Could you prove why you chose one candidate over another?

You interview three candidates for a vacancy. One stands out, you offer them the job and let the other two know they have been unsuccessful. Straightforward until six weeks later, one of the unsuccessful candidates challenges the decision and alleges that they were not appointed because of a protected characteristic.

Could you demonstrate why you chose the successful candidate?

Interviews don’t need to be overly formal, but there should be some record of how the decision was reached. If there are no interview notes or assessment records, you may be relying entirely on the interviewer’s memory.

What did each candidate say? Who demonstrated the strongest experience? Which candidate best met the essential requirements? Why, specifically, was one person selected over another?

Before interviewing, identify the key skills, experience and requirements of the role. Prepare your core questions around those requirements and use a simple assessment sheet to record each candidate’s responses and how they performed against the criteria.

For example, if supervisory experience is essential, assess each candidate against it. If customer communication is important, ask a question that allows each person to demonstrate that skill.

The purpose isn’t to turn recruitment into a box-ticking exercise. It is to make sure that your eventual decision is based on objective, job-related criteria and that you have a record showing that. Interview notes should be factual and relevant to the job.  Comments on how they demonstrate managing a difficult customer complaint are more useful that comments on having a ‘‘young family may struggle with the hours”.

Remember that recruitment documentation may later need to be produced as evidence. Write your notes on the basis that someone other than you may eventually read them.

If your recruitment process currently consists of interviewing candidates and then having a conversation about “who we liked best”, you must introduce a simple interview assessment. Agree the criteria, ask consistent core questions, record the answers, assess candidates against the requirements of the job and document why the successful candidate was selected.

Most recruitment decisions will never be tested, however your interview assessment could be the evidence that you may need to rely on.

If you have any concerns about this subject contact us at enquiries@121hrsolutions.co.uk and we can discuss.