57 clients and counting: Rare’s CRS drives the recruitment revolution

Close to 60 top businesses are now using our Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) to find the best talent. Since launching our CRS with founding partner Clifford Chance on 1 October 2015, Rare has gone on to sign up 40 of the UK’s top law firms. We now work with clients on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as several in Australia, improving recruitment outcomes across law, management consultancy, banking, property services, marketing and the public sector. Rare’s CRS roster grew by 11 over the summer, including firms such as United Utilities, British Land and Cooley.

When a client signs up with Rare, it’s a declaration that at their highest level, the company understands that committing to a diverse hiring policy will not in itself ensure the identification of the best candidates. Our clients know that the only consistent, sustainable way to identify the top talent for their business is to assess every applicant on their own merit. The most efficient way to achieve that is to use Rare’s CRS, which grounds each candidate’s qualifications in the context of any indices of deprivation or disadvantage in their background.

DWF became a CRS client in August 2017. James Szerdy, Graduate Recruitment Partner, said: "At DWF, we believe a diverse future talent pipeline is key to our success. We are excited to be partnering with Rare as we continue to identify talented individuals with great ability to join our emerging talent programmes."

Qualified candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to believe that they will be successful in their application to a top firm, and are already underrepresented even before applications are sifted. These exemplary candidates, despite being 19% less likely to apply at all, are 50% more likely to get hired when a company uses Rare’s CRS.

Osborne Clarke’s team began their CRS training last year. Catherine Wolfenden, Training Principal at the international legal practice, explained: "Osborne Clarke is striving to be an even more diverse and inclusive employer. We are excited and proud to be using the Rare Contextual Recruitment System for the first time as part of our trainee recruitment process. Working with Rare will support our goal to recruit the best candidates from all backgrounds. Contextualised recruitment is a breakthrough that will help us reach excellent people that haven't been progressing through the traditional process."

Raph Mokades, founder and MD of Rare, commented: “The business case for diversity has been made numerous times and its merits are undisputed. Employers frequently comment that Rare’s candidates are more robust than those sourced from conventional backgrounds – they can be better at handling the challenges of demanding jobs, and less likely to drop out. Candidates once seen as ‘unconventional’ often make the best hires, particularly for law firms which make large upfront investments in their trainees”..”

Rare’s CRS has processed well over 100,000 applications in the two years since its launch, and is signing up more businesses every week.

For more information on the importance of contextual recruitment, visit our 2016 Social Mobility in Graduate Recruitment report.