To help your vacancy stand out and attract the best candidates, we’ve put together a few top tips to support your recruitment process.
Sarah Furness, partner in the specialist employment law team at AIM Associate Supplier Hay & Kilner also shares advice for improving your recruitment and retention.
The job advert
Overview – the advert you supply for the AIM website should include an overview of the role as well as a brief introduction to your organisation and the skills and experience you’re looking for.
Salary –include the salary, or salary range in the job advert. This is helpful for candidates but also best practice in terms of diversity and equality. Consider including the FTE and actual salary for part-time roles to make this clear. And check that the salary meets the National Living Wage.
Please note, vacancies will not be advertised on the AIM website without a salary.
Contract type and length – make this clear in the advert, especially for fixed term roles.
Job requirements – depending on the role, consider removing qualification requirements, or highlight alternatives to qualifications particularly where considerable skills and knowledge are also required. This will help widen the pool of potential candidates.
Job description – please share the link to the full job description, and person specification if applicable, so potential candidates can easily see the purpose and key tasks of the job.
Equality statement – you might want to include in the advert or job description a statement that you encourage disabled people or people from a certain gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or religion/belief to apply. This can help reduce discrimination against people with protected characteristics.
Sarah’s advice:
- Consider how attractive your recruitment process is to applicants. Is the application process user friendly, is the job role and the pay and benefits it attracts clear, are you presenting your organisation in a professional manner during the process by being responsive, approachable and professional? First impressions make lasting impressions!
- Think about ways to attract candidates to you. Of course, pay and benefits are important, but are you clearly advertising your business’s approach to training, career development and progression? Your approach to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and agile ways of working are also important now to many job seekers.
- Most job adverts / descriptions ask for very specific qualifications, experience and personal qualities, which some able candidates might find too prescriptive. Make sure to distinguish between what’s essential and what’s desirable. If you regularly demand full-time working in your job adverts, have a think about whether full-time working in particular is essential or desirable. Many care givers prefer to work shorter days or four days per week and often this can be accommodated with a shift in mindset. Demanding full-time working can also lead to a risk of sex discrimination claims being pursued as employment tribunals readily accept more women than men provide caring responsibilities in their personal lives.
Application process
Application method – let candidates know how they should apply, and consider accepting applications in a variety of formats e.g. video. This is important for accessibility and ongoing inclusion.
Closing date – we’d recommend you fix a reasonable closing date giving candidates enough time to apply. And build the potential need to shortlist lots of applicants into your timescales rather than closing a vacancy when a high volume of applications is received. If you need to extend the closing date, we’d recommend explaining this to any existing applicants.
Sarah’s advice:
- Make sure you fully understand and act on your recruitment and equal opportunities policies and shape your recruitment process within their boundaries. Job applicants can pursue discrimination claims if they are unsuccessful. Particular attention should be paid to the need to make reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates with questions about a candidate’s health or attendance record usually being prohibited. All employees involved in the recruitment process should have undergone equal opportunities training and getting a legal opinion on any issues about which they’re not sure makes great sense.
- Having an equitable and rigid assessment process, where candidates are asked the same questions which are testing and relevant to the job, is essential, while involving two or more people in the assessment process will help ensure objectives decisions are reached at its end. Consider giving the questions to candidates in advance as this is often beneficial for candidates who are neurodiverse or whose mental health may mean they find interviews problematic. Asking people to think on the spot is rarely a good test of their true abilities.
Interviewing
- Tell candidates beforehand who will be on the panel and the format of the interview
- Consider the interview format in relation to the responsibility of the role
- Consider sharing the questions with candidates beforehand; this can help you get the right person for the job as candidates can give better answers.
Sarah’s advice:
- However impressive a candidate is, and however keen you are for them to start work, make sure that you follow up on their references to confirm they are everything they say they are. Job offers should be conditional until references are verified along with other mandatory checks such as right to work checks and often, DBS checks. If job offers aren’t conditional and you withdraw a job offer, you will probably have to pay the notice period referred to in the offer letter.
- Failing to provide feedback to unsuccessful candidates can increase the likelihood of claims that they didn’t get the job on discriminatory grounds. Keep notes of the shortlisting process, interviews and discussions afterwards, along with application forms, adverts and job descriptions, just in case they’re required as evidence in any discrimination claim. However, make sure they are destroyed at some stage to ensure you meet your data protection obligations.
The probationary period
Sarah’s advice:
When a new employee does start, make sure they are provided with a full induction and training, and that expectations for their performance are set, agreed, and reviewed. Detailed job descriptions can assist here. If expectations aren’t being met, use the employee’s probationary period to conduct regular reviews and clearly outline the improvements that need to be made and by when and provide full support. Failing an employee’s probationary period should be the last resort so invest the time during the probationary period to make sure the time and money you spent investing in the recruitment process is not wasted!
Get more support
As an AIM member, you are entitled to 30 minutes of free advice from a member of Hay & Kilner’s employment team so if you do have any queries, please head to our dedicated members page.
AIM members can also get a free 15-minute introductory consultation with The HR Dept if you want more advice on employment law and recruitment practices.
HR Support for AIM members (opens in a new tab)