Recruitment good practice
Over 6.8 million disabled people are of working age - this represents 19% of the working population.
Diversity and equality of opportunity should be a central part of your entire recruitment and selection process. The greater the care you take to be objective, systematic and fair, the more likely it is that you will find the best candidate and comply with equality legislation.
It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a disabled job applicant because of his or her disability. You have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to prevent a disabled applicant from being placed at a substantial disadvantage when compared with a non-disabled applicant.
Best practice recruitment and advertising
- Use a person specification, which lists the main duties and responsibilities of the job to identify the main skills required.
- Remember that skills can be transferred e.g. someone who is good with people will often have this skill whatever the context - work, social, voluntary or paid.
- Make sure that you don't include any blanket requirements or exclusions relating to health or disability.
- Specify which of the person criteria are 'essential' and which are 'desirable'.
- Use as many different methods of advertising as you can in order to reach as many potential applicants as possible.
- Avoid using words or images that stereotype or imply that only a certain 'type' of person is being sought.
- Make your advertisements as clear as possible and state the requirements of the job, necessary and desirable criteria for applicants, activities and working practices of your business, for example, if you offer flexible working arrangements.
The law protects disabled people from being discriminated against when applying for jobs, as well as when they are already in employment. If you discriminate against a disabled applicant because of their disability, you are acting unlawfully and could be taken to an Employment Tribunal.
Best practice selection: short listing, interviewing, references, medical checks
- Read all the applications in one sitting, and refer to your person specification regularly.
- Concentrate on each applicant's potential ability to do the job and avoid making assumptions about someone based on irrelevant factors.
- Be flexible about interview dates and times. Many applicants may be working already, have caring responsibilities or may require time to arrange support for the interview.
- Decide on a series of questions to be asked to all interviewees. This will allow you to make an objective comparison of all the responses.
- Avoid interviewing alone if possible. It is difficult for one person to be entirely objective.
- Take notes during interviews. The notes help to focus you, help decision-making and can be used in evidence if there is a tribunal complaint of unfair discrimination.
- When all the candidates have been interviewed, evaluate the evidence to see how closely each candidate matches the job requirements of the person specification.
- Ask candidates to provide two suitable references - these could include current or previous employers, supervisors from voluntary work done. The purpose of references is to obtain factual information, from a third party, on a candidate's ability to do the job. Don't ask referees for just a general character reference or for subjective information as to a candidate's suitability for the job.
