Guidance

Encourage applications from a range of candidates

Published 4 March 2026

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

© Crown copyright 2026

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/encourage-applications-from-a-range-of-candidates/encourage-applications-from-a-range-of-candidates

Purpose of this action

The aim of this action is to improve the gender balance in your workforce by attracting more applications from either men or women (depending on the composition of your workforce). This includes attracting people returning after a break from the workforce (‘returners’) and those who applied before but were not selected.

You might choose this action if your workforce lacks diversity or representation in certain roles.

Benefits and evidence

Widening your search for applicants can help you find the best person for the job.[footnote 1] If you only use a few ways to find staff, you might miss out on capable women, returners, and other talented people.

Evidence suggests that:
- having more women on shortlists can lead to fairer assessments[footnote 2][footnote 3] - returner programmes help people feel more confident to start working again[footnote 4][footnote 5] - targeted referrals may help improve diversity in historically male-dominated sectors[footnote 6][footnote 7]

Research suggests women are less likely than men to apply again if they are not successful the first time, especially for senior roles.[footnote 8] Encouraging people to reapply is a low-cost way to make your recruitment more inclusive. You can also fill skills gaps by reaching out to people who already have the right experience but have been out of work.

Implementing this action

To attract a wider range of applicants, you may want to consider the following steps:

  • check your workforce data to see where you need more representation
  • work with professional networks, charities, and return-to-work schemes to advertise roles to under-represented groups
  • ask managers to call or email applicants who just missed out on a role to encourage them to apply for other jobs
  • suggest that staff share job openings with people from underrepresented groups
  • offer paid ‘returnships’ (fixed-term contracts with the chance of a permanent role at the end) or extra support for people coming back to the workplace[footnote 9]

You must only choose candidates based on their ability to do the job. Use clear criteria to interview and shortlist everyone fairly, making sure you remove any bias in your processes.  Avoid any possible ‘tokenism’ – for example, hiring a small number of people from under-represented groups to give the appearance of equality.

Tracking progress

You might want to consider tracking the progress of this action by measuring:

  • the breakdown of all applicants and successful candidates by sex – including the combination of sex and other characteristics (such as ethnicity or disability status) to highlight specific trends for different groups of men and women
  • how many returners and candidates who have previously applied for roles in your organisation you hire 
  • retention rates of new recruits from targeted groups at particular milestones – for example, 12 months after starting
  • the recruitment experience of candidates

Where possible, you should compare any data you gather with ‘baseline’ data from previous recruitment campaigns and set realistic, time-bound targets for improvement by portfolio or department.

Data privacy

Some or all of the equality information you collect is likely to be ‘special category personal data’, meaning it has special legal protections. 

Ensure that you are complying with the UK’s data protection legislation when you collect and analyse employees’ data.

Get advice and approval from your organisation’s privacy or data protection expert before you start.

  1. Behavioural Insights Team (2025). How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers.  ↩

  2. Heilman ME (1980). The impact of situational factors on personnel decisions concerning women: Varying the sex composition of the applicant pool. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 26(3), 386–395. ↩

  3. Johnson SK, Hekman DR and Chan E T (2016). If there is only one woman in your candidate pool, there is statistically no chance she’ll be hired. Harvard Business Review, 26(04). ↩

  4. The Behavioural Insights Team (2025). How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers.  ↩

  5. Office for Equality and Opportunity (2024). STEM ReCharge programme evaluation. ↩

  6. The Behavioural Insights Team (2025). How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers.  ↩

  7. Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Increasing applications from women through targeted referrals. ↩

  8. Government of New South Wales (2019). Applying behavioural insights to drive public sector diversity. ↩

  9. The Behavioural Insights Team (2025). How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers. ↩

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