeared on the Academy of Ideas Substack.
