Bizstartup.ie - Start Up Kit

Robust recruitment and selection procedures are of paramount importance to appointing candidates who are best qualified for and suited to the jobs being hired. Moreover, it’s vital to be aware not to incriminate yourself from a legal perspective when evaluating people.

Selection criteria

When selecting your new colleagues three key selection assessment criteria should be considered:

• The skills and experience the person has to offer
• What the person wants and expects
• Natural fit accompanied by flexibility to grow within the start-up.

Job descriptions and person-specific requirements

Well-structured recruitment processes should facilitate the achievement of a start-up’s personnel forecast plan and its selection procedure should be based on job descriptions and person-specific requirements. By doing so, the start-up has written responsibilities and skills requirements of the job, which can assist towards hiring the best talent available.

Equality compliance

For equality compliance, start-ups should retain interviewed candidates’ details for one year. A claim under the Employment Equality Acts, 1998–2004 can cost an employer up to twice the annual salary and also considerable monies from non-selected candidates if their claim is justified on any of the nine grounds of discrimination, which are namely: age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, family status, marital status, race, religion and membership of the travelling community. 

The following can avoid discrimination at recruitment and selection stages:

• Establish selection criteria before assessing CVs
• Do not ask any direct or indirect discriminatory questions
• Two people should interview (where possible)
• Ask the same core job-related questions of all candidates
• Each interviewer should weigh candidates against agreed job-role competences
• Do not ask referees anything unconnected with reference
• Retain all interview notes and related documentation for one year.

Job description

Job descriptions are vital for a start-up to ensure it employs for the specific requirements of its budding company. A job description is a general statement of the job’s responsibilities, which must be written for the job, not for the jobholder. It should be written in the present tense with action verbs and be appended to a contract of employment and/or given to the incumbent fulfilling that job.

Competency assessment

Determining essential and desirable skills and competencies on a per-job basis pre-interview gives each characteristic a weighting that all candidates can be measured against. This will help towards fair and reasonable procedures being used with all candidates. All competency weightings should add up to 100pc.

Sample competencies that can be measured include:

• Technical skill, knowledge and experience
• Leadership skills (where applicable)
• Team player
• Learning and motivation to learn
• Problem-solving
• Planning and organising
• Interpersonal skills
• Drive and proactivity.

Screening candidates for interview

The following is advised to a start-up when screening candidates’ CVs for interview and the approach interviewers should take at interviews:

Screen CVs for the following:

• Educational/mandatory attainments
• Level of skill and experience
• Special aptitudes, for example, computer skills, linguistic
• dexterity
• Specific intelligences required, for example verbal, numeric
• Interests or hobbies that could assist them in their job such as public speaking, associations, memberships.

Follow methodology for asking interview questions:

• Keep to a logical sequence of questions
• Avoid jumping from one topic to another
• Link each new question to interviewee’s last reply
• Ask one question at a time and avoid multiple questions
• Concentrate on the answers and the meaning behind them.

This article is an edited version of one which appeared in Owner Managermagazine. It is written by Carol Ann Casey managing director of CA Consulting, which specialises in human resources compliance, best people-management practices and employment dispute resolution (www.caconsulting.ie).