This page considers how to best undertake the recruitment process for all levels of street outreach staff.
More information can be found on the Why recruitment is important and Competency based recruitment pages.
Step one - reviewing the vacancy and revising the job description | Step two – developing the person specification | Step three – advertising the post | Step four – shortlisting | Step five - the interview and job-related tests | Step six - selection | Step seven - references | Step eight - induction
The recruitment process should commence as soon as a member of staff hands in their notice. It is the ideal time to review the role. Asking the outgoing staff member for honest and constructive feedback on his/her experience of employment with your organisation can help you refine the role. Exit interviews with staff over a period of time will also enable you to understand areas of concern with staff, especially if the same issues are raised by a number of employees. In the exit interview, questions you may wish to ask include
Armed with this information and knowledge about the role, and how it fits with the organisation's strategic plan, it is now possible to review the job description. This should cover the main duties of the role, but not be so specific that every last detail of the job is covered; for example, for an outreach worker, a sample task may include 'providing throughcare-related support to clients' rather than 'filling out housing benefit applications'. This gives sufficient flexibility to enable manager and employee to have a constructive dialogue about how best to meet the needs of the client through regular support and supervision sessions when in post.
During the post review, it is also possible to assess salary levels and position – for example, trainee posts often attract excellent candidates who may initially require more initial managerial support but who may make good staff members in the long term. This approach focuses on competencies over direct experience. Technical knowledge can be taught - attitude is unlikely to change significantly after the probationary period.
Exit interview completed with outgoing member of staff
Full handover notes completed by outgoing member of staff
Review of the tasks required by the post
Review of the job description
Any internal process to be followed, for example review by the Board
The next step is to review the person specification for the role. Good practice agencies minimise the essential criteria to enable as many people as possible to apply for the post, giving maximum choice to managers.
With new European legislation becoming law in the UK in 2006, some aspects of existing person specifications may actually fall foul of the law. These include:
Have you
Included essential and desirable criteria for skills and knowledge?
Included a description of the competencies you will be testing for at interview?
Considered whether the criteria you are posing will create a barrier to otherwise excellent candidates who may learn quickly?
Larger organisations, especially those working in big cities, are likely to use a range of methods to advertise vacancies. Smaller organisations may have more limited budgets. Advertising a vacancy as widely as possibly obviously increases the number of candidates likely to apply. The following may be helpful to bear in mind:
Advertising by word of mouth alone, even for temporary and locum staff, is not recommended – these staff members will not have come from as wide a pool of candidates as possible. However, emailing details of the vacancy which has been advertised elsewhere to contact lists may encourage more people to apply.
Remember to give enough time for people to respond to the advert; three weekends is recommended, especially if using online adverts or job centres and recruitment agencies.
You will need to have prepared sufficient numbers of job packs to go out in the post (and encouraging people to download packs off a website brings the printing and postage costs down considerably if there is a large response rate). These should include:
Have you
Prepared the job packs for offline and online?
Chosen your advertisment routes?
Told reception staff or others answering the phone to potential applicants enough to answer routine enquiries (i.e. The closing date)?
Given sufficient time for people to respond?
At this stage, shortlisting should be against the essential and desirable criteria for skills, experience and knowledge. When the application forms come in, separate the ethnic monitoring information and front page personal details form from the job applications, numbering each for cross-referencing at a later stage. A shortlisting grid should be drawn up, detailing the item being considered, a space for marking and a space for comments (which can be considered should there be any lack of agreement about the shortlist). Applicants should be scored against each item as either meeting (M), partly meeting (P) or not meeting (N). More weight should be given to essential criteria, and desirable criteria only assessed if there is a large pool of candidates who all meet all of the essential criteria.
It is good practice for shortlisting to be done by at least two individuals, and three if possible. Each person should bring their top six candidates for discussion at a short meeting and relative merits discussed before a final shortlist is agreed upon; the member of staff who will be making the final recruitment decision in consultation with others must be involved at this stage.
Have you prepared the shortlisting criteria?
Have you assembled the shortlisting panel and briefed them with copies of the job description and person specification?
Have you ensured all members of the panel are able to shortlist with a quick turnaround time?
If you have a wide pool of candidates, have you agreed any additional criteria to help you shortlist effectively?
Have you prepared the interview questions and checked them with another member of staff to ensure all competencies are being tested at interview?
Have you prepared job-based tests and set aside sufficient time for these to be completed?
If you are asking clients to undertake an interview with potential staff members, have they been briefed and given enough information to help them decide who would be best for the job?
Have you remembered all administrative proceedings for the interview day and sent out confirmation letters to shortlisted candidates? Are you able to be flexible on interview dates?
If you are using psychometric tests, are you able to undertake these on a day close to the interview date?
The selection process should ideally be completed on the same day or day after the interview. Each shortlisted candidate should have met all of the essential criteria on the job description and therefore should be scored against the competencies. Homeless Link finds it helpful for panel members to grade a candidate's performance from 1 - poor to 5 - excellent against each competency and to write notes against each performance. Panel members then review each candidate in turn, coming to an agreed score for each competency, and interviewed candidates are then ranked. Ranking assists with the final decision, which remains with the appointing manager.
It is usual to offer the post first - subject to acceptable references - before ringing unsuccessful candidates. It is good practice to be prepared to give detailed and constructive feedback to candidates over the phone, and if they do not wish to take up the offer at that moment in time, offer to give feedback within a week over the phone should they wish.
If the panel is in the unfortunate position of finding none of the candidates suitable to appoint, it is better to leave the vacancy open and try to recruit through another channel, or return to the pool of applications. Employment law is firmly on the side of the employee and it is in the organisation's best interests to make the right decisions - poor recruitment decisions can be costly, legally complicated and time intensive in terms of performance management at a later date.
Has the panel come to a decision?
Have you offered the post stating that this is subject to acceptable references?
Have you given feedback to unsuccessful candidates?
No matter how thorough the interview and selection process, some seemingly-excellent candidates can prove to have been difficult in previous employment. Some agencies will take up references for a fixed period of time (for example, Turning Point will take up all references for a three year period, and Broadway for five). Reference requests should cover issues such as honesty when handling money, sickness absence (both total number of days and spells of absence), timekeeping, and detailed questions on performance. If you do not receive a reference back - or the reference you receive seems poor or average - it is worth phoning the referee for an informal chat, and does not violate any employment law or practice as long as the conversation remains within the bounds of performance, attitude and attendance. One leading HR manager in the sector told Homeless Link that it is not uncommon for friends to provide references for each other when they have fabricated previous employment - so ask for a piece of headed stationary to be included with the reference posted back. Under no circumstances should you appoint someone without any references at all - even students should be able to supply referees from college or university; people returning to the job market may have been volunteering. An offer letter can be sent straight after offering the post over the phone - this should state that the offer is subject to suitable references and should be signed off by a senior manager. Once all references are received, and acceptable, a formal offer letter can be sent and a start date agreed.
Have you requested references for an agreed period of time?
Have you followed up any references over the phone?
Once these have been received, have you agreed a start date?
A thorough induction into the organisation is important to both settle the member of staff in with new colleagues and also to set parameters and expectations of the job role. A good induction programme should give the inductee information about the organisation, their role, where their role fits with others in the team, division and organisation and grounding in policies and procedures. In larger organisations, the induction session can be shared between key staff - for example appointments with the office manager and IT support should be arranged in the first two days or so.
Does the induction include training in the first week on all key information management systems?
Have you allowed about half a day for the new staff member to familiarise him or herself with organisational policies and procedures?
Have induction sessions been set up with the majority of staff with whom they will have day to day contact?
Have email and IT systems been set up in advance of start date, including an electronic calendar if used?
If your organisation issues laptops or mobile phones to this staff grade, have these been ordered?
Has desk space been made available?
Have you allowed two weeks without many meetings in your own diary to enable the new member of staff to approach you as necessary?
Have you allowed two long induction sessions in the first week to go through the competency framework and targets for the first six months, with clear and measurable outputs and outcomes?
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