Having identified your shortlist of candidates, the next step is to plan a balanced and thorough selection process.
A focussed and structured approach to selection assessment will enhance your opportunity to identify the best candidate for your post and reduce the risk of unfair discrimination.

Plan a range of selection action

Effective selection action for any appointment should include, at the minimum, an interview and a form of assessment test relevant to the role. For all roles it is recommended to include a combination of tests in order to measure candidates´ abilities to undertake different elements of the role. This will provide you with a fuller picture of how candidates perform in different situations, work to a brief/instructions, interact with others and how they handle delivering to short deadlines.
All forms of assessment must directly measure candidates´ abilities against the criteria within the Person Specification of the About the Job.

Consider how to assess candidates and use the results effectively

When creating your range of assessments, make sure that you have established in advance a clear process for:

• assessing the quality of the candidates’ efforts. Where possible a 'norm' and model answer should be pre-prepared to facilitate comparison and assessment of ability/knowledge/skill.
• recording the outcomes/results. Consider whether you will score the results numerically or use grading schemes such as “met/partly met/did not meet”.
• reporting the results to the interview/selection panel. This will allow the outcomes of all the selection action to contribute to an overall picture of performance for use in the decision-making process.

Taking a fair approach to assessment action

When planning your selection action, agree at the outset which form of assessment will measure which criteria from the person specification. It is also useful to have considered attributing a value weighting to these different elements at the outset, eg 60% interview 40% presentation, to avoid being influenced by personal bias once the process is underway. This will help you maintain perspective when making decisions about candidates´ performances.

All shortlisted candidates must be given the opportunity to undertake all elements of the planned assessment action. Therefore, even if a candidate performs poorly within the initial test , you must continue with the full selection programme. This will allow the candidate maximum opportunity to perform in a range of assessment formats and will ensure s/he has received fair and equitable treatment.

Further guidance

Guidance on planning various forms of assessment is provided in the links to the right. Use these to plan your selection action and create a fair and robust selection process. The key areas of selection action are:

• Eligibility to Work – it is a legal requirement that we must have confirmed that all new appointees are eligible to work in the UK BEFORE they start work.
• Interviews
• Presentations
• Other forms of Assessment
• References

See links to the right for more information.

Informing candidates of the selection action in advance

Candidates should always be informed of the details of all planned selection action when you email/write to candidates to invite them to attend. This communication must also invite the candidates to provide you with any adjustments or assistance that they may require to undertake the planned selection action due to disability.

Candidates with disabilities

Candidates with disabilities may require additional assistance or adjustments to enable them to undertake your planned selection action. It is important that you ask all invited candidates if they require this support at invite stage, in order that you may have the necessary support in place in good time for the date planned for interview/selection action. Requests will vary according to the individual´s request eg additional time, particular equipment needs or room lay-out etc. Treat all requests for any adjustments or assistance as priority action and work with your customary HR contact to facilitate delivery