Contextual recruitment tools look at the context in which students receive their grades. This helps recruiters spot candidates they might otherwise miss. It can highlight people from disadvantaged backgrounds who outperformed their peers and have the qualities to do well at the Bar.
Authorised Education and Training Organisation (AETOs)
Under the Bar Qualification Manual, all Authorised Education and Training Organisations are required to advertise any vacancies for pupillage on the Pupillage Gateway. They must also run their processes in accordance with a pre-determined mandatory recruitment timetable, which runs from November to May annually.
In addition to using the Pupillage Gateway to advertise, Authorised Education and Training Organisations can use the portal to manage the recruitment of pupil barristers and are encouraged, but are not obliged, to do so.
Authorised Education and Training Organisations can advertise for pupil barristers outside of the mandatory recruitment timetable, but must make an Application for a Waiver from the Pupillage Advertising and Recruitment Requirements to the Bar Standards Board.
The Pupillage Gateway is a simple Applicant Tracking System tailored by the Bar Council to meet the needs of Authorised Education and Training Organisations throughout the pupillage recruitment process. The system offers relevant chambers and other pupillage providers a modern and cost-effective way to manage their end-to-end respective recruitment processes, with numerous benefits and features designed to ease the associated administrative burden. These include:
- Opportunities for Authorised Education and Training Organisations to upload documents and video content to the platform, improving both the quality of their advertisements and of the information that they provide to prospective applicants.
- Ability for Authorised Education and Training Organisations to create up to seven bespoke applicant questions and set their own character limits.
- Option for Authorised Education and Training Organisations to anonymise their application forms - removing all personal information, and the names and locations of any academic institutions attended.
- Access to a clear overview of every stage of the recruitment process, including the ability to download candidates’ details in bulk, and review their unique application history.
- Ability for Authorised Education and Training Organisations to send as PDFs their preferred version of the applications forms.
- Access to editable, prepopulated, email templates created by the Bar Council and specifically designed to support the recruitment processes of Authorised Education and Training Organisations.
- Ability for Authorised Education and Training Organisations to schedule interviews through the Pupillage Gateway and invite candidates to attend them at specific times or select their own from the range made available to them by the Recruitment Administrator.
- Capability to view a variety of live anonymised and aggregated reports, including relating to equal opportunities monitoring data, through the new Insights platform add-on.
- Fully compliant with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act, and further information is contained in the Terms and Conditions of the system.
To arrange a free virtual demonstration of the Pupillage Gateway or ask questions about how the platform works, please email the Bar Council Services Team at [email protected].
Authorised Education and Training Organisations that plan to use the site for the purposes of advertisement only should return a completed Vacancy Information Form (Word, 153KB) to [email protected].
If the relevant Authorised Education and Training Organisation is advertising for pupil barristers outside of the mandatory recruitment timetable, then it should also include with its email a copy of a Bar Standards Board approved Application for a Waiver from the Pupillage Advertising and Recruitment Requirements.
Authorised Education and Training Organisations that would like to use the Pupillage Gateway to manage their recruitment process can email the Bar Council Services Team at [email protected] to request the creation of one or more user accounts.
The cost of using the Pupillage Gateway is £1100 plus VAT per annum, with a variety of discounts available to Annual Chambers Management Package subscribers. Where an Authorised Education and Training Organisation wishes to run multiple recruitment processes through the Pupillage Gateway in any given year, an administrative fee of £100 plus VAT per additional vacancy will be applied.
Contextual recruitment tools look at the context in which students receive their grades. This helps recruiters spot candidates they might otherwise miss. It can highlight people from disadvantaged backgrounds who outperformed their peers and have the qualities to do well at the Bar.
If you choose to use the contextual recruitment data in the Pupillage Gateway it will give you consistency, objectivity and some valuable data points that you can use to introduce contextual recruitment into your process.
Contextual recruitment data helps to take away some of the subjectivity that may be taking place within current recruitment process. It can support you to make decisions by providing well researched data points for you to consider by understanding some of the background factors to an application.
When looking at your applications in the Pupillage Gateway you will have the opportunity to access a candidate’s contextual recruitment data. You can decide how you would like to use this data as part of your recruitment process. From speaking with chambers and organisations who already use contextual recruitment in their process, we feel this data can have most impact in the shortlisting stage when deciding on your borderline and ‘maybe’ candidates.
We will be producing guidance in the new year around how to use contextual recruitment in your recruitment process, and will be updating our fair recruitment guide and fair recruitment training.
The cost to advertise and manage your pupillage recruitment through the Gateway, which includes access to contextual recruitment, is £1,100 (+VAT) per year.
Find out more about contextual recruitment
Technical questions for AETOs
To help you navigate the system, download the AETO User Guide.
If the User Guide doesn't answer your questions, raise your issue with the Bar Council Services Team at [email protected] or on 020 7611 1321.
Other documents available to users include a Applicant User Guide (PDF, 3.6MB) and a Sample Application Form (Word, 166KB).