Recruitment
Recruiting new staff members is not as straightforward as it sometimes seems. There are many things you need to consider to ensure you employ the best person to do the job, and to be sure you do this legally.
The first thing to consider when appointing someone is how long it actually takes. The process involves several stages, all of which can be time consuming.
From the moment you realise you need to recruit a new member of staff there are a series of steps you will have to take:
1. Forms: Job Description, Person Specification, Application Form, Monitoring Form
Even if this recruitment is replacing an existing person, you should review the job description and person specification to ensure it is appropriate and up to date.
2. Pay: Job Evaluation, Market, Equal Pay
How much are you prepared to pay the new post holder? You will need to check the ‘going rate’ for jobs (with similar organisations to yourself), and you should consider having the post properly evaluated.
3. Advertising: Press, Internet, word of mouth
There are many different ways of advertising - through the press, via websites, through internet mailing lists. You will need to advertise for long enough for enough people to see the advertisement. It is a good idea to also advertise as widely as you can to attract as wide a group of suitable applicants as possible and to consider using words and images which reflect a diverse community.
4. Panel: Appropriate, Expert
You should be sure that the panel you put together to recruit has appropriate interviewing skills and/or experience, and includes at least one person who has a good understanding of the job. It may be you need to get outside help with this, and fixing a panel’s timetable can be tricky.
5. Short listing: Scoring systems
Before interviewing you will need to get the panel together to look at the applications received to make a shortlist, using a consistent scoring system. You...