Dusseldorf If you are in the conference room, Dr. Sitting opposite Sebastian Ullrich from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and explaining how you can lead a business model to success, you will hardly ask what his parents do for a living. Probably academics, after all Ullrich has a doctorate and now works for the second largest strategy consultant in the world.
But Ullrich’s parents did not study – his mother is a trained seamstress and now works in the public sector. There are many names for what Ullrich is. Working class child, some say. First-time academics, that sounds more distinguished – and an English term has also made it into the series: “First-Generation-Professional”, FGP for short.
They are people who have to fight much harder for social advancement than children from academic households. A recent BCG study examined the career paths of these first-time graduates. The study is available to the Handelsblatt in advance. We tell why and how companies should use the potential of first-time graduates.
Annahita Esmailzadeh is similar to Sebastian Ullrich. She is a manager at Microsoft, works in Munich and speaks as an expert on the topics of diversity and inclusion, including on LinkedIn, where she has more than 140,000 followers. Neither of Esmailzadeh’s parents have studied.
She remembers an event from the time she was a consultant. “I was having dinner with some colleagues and at some point the topic came up about the jobs of the parents – or the fathers. The professions of the mothers seemed to play a rather subordinate role in the group. Mutual competition ensued: principal, chief physician, judge, top manager. At some point everyone looked at me questioningly. ‘My father is a taxi driver,’ I said and smiled. An embarrassed silence followed, and my colleagues exchanged embarrassed looks.” Before she could add that she was proud of her parents, the group changed the subject, she says.
“I wasn’t even invited to interviews”
It is these prejudices that make it difficult for many children from non-academic households to get started. This is also confirmed by the BCG study on the opportunities for first-time graduates. 1125 professionals from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were interviewed for the study – including about their career start. Compared to students from academic households, children from working-class households often lack access to networks. Only a third of the workers’ children stated that they had important contacts when they started their careers. This proportion was almost twice as high among their colleagues from academic households (61 percent).
Natalya Nepomnyashcha confirms this from her own experience. Her parents are also non-academics. After completing two training courses in Great Britain, she completed a master’s degree in international relations – without a high school diploma – and is now a management consultant at EY. Most recently, she was recognized as a top speaker at LinkedIn.
“Particularly in the area of politics, where it’s almost all about the network, I was hardly ever invited to talks at first because my internships weren’t relevant and I didn’t know anyone,” she says. “I wanted to go into foreign policy. Many of my competitors had studied law; many of the parents were diplomats themselves and had a corresponding network.”
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Other reasons why first-time graduates have a hard time getting started: According to the BCG study, they lack access to career-related information, are less sociable at work and have not been able to complete as many internships – partly because they had to keep their heads above water financially with student jobs instead .
And: Many have the feeling that they cannot communicate as equals. This is also shown by the experience of Microsoft manager Esmailzadeh: “People with my social background are more of an exception in the privileged world in which I am now allowed to move. That shows in the little things like small talk about golf or the exchange of dusty tennis skills from childhood or my parents’ holiday home on the Cote d’Azur, in which I can’t have a say.”
Working class children are more loyal workers
What Esmailzadeh, Nepomnyashcha and Ullrich have in common is that, unlike other minority groups, you don’t see their social background by looking at them. However, identifying them is worthwhile for the economy. “There is a lot in it for companies if they support first-time graduates: greater commitment and more loyalty,” says Ullrich.
The study confirms this: First-time graduates are 32 percent more loyal to the company than the surveyed colleagues from academic households. A point that has two sides for Nepomnyashcha: “On the one hand, there is a certain gratitude that you have a job, but that always goes hand in hand with the fear of being without a job – even if this fear may be irrational.” That is one of the reasons why first-time graduates set up companies much less frequently.
According to the BCG study, it is more important for first-time academics than colleagues from academic households to experience enthusiasm for their own work, self-determination and a sense of purpose at work. The fact that her social ascent was more difficult revealed special abilities: “My social background also goes hand in hand with numerous strengths such as my immense resilience, my discipline and my ability to always pull myself back together after setbacks,” says Esmailzadeh. She is therefore grateful for her social background and for the values and strength that her parents gave her.
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What can companies do to promote first-time graduates in a targeted manner? The study provides information and recommends five areas: raising awareness, adjusting barriers to entry, expanding support, showing courage and taking initiative. For example, HR departments can ask twice and give applicants a chance to explain themselves before rejecting a non-linear resume. Job interviews can also be conducted by first-time graduates from your own company.
The 32-year-old, who was born in Kiev, sees herself as a pioneer for equal opportunities and social diversity in Germany.
(Photo: Daniel Hardge)
The study recommends companies to make the promotion of first-time graduates a C-level topic in order to show the commitment and priority of the topic. And: companies should communicate that social background is an important criterion for the diversity of a company – for example in relation to budgets and internal communication.
25 percent of all employees at BCG in German-speaking countries – from young professionals to senior level – are first-time academics. Many of them founded an internal first-generation network in 2020. A first step that Ullrich can only recommend to every company. How did the first academics find each other? “Quite simply: we conducted a survey in which a surprisingly large number revealed their social background very openly.”
In networks like these, first-time graduates can help each other. It starts with simple questions from everyday life: Which fork do I use first for a starter when talking to customers in a classy restaurant? How do I behave appropriately with supervisors? How do I find out the correct dress code? “You can’t know all of this if you didn’t go through it yourself as a child or young person,” says Ullrich.
Job advertisements discourage first-time graduates
In 2016, Natalya Nepomnyashcha set up the “Netzwerk Chances”, an initiative that ideally promotes social climbers. Almost 2,000 people between the ages of 18 and 39 are now taking part in the programme. The initiative offers workshops on career planning, starting a career or leadership skills, as well as individual coaching and a job portal.
Companies advise Nepomnyashcha to carefully review their own job postings. “The more often there is talk of ‘very good’ grades or ‘above-average degrees’ or ‘voluntary work’, the greater the danger that first-time graduates will be deterred,” she says. She also recommends not just advertising positions at universities, but also at universities of applied sciences.
Even after eight years in the position, Sebastian Ullrich, the trained bricklayer and BCG consultant with a doctorate, is not immune to feeling smaller compared to colleagues from academic households. A feeling closely related to impostor syndrome. Anyone who has this mistakenly feels like a professional impostor and believes that they do not deserve professional success at all.
Admittedly, the starting disadvantage decreases over the course of a career. But he will never really go away. “It helps to see in the study that other first-time graduates feel the same way,” says Ullrich. This is another reason why he is open about his background – and shares his experiences as a mentor both inside and outside his company in order to give younger people orientation.
More: From a working-class child to an entrepreneur – Tijen Onaran explains why we need to pay more attention to our social origins.