Selecting
Video: Selecting Talent
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Once you have attracted graduates to your vacancy, you need to decide how you are going to select them, although remember they are also selecting you!
This section includes information about:
Assessing the skill and attributes of your candidates is not always easy. There are two simple rules that can make this process that bit more reliable:
- If an ability or quality is particularly important, try to find a way of 'measuring' it more than once
- Try and involve someone else in the decision process to keep it objective
Pre- selection
- Compare the information on the application form or CV with the job specification and choose only those who meet the essential and many of the desirable criteria as your short-listed candidates. A simple matrix may help.
- It might be useful to draw up a table to show how you plan to assess each of the attributes on the job and/or person specification. You can download a template for this below:
Sample Selection Criteria - Shortlisting
- Many suggest that you restrict the number of candidates for the selection process to six, keeping other suitable candidates aside until you are happy with your final selection.
- Contact unsuccesful candidates to let them know your decision. Some candidates like to know why they were not short-listed. You can choose whether to offer feedback.
Selection methods
There are many ways of selecting people to join your organisation. The job interview is the most common but it is not always the most useful.
An interview is often spoken of as a 'conversation with a purpose'.
The selection interview is aimed at employing the most suitable candidate whilst ensuring that they have a realistic view of what to expect as your employee. It is therefore unlikely that a telephone interview is appropriate for a graduate level job.
The success of interviews lies in the planning. The least valuable interviews are those that just go through the application form to see ’what comes up’. Think about what you are going to assess at the interview and how you are going to assess it.
- Provide relevant job and company information before the internview to save time and to give all the candidates the same information
- Expect the conversation to be split 30:70 in the candidates favour
- Include at least two interviewers, one of whom should be the succesful candidate's line manager (but more than four can make it difficult to manage)
- Start with introductions and explain what is going to happen - and stick to it!
- Cover the job and person specification requirements, focussing on the most important
Competency or behavioural based interviews
These can be used to separate out the good candidates from those who are simply trying to bluff their way into a job without the right skills and experience.
The thinking behind these interviews is that past behaviour is a good predictor of future job performance. Asking candidates how they have tackled real problems will give you an indication of how they would approach future problems if you were to offer them a job.
- Use a mix of open and closed questions
- Probing further is a good way of gathering information
- Open questions allow the candidate to explain themselves. For example "why would you like to work with us?". If you want clarification, you could ask how or why they did something.
- Closed questions usually check facts. For example "you have a marketing degree - did you study any other topics within your course?"
- Hypothetical questions should be used later in the interview and can help you assess how a candidate would respond to a common situation. For example "what would you do if an irate customer phones and wants to speak to a senior manager but you are the only person available?"
The download below contains more information about interviews, including sample questions.
Interviews and Assessment Methods
Questions to avoid:
- Leading questions. For example "I think it is important to be available to customers 24/7 don't you?". The candidate is unlikely to disagree. Ask instead how they can work flexibly to provide a good service for customers.
- Where do you see yourself in five years time? This is often asked to assess ambition but candidates cannot possibly know the answer. Ask instead what knowledge, skills and experience they would like to obtain in the near future.
- Any questions that could be interpreted as discriminatory - take particular care not to stray into personal territory once the formal interview has closed.
There are many benefits to businesses that consider equal opportunities and diversity.
As a business, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that you do not discriminate on the grounds of race, sex (which inlcudes marital status, same sex civil partnerships and gender reassignment), sexual orientation, disability, religion, belief or age. This has implications for how you attract, select and develop employees.
Examples of discrimination in these areas may include:
- Requiring that job applicants are a particular age or of a particular national origin
- Requiring that job applicants are over 6 feet tall - this would indirectly discriminate against women
- Failing to make reasonable adjustments in providing speech recognition software so that someone with motor difficulties can use your IT system
- Asking a candidate about whether they or married or whether they plan to start a family
- Discouraging an employee who has complained about discrimination from applying for training or promotion
This is not an exhaustive list and further guidance can be obtained from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
A useful and increasingly popular option is to include work sampling as part of your selection process.
Work sampling can take many forms. It will be most useful if you can make it as close as possible to the work the succesful candidate will be doing. Can you give the candidate a real task?
You might even ask new graduate candidates to work for you for a day and involve quite complex tasks and interacting with other departments (but not with ‘customers’).
This does require some planning – self contained tasks and forewarning the contacts – but has several benefits:
- Seeing how the candidate really performs
- Seeing how quickly they learn
- Letting the candidate see something of the job which helps to get a good match
- Even getting some work done!
This may be difficult for you in your situation, but think through what might be practical for you.
Other selection methods
Other methods of selection are available. One of the most comprehensive and expensive is using an assessment centre. However, you need to ensure that the candidates understand/ experience the job and its circumstances to help them decide whether to join you.
Psychometric tests are popular but controversial and need a qualified practitioner.
Offering feedback
Constructive feedback enables unsuccesful candidates to understand why they were not successful and may give them ideas for improving their interview techniques. Feedback may seem like a chore but it is helpful to the candidate and leaves a positive impression of your business.
A useful approach is the 'sandwich' structure where you start with the positives - even if it is just their puncuality or their enthusiasm!
Then move onto areas for further development. For example, you could suggest that they develop their skills in database management as this is an important area for your business. This may encourage the candidate to reflect on how they presented their skills and to provide better examples in the future.
End on a positive note. If you were impressed with them or a particular aspect of their interview, tell them. Thank them for their interest in working with you and wish them good luck in the future. Avoid saying you will bear them in mind for future opportunities unless this is genuinely the case.
Eligibility to work in the UK
As an employer, you are responsible for checking that your staff are eligible to work in the UK. You should therefore ask shortlisted candidates to bring the appropriate documents to interview and check and record them before making any unconditional offer.
Once you have your perfect candidate, the focus moves onto developing them!
