Channel 4’s The Job Interview has highlighted poor candidate experiences – but Brexit means we can’t afford for these practices to become the recruiting norm, writes Sheetal Gill
I’m probably not the only HR professional to have been watching The Job Interview, a new series on Channel 4 that closely follows candidates as they apply for real positions.
While the world of recruiting isn’t new to me, the light this programme sheds on the candidate’s perspective of the recruitment process is. It really is an emotional experience for many of them. At times, the approach taken by the interview panel – including their body language – created a tough assessment environment for the candidates.
Some of the stress experienced by the applicants was obvious and could have been better managed by the interviewers. Good recruitment practice is about setting a professional yet comfortable environment where the candidate’s performance is optimal. So many recruiters and line managers seem to forget that interviews are a two-way process, and that the candidate’s experience needs to be part of the planning. As those on the show will no doubt find out, how well the experience is managed may result in good or bad publicity for the business. Even if you’re not broadcasting your processes on national TV, social media and employer review websites such as Glassdoor mean the reach of word of mouth is broader than ever before.
In the light of the EU referendum result, HR’s role in helping organisations attract and successfully recruit the right people has never more vital. One company we have been working with for a while recruits its medical staff mainly from Europe, and over the last month we have seen a decline in its applications. There is clearly an immediate recruitment issue for most organisations that rely on a skilled workforce from the EU, which now needs careful planning to address.
The need for employers to value recruitment as a two-way process, between recruiter and candidate, has been made clear to me through my work with several faith schools, as they’ve sought to recruit headteachers – a role for which there is a clear skills shortage and much competition between schools.
Where schools were unable to attract suitable applicants, I focused on the candidate experience: why would they want to apply? Interview processes were reviewed, websites updated and recruitment packs changed to include all benefits of the roles, both from the employer perspective and in terms of professional development. Visits by candidates were welcomed and properly planned. During assessment days, applicants were given the opportunity to meet children and staff to get a feel of the school’s culture. The aim of all these strategies was to ensure that the candidate – whether they were successful or not, or if they wanted to work there or not – had a positive recruitment experience.
The employers that have featured on The Job Interview so far have mostly been SMEs, and it’s not been clear if HR has been involved in the planning process. But it’s here where the most work is to be done; recruitment decisions have their biggest impact on SMEs, where smaller workforces won’t be able to cope with a new hire who doesn’t perform or is unable to fit into a team, or handle additional work created by a vacant post. Hopefully SME owners who are watching the series do not take interview process literally, and instead engage with HR expertise for support when recruiting.
Regardless of an organisation’s size, industry or type of vacancy they are seeking to fill, we are all in a period of uncertainty and potential skills shortages – and employers need to prepare accordingly through their workforce, talent and recruitment planning. Perhaps it’s time to include candidate experience in the planning to be an employer of choice, and stay ahead of the competition.
Sheetal Gill is an HR business partner at Gill HR Consultancy