...Fairness and Consistency, of course - ensuring that all the way through any recruitment process, your selection decisions are based on merit alone because as a recruiter you are responsible for applying fair & consistent decisions to all applicants from start to end.
As a recruiter you need to consider your:
Legal responsibility – the law covers and protects the full recruitment process from job description, job advert, job application form, interview questions, assessment venue, selection methods and so on. Employment Equality Act 2010, Race Relations 1965 , Rehabilitation of Offenders 1974 , Police Act 1964, Asylum & Immigration 1996, National Minimum Wage 1998, Data Protection Act 1998 to name but a few Acts which recruiters and employers need to be fully considerate of during the full recruitment cycle.
Non-discriminatory actions - job applicants have protection against discrimination on the grounds of sex, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, their married or civil partner status, race, including colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins, religion, religious belief, sexual orientation, age and disability.
Equality of opportunity - to avoid prejudice or bias it is best practice for more than 1 person to carry out recruitment sifting/decisions.
Reasonable adjustments – braille application forms, wheel chair accessible interview rooms, dimmed lighting for those with epilepsy, additional time for selection tests for those with dyslexia are all examples of reasonable adjustment requests during the recruitment process. The Equality Act 2010 not only makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled individuals without justifiable reason but also require employers to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process and to the workplace or working arrangements, see here.
Audit trail – the paperwork evidence is essential to be able to demonstrate that you have carried out the same process for all candidates and have applied scoring criteria to help you make your objective choices throughout. If you are challenged at any point or simply asked for feedback at the end, then you will be able to produce objective and concise responses which show how you have selected on merit alone.
Your HR Department will be able to offer you with practical experience and training to ensure you stay within the legal boundaries when carrying out your recruitment. You may on occasion need to seek specialist legal advice from a legal professional, but you can also find initial guidance from the acas website.
Article by Hayley Ramm of Supportiv Recruitment Support Services.
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