Finding and recruiting new talent

Further resources:

Acas Guide Recruiting Staff

Acas Delivering equality and diversity booklet

Acas example forms and templates for hiring staff

The advert

Plan your advert carefully; this will help you avoid discrimination and ensure that you have as diverse a range of applicants as possible.

Consider how applicants can respond - have you made alternative formats available, such as recordings or braille? Review the next steps in the process and consider whether any might be potentially discriminatory. For instance, is the audition accessible for those with a disability? Can a position be offered on a part-time, job-share or flexi-time basis?

As with the job description and person specification, the advertisement should be specific and to the point. It should be easy to understand, include all relevant information and be written in non-discriminatory language.  Have more than one person compile and cross-check the advertisement, to help avoid unconscious bias.

Where to advertise

To ensure a diverse pool of applicants, you should use at least two different media when advertising a job. Try to avoid always using the same agencies, head-hunters or publications.

If you do use recruitment agencies or head hunters, check that their policies on recruiting to deliver diversity either match or are better than your own. Explain your organisation’s polices and specific requirements, and check that they adhere to them throughout the recruitment process.

You should be aware that using word-of-mouth to advertise a job through existing employees and managers is likely to result in a limited pool of candidates. This could well result in your organisation not attracting the best possible candidates for the role, and is also likely to increase any existing imbalance in your workforce.

See Acas Guide Recruiting Staff for more information on where to advertise.

If you’re considering using a new role as an opportunity to develop existing staff, make sure that all potential candidates, regardless of background or whether they have one or more protected characteristic, are given an equal chance.

Sifting applications

Be systematic when sifting applications. You could use a scoring system to ensure the applications are assessed consistently.

To avoid unconscious bias the sifting process should be performed by at least two people trained in recruitment and interviewing. See the Acas Guide Recruiting Staff for more information on where to advertise.

You may also wish to consider removing information about applicants’ gender, ethnicity and age before the sifting process, if it is not relevant to the role.

The interviews

Before conducting interviews, make sure any necessary ‘reasonable adjustments’ have been made to ensure all candidates are treated equally.

Interviews should be well planned and designed to find out whether the candidates have the skills and qualities essential for the role.  It is OK for interviewers to probe some areas more, with certain candidates,  to ensure that they have a full picture of all the candidates’ qualifications for the role.

To ensure a fair interview you should use more than one interviewer and ensure that all interviewers are appropriately trained.

Whether you use interviews alone, or set practical tests as well, each candidate should be given the same opportunity to demonstrate that they are the best person for the role.

As well as checking that any practical tests set are necessary and relevant to the role, you should ensure that the they are not discriminatory in any way. For some candidates, this may require a ‘reasonable adjustment’ to be made. For example, someone with dyslexia may need to be given more time to read a document before answering questions about it.

Interviewers should avoid asking candidates for personal information that is irrelevant to the role, or asking questions that are potentially discriminatory.

It is good practice for interviewers/assessors to score candidates’ responses to core questions and make notes on key points, and to write up these notes up as soon as possible after the interviews.  Doing this can help to ensure a consistent selection process.

See Acas Guide: Recruiting Staff

As with all stages of the recruitment process, you should ensure that when selecting a candidate for the job you do not discriminate against other candidates who have one or more of the ‘protected characteristics’.

However, where there are two or more candidates who are equally qualified to be recruited, you may select a person because they are from a protected group which you believe to be under-represented or disadvantaged (for Northern Ireland broadcasters see here).  In other words, a specific candidate’s ‘protected characteristic’ may be used as a ‘tie-breaker’, if you can show that the candidate with the ‘protected characteristic’ either experiences disadvantage in the workplace because of that characteristic, or is disproportionately under-represented in the workforce or the particular role.

See Acas guide, Equality and discrimination: understand the basics, for more detailed information on the use of protected characteristics as a ‘tie-breaker’.

You should also ask applicants if they need you to make any ‘reasonable adjustments’ for any part of the recruitment process. See Acas Guide Recruiting Staff and Acas guide Disability Discrimination

You should only ask health-related questions in specific circumstances. In brief. these are:

• when assessing if an applicant can carry out a function that is essential to the role;
• when taking ‘positive action’ to assist disabled people; and
• to monitor whether the candidate is disabled and to check that a candidate has a disability when this is genuine requirement of the role.

What is unconscious bias?

'Unconscious bias' is bias that we are unaware of, and which is outside our conscious control. It happens automatically; the brain makes quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences (Equality Challenge Unit 2013)

Ofcom has worked with the Employers' Network for Equality and Inclusion (ENEI) on some of its internal work on unconscious bias. You can view the ENEI video below for more information about unconscious bias.

Impact of unconscious bias

Research has found that unconscious bias can heavily influence recruitment and selection decisions.

There are a number of ways in which bias could be embedded within your organisation’s recruitment and selection processes. For example:

• Falling into the ‘mini-me’ trap: We all know that first impressions count. Interviewers form opinions about candidates within the first few minutes of meeting them, leading to bias in decision-making.
• Organisational fit and recruitment filtering: Organisational fit operates when employers, recruitment agencies and head hunters seek individuals, taking into account not only their ability for the role, but also the extent to which they would fit into the culture of the organisation.
• Informal networks and word-of-mouth recruitment: We know that informal networks can act as a way of excluding certain social groups from taking advantage of recruitment opportunities. The "it’s not what you know, but whom you know" attitude still operates within the recruitment business today.
• Sector-based stereotyping: Excluding people from employment opportunities because of sectoral norms and stereotypical perceptions exaggerates ingrained bias.

How to identify and avoid unconscious bias

Review your specifications: Ensure that your person specification and job description is free from bias – remove all unnecessary requirements that simply act as job filters or ways of narrowing your talent pool.

Ensure that you use diverse routes of entry, such as apprenticeships and trainee schemes, which are advertised openly; this will widen the talent net.

Review your images: If you want to attract applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, use images and text that will appeal to a broad range of candidates. Research shows that minority groups respond to adverts that reflect their social identity.

Set diversity targets for recruitment agencies: If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Without direction from their clients, recruitment agencies have little motivation to field a wide range of talented candidates.

Remove bias within selection tests: Ensure that the types of case studies you use as part of any selection test do not favour any particular group. Similarly, ensure that you use psychometric tests that are free from bias.

Be aware of the ‘halo effect’: The halo effect operates at an unconscious level and allows candidates to pass through a ‘favourable filter’. For example, if, as the interviewer, you have a positive first impression of the candidate (they have a neat application document, the same set of A levels as you, grew up in the same town as you, etc.), you will constantly notice evidence of their capability, and may ignore their weak points. This is called the ‘halo effect’.

While it is not possible to  eliminate unconscious bias completely, providing training for interviewers can help them to become more aware of it, and make more effort to overcome it.

Acas offers more details on unconscious bias during recruitment, and a range of other advice on unconscious bias can be found online.