How?

The standard process for selecting a candidate involves the following steps:

• Managing Applications - Whether receiving CV’s or application forms, there needs to be a process that securely records and manages the personal data of candidates and records your decisions at each stage of the selection process.

• Shortlisting - Is a process which uses the person specification to reduce the number of candidates to a manageable number for the next stage of selection. Identify those who meet the ‘essential’ criteria and the most important ‘desirable’ criteria in the person specification until you have a ‘shortlist’ of appropriate candidates. Once CV’s or application forms are received they are normally used to shortlist an appropriate quantity of quality candidates that on initial assessment meet your essential and some of your desirable criteria.

• Initial screening - If you anticipate dealing with a large volume of candidates you can introduce additional activities to screen out unsuitable candidates and provide additional information for selecting your shortlisted candidates. Increasingly employers ask candidates for details of their online presence so that they can check for any indications that would make them an unsuitable candidate to proceed to the assessment stage.

• Assessment - This can include a combination of activities for Individual’s (interview, psychometric tests, work sampling) and Group’s (Team case studies, group role plays and exercises). Assessment days are opportunities to combine a number of different selection methods to gain a range of information about a candidate's ability and potential for the specific role in the context of your organization.

• Conditional Offer of Employment - It is important to discuss the potential offer of employment with a candidate, this is often done by phone to ensure they still wish to proceed and identify any potential areas for clarification before issuing a formal offer letter of employment, subject to satisfactory references and any other conditions e.g medical, proof of qualifications and employment status. Prepare your contract of employment, in line with the relevant legislation and company policies.