45% of A Level grades A & A*

[ForssAwakens]

I know the reason, and it's a very fair reason in most instances, but not in all.

The sector of the industry I work in is extremely labour intensive, people 60-year-old don't tend to stick around digging holes and lugging around large heavy items by hand, or have the fitness to do it, despite what most of them think. They might hack it for a week after a month of training (which costs money and time), then quit, then what? Start again?
Some jobs you just need young, strong, fit, people which are "starter" jobs, not so much finisher jobs. It's like football, a 50-year-old can't run the wing like some 20 year old, yet some on here probably would claim they could, but you don't need to see them in action to get a good gauge on how they would do, and what their ceiling would be, and where it might be in 5-10 years.

When there's a 100 CV's you have to shorten the list somehow, and you can't interview/ meet or fitness test them all, so you have to be generalistic. Everyone does it, just most don't realise they do. If we signed a 50 year old, literally everyone here would go wild.

Yes, I get the knowledge decay, as in they might not know trigonometry, or simultaneous equations etc, but if they're in a construction role, they will likely still be able to work out an area and volume, or calculate a time estimate. They will certainly still be capable of getting a grasp of it, quite quickly.

I would do the last line, but not sure if that's one of the options on indeed though? I've not used it much to be honest.
The thing is, it's a relatively low-level construction role, for small company, not pilot selection for the RAF. By having the test listed, most worth their salt would probably think "I've not got time for this" and basically wouldn't do it. It's a poor attitude, but when people are looking for work they could end up looking at a hundred possible jobs.
I do like the idea of this though, and I suppose it could be done when someone registers for a job site, so they don't have to do it a hundred times.

Pardon my ignorance but there’s a lot assumptions being made there and a lot of stereotyping going on, from looking a pieces of paper. You’ve pretty much admitted that you age discriminate

I guess if you sieving through a 100 cv’s if people turn around a day I’ve not got time for this you’ll have less cv’s applications to look through

 

[BoroMart]

Is this down to better teaching, more people wanting to do the course or grade inflation over the last 20 years?

...or Tories trying to reduce the number of people that can get to University. We've already heard ministers saying the truck driver crisis is because no one wants to be a truck driver, they all want to go to uni and have a career instead.

 

[BoroMart]

Exams grades doesn’t tell you diddly squat about how capable someone will be at a job

true, but they're not designed to do that. Depending where teh exam questions sit on the blooms taxonomy they are meant to show:

- That you can memorise and recall facts (Level 1)
- Prove an understanding of facts that you have learned, I.e. the word or phrase you memorised has some meaning (Level 2)
- Apply an idea or fact (Fact x is true because of y) (Level 3)
- Analysis of an idea breaking it down into components (Level 4)
- Judge the value of some idea or concept (Level 5)
- combine ideas to make a new idea (Level 6)

These are all key intellectual skills, so I guess regardless of subject, once you've done the foundational memorising, it shows you have analytical skills which you can apply to a subject. That has value in intellectual jobs, or semi intellectual jobs where problem solving, analysis, testing of ideas, communication of those ideas etc. are all foundations to being a good employee.

Of course it doesn't test your ethics, culture, behaviour etc. I've worked with some very smart destructive sociopaths in teh past, who are like a cancer eating away at a company so are really bad at their jobs.

 

[Borobarmy]

I’ve just had a look at my university course online, you now need A*AA to get in yet when I went just over 20 years ago it was BBC and there was some who were on it with CCC.

Is this down to better teaching, more people wanting to do the course or grade inflation over the last 20 years?

When I got my results which were ABBA the uni I applied for still Wouldn’t take a chance on me

 

[newusername]

If you are in the top 3% you are in the top 3% regardless of when you took your exams. This prevents tampering with the difficulty level of exams to create the impression that the DfE has done its job.

You can do an A-Level in Afrikaans, if you did there is a good possibility to be in the top 3% & bottom 3% simultaneously regardless of the marks you receive..

 

[Andy_W]

Pardon my ignorance but there’s a lot assumptions being made there and a lot of stereotyping going on, from looking a pieces of paper. You’ve pretty much admitted that you age discriminate

I guess if you sieving through a 100 cv’s if people turn around a day I’ve not got time for this you’ll have less cv’s applications to look through

Of course, there are assumptions, you have to make assumptions to get the 100 cv's down to 10, and then out of that 10 you might only interview 5? You might not even have time to interview any, that's just how it is sometimes?

But it's a fact, the average 50-year-old in construction is not going to be as fit (labour capable) as the average 20-year-old in construction, and in 10 years time almost certainly won't (which is how long we retain employees on average). Everyone makes assumptions, you have to, some times it's discriminatory, sometimes it's just an unfortunate truth. It's like how the army only recruits from 18-33 for most of the roles etc.

I'm a decade from 50, yet ache for two days after a game of five a side, and I'm fitter than most I know? I couldn't do what our young 20 year old lads do, 50 hours a week, it was bad enough 10 years ago when I was more on the tools. I'm not being discriminate about myself, it's just a fact, just like how no footballers are recruited at 35 year old.

The problem is, it's likely the guy who knows he can get work elsewhere, quite soon, who likely wouldn't do the tests, as they probably don't need to. Those types you kind of need to assess them without them knowing they are being assessed and a lot of the time a reference is unobtainable or would just be meaningless. It's a weird trade, and this circumstance does not apply to 90% of other trades/ jobs, so I can understand the questioning.

 

[Andy_W]

When I got my results which were ABBA the uni I applied for still Wouldn’t take a chance on me

It's a shame that, you could have been a Super Trooper, but maybe they just thought you were in it for the Money, Mondey, Money and were a bit of a Dancing Queen?

 

[etmfc]

When I got my results which were ABBA the uni I applied for still Wouldn’t take a chance on me

You got ABBA Mamma Mia.