Guidance

Recruitment and Selection Procedure

Published 12 April 2024

1.         Purpose

The purpose of this procedure is to provide a fair and transparent procedure for the recruitment and selection of employees, as well as ensuring the company’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion requirements and all relevant employment legislation are met.

2.         Scope

This procedure applies to recruitment and selection of GBN employees.

3.         Roles and Responsibilities

Role	Responsibility
Head of Department	The Head of the department (HoD) is responsible for ensuring: The vacancy fits within the agreed structure and budget of the GBN organisation. The need for the role(s) in the context of the GBN organisation structure. That a Recruiting Manager is assigned to the recruitment campaign and is clear on the requirements for the role. This would typically be the Line Manager of the position. The competence of all employees who make recruitment decisions within the department. A comprehensive induction programme is in place for any new employee(s).
Job Evaluation Team	Applying the agreed process for evaluating job roles. Ensure consistency in the grading and banding of the roles across the business. Agree on all aspects of the job being evaluated before processing the results. Ensuring that the job specification accurately reflects the elements of the post.
Resource Management Group	The RMG panel is made up of the HR Director, Finance Director, Heads of HR and Finance and support roles to administer outcomes, and are responsible for ensuring: The vacancy is within the agreed headcount budget for GBN. To ensure all roles have been evaluated in line with the company Job Evaluation Process. Accurate records are kept of all agreed roles, salary levels, and decisions made.

Role	Responsibility
Human Resources Team Responsibilities	The GBN Human Resources team is responsible for supporting the Recruiting Manager with the recruitment process and ensuring that they have all the relevant information on time for the agreed campaign. This includes: • Ensuring that those who are interviewing are trained and competent to carry out the role. • Providing the job profile to the Job Evaluation Team for consideration and ensuring that job evaluations are either current or are conducted. • Placing job adverts and managing responses. • Undertaking any other tasks agreed to as part of the recruitment campaign drawn up with the Recruiting Manager e.g., inviting short-listed candidates to interview, setting up tests and assessments, and taking up references. • Managing pre-employment checks and ensuring these are completed. • Issuing written offers of appointment and contracts of employment. • Completing the recruitment process, following up with all candidates and issuing rejection letters. • Monitoring and reviewing the recruitment process and supporting policies and guidance. • Providing training and guidance on recruitment, selection, and equality issues.
Recruiting Manager	Attending any recruitment and selection training required. Liaising with the HoD and Finance to determine whether a vacancy is a replacement post, a new post or an existing post which requires revision. Ensuring that all new/revised posts are formally graded and evaluated before they are advertised and that formal authorisation to recruit has been sought from the Resource Management Group (RMG). Planning, preparing, and agreeing the recruitment campaign and timescales, plus discussing any potential challenges foreseen with the HR contact. Preparing an accurate job description and person specification, draft advert and any other details as required for the role and liaising with the HR contact as needed to ensure the right focus and attraction for the role and good value for money. Undertaking any tasks agreed to as part of the recruitment campaign drawn up with HR. Making timely overall decisions on the selection of candidates, considering the inputs and advice from others involved e.g., in selection panels. Making a verbal offer of employment. Providing feedback to unsuccessful candidates where required, ensuring equal opportunities requirements are followed.
Chair of the Interview Panel	The Chair of a shortlisting process or assessment panel is typically the Recruiting Manager and has a number of responsibilities including: • Attending any recruitment and selection training as required. • Producing a short-list on behalf of a selection panel as per the agreed recruitment campaign. • Providing a written record of all short-listing and interview decisions of the panel and evidence.

4.           Terms and Acronyms

Acronym/Term	Meaning
GBN	Great British Nuclear
RMG	Resource Management Group
HoD	Head of Department

5.           Procedure

5.1.     Pre-recruitment Preparation and Authorisation 

5.1.1.    The GBN organisational structure is agreed by the GBN Executive team, with approval from the GBN Board for executive level posts.  

5.1.2.    All additional, replacement and contract vacancies need to be requested through the authorisation to recruit process.  

5.1.3.    The recruitment and selection process does not commence until an evaluation of the need for the role against the business’s strategic plans and budget has been completed and the recruiting manager has had the Authority to Recruit form approved by the RMG. 

5.1.4.    Consideration is given to the need for new ideas and approaches, and GBN’s commitment to ensuring a diverse workforce, by proactively seeking to attract groups that are under-represented in GBN’s employee profile.

5.2.  Role Profile and Person Specification

5.2.1.    A role profile and person specification must be produced or updated for any vacant post to be filled.  

5.2.2.    The specification should accurately reflect the elements of the post.

5.2.3.    The specification should state the essential criteria in terms of skills, aptitudes, knowledge, and experience for the job, all of which should be directly related to the job and applied equally to all applicants. 

5.2.4.    When writing the specification, ensure that criteria used do not indirectly discriminate against certain groups of applicants.

5.2.5.    A grade evaluation is also completed before a role is advertised in order to ensure equal pay for work of equal value.  

5.3.     Advertising Roles 

5.3.1.    Once a role, the recruitment approach and any associated costs are approved, the Recruiting Manager and HR contact can prepare to advertise the role.

5.3.2.    As a minimum all positions are advertised internally to help maximise equality of opportunity and provide employees with opportunities.

5.3.3.    Employees subject to redeployment will be given access to vacancies.

5.3.4.    In certain circumstances it may be more effective to use a recruitment agency. This should be discussed and agreed with the HR contact. This will, however, not eliminate the need to advertise the position internally and any external agencies or consultants who assist in the process must act in accordance with this policy and with respect to our equal opportunities requirements.

5.3.5.    Applicants are to be provided with sufficient information to make an informed decision regarding their suitability for the role i.e., a full job description and they can contact the Recruiting Manager for more information if needed. 

5.3.6.    Employees who have been in an acting position that subsequently becomes vacant will have to apply for the position when it is advertised.

5.3.7.    Applicants are asked to provide equal opportunities details when making their application to enable a robust means of monitoring the success of recruitment in relation to our diversity aims. This information is separate from the job application and applicants are free to indicate that they do not want to provide these details.

5.3.8.    All external adverts and submissions to online job boards must be placed through the HR team and be in line with the approved authority to recruit costs.

5.4.     Shortlisting Candidates Prior to Interview

5.4.1.    Shortlisting may involve a panel to mitigate bias but will always involve the recruiting manager. 

5.4.2.    Shortlisting and selection panels must represent the business fairly and should consider the promotion of Equality and Diversity in its make-up.

5.4.3.    Shortlisting is completed ‘blind’ with all personal information being redacted.

5.4.4.    Notes of the shortlisting decisions for each candidate should be recorded by each member of the panel on the shortlisting decision form and returned to the HR contact once the shortlisted candidates for interview have been selected. 

5.4.5.    The HR contact will then either invite for interview, invite for assessment, or issue a rejection letter. 

5.4.6.    Shortlisted candidates are then provided with details of the selection process, including any tests, and are given as much prior notice as possible of their interview date. In accordance with the Equality Act they are also asked to advise if there are any particular arrangements or reasonable adjustments that could be made so that they can participate fully in the selection process.

5.4.7.    All candidates (internal and external) must be assessed objectively against the selection criteria set out in the role specification and only candidates who meet all the essential criteria should be short-listed. Assumptions about the qualities of internal candidates should not be made.

5.5.     Selection and Interview

5.5.1.    All redeployment candidates and all candidates who have a disability as covered under the Equality Act 2010 who meet the essential criteria for the role as set out in the role profile and person specification, will be offered an interview.

5.5.2.    In most cases shortlisted candidates will have an assessment and interview in parallel although in some cases assessment may be carried out before interview.  Successful candidates will be interviewed by an agreed interview panel that have all been given the relevant training. Interview panels will comprise of a fair gender representation with at least two people, these being the recruiting manager and another manager from an impartial department. HR may be involved where required. The panel should have knowledge of the attributes of the role, to ensure the right applicant is successful in the role.

5.5.3.    Selection is a two-way process: candidates are assessing the role and the business. Those involved in recruitment should consider how best to convey a positive image.

5.5.4.    It is recommended that a range of selection methods, that are suitable for assessing both the essential and desirable criteria in the person specification are established as this will enhance objective decision making which is difficult through interview alone. These methods should be discussed with HR prior to any interviews taking place.

5.5.5.    Assessments may be carried out internally or with an approved external supplier where required.

5.5.6.    If a high number of candidates are selected following shortlisting, assessments may take place before an interview.  Following the assessments, candidates will be advised of the outcome and if appropriate invited along to an interview. A round of second interviews may be necessary if no clear decision can be reached.

5.5.7.    Interview questions and the structure of the interview should be consistently applied to all candidates and should be based on the person specification. The relevant question template will be provided which details behavioural questions based on the GBN cultural guidelines. The recruiting manager will provide technical questions based on the specific competences of the role. 

5.5.8.    Notes recording the salient points of the interview are taken by the interviewers, so that they can refer back to these when assessing candidates against the person specification and making decisions. 

5.5.9.    At the end, an interview summary is completed with the interview panel deciding selection or non-selection clearly noting their justification. Scoring criteria are provided on the interview template. 

5.5.10. Notes of the interview and any other notes on the candidate taken during the recruitment and selection process should be passed back to the HR contact following the selection process and will be kept for a maximum of 6 months following the selection process. These may be requested by a candidate under a Subject Access Request under General Data Protection Regulations.

5.5.11. In the event that a candidate requests feedback about their performance in the selection process this should be arranged and completed by the recruiting manager, although they may delegate this to another member of the interview panel where appropriate.

5.5.12. Unsuccessful interview candidates should be treated courteously and sensitively and will, as a minimum, receive telephone or written notification of the outcome of the selection process.

5.6.     Referees

5.6.1.    The HR team manage the reference process with the vetting team.

5.6.2.    Information sought from referees should be structured around the requirements of the job and the job description should be provided. It should be noted that many organisations have a policy of not providing personal references and therefore references provided may only confirm details of current appointment. 

5.6.3.    References will be requested following a conditional offer and will cover at least 3 years employment history.

5.6.4.    Referees should not be contacted without the candidate’s consent and the information provided should be treated as confidential.

5.6.5.    In certain circumstances a school or personal reference is acceptable. In these cases, additional documentation may be required to satisfy vetting requirements.

5.7.     Pre-employment Checks and Security

5.7.1.    Successful candidates will be asked to provide identification documents which will be saved as part of the security process.

5.7.2.    Offers of employment are subject to satisfactory references, medical clearance, vetting checks, checks of qualifications and any other checks as appropriate, such as Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and Asylum and Immigration checks. 

5.7.3.    They will be informed via telephone that they have been selected to go forward to the next stage of the recruitment process and they will be sent a conditional offer in writing. The conditional offer will be sent via email and will clearly state that the offer is subject to pre-employment checks being satisfactory. 

5.7.4.    The HR team will work in conjunction with the Security and Vetting team to complete all the checks required.

5.7.5.    Once clearance has been received, the Security team will inform the HR team.

5.8.           Medical

5.8.1.    The candidate may be required to attend a medical with the company’s approved occupational health provider. The type of medical will depend on the position they have been selected for but may include drugs and alcohol screening. 

5.8.2.    A suitable date and time will be arranged by the HR team with the medical practitioner and the candidate.

5.8.3.    After the results have been received the candidate will be informed of the outcome.

5.9.     Making the appointment 

5.9.1.    It is recognised that in many cases it is desirable to make a verbal offer very shortly after the selection process. In such cases the verbal offer will normally be made by the recruiting manager of the selection panel (noting that the offer is subject to pre-employment checks being satisfactory), although they have the discretion to delegate this responsibility if appropriate.  

5.9.2.    Appointments are made as per the original agreed authority to recruit details. No appointment can be made above the advertised grade and role details.

5.9.3.    Once a selection decision has been made the HR team will produce the written offer of employment, which details the job title, the job description, remuneration, benefits, and pension details, etc.  

5.9.4.    The candidate signs and returns the contract to HR to confirm their acceptance and for it to be held on their personal file. 

5.9.5.    Following the satisfactory completion of all pre-employment checks, the candidate is contacted by the HR Team to confirm a start date. 

5.9.6.    In the case of an internal candidate, a release date for the successful candidate will be agreed between the respective line managers, with the move taking place as soon as is possible. 

5.9.7.    A successful internal candidate will receive the pay and conditions of the new post when they move to it, but in any case, no later than 6 weeks after being informed of selection i.e., in an instance of delayed release.

5.10.  Withdrawal of a vacancy 

5.10.1. Where an agreed vacant role is suddenly withdrawn for whatever reason, all candidates will be informed.

6.    References

Reference	Title
GBN-HR-FO-010	Parental Leave Request Form
GBN-HR-PO-013	Special leave Policy
GBN-HR-PO-007	Flexible Working Policy
GBN-HR-PR-002	Flexible Working Procedure