Peninsula's employer law advice for conducting job interviews

April 15, 2011 - PRLog -- With so many aspects of employers law to bear in mind, interviewing can be tricky for businesses. Here, Peninsula's managing director Peter Done provides expert legal advice for companies going through the interview process.

When so many people apply for a position that there is no way of interviewing them all, employers have to filter some out. To remove bias, there should be two people in charge of conducting interviews; the same two people should be responsible for creating a shortlist from all the applications.

Protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act – including race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, religious belief or gender reassignment – should never be taken into consideration. Instead, the same job-related criteria should be compared across all the candidates, considering their potential to do the job in question.

A score matrix can be very useful at this stage, to record positive and negative points for each applicant. Sometimes, rejected applicants will complain, so a handy bit of employer law advice is to keep this matrix for future reference. This way, businesses can prove their recruitment process was completely fair.

Now it's time for the interview itself. Remember to take plenty of notes, and ask open questions. Although in some situations it is permissible to ask about criminal convictions or the individual's immigration status, avoid asking any potentially discriminatory questions.

After the interviews, all unsuccessful applicants should be sent a letter that politely states 'thanks, but no thanks'. Including the reason for the candidate's rejection can help avoid claims of discrimination and can even help the applicant in future.

As well as allowing the candidate to find out more about the employer, and vice versa, conducting interviews that are fair and professional can improve your company's reputation.

Peninsula offers clients help with the interview process, including access to a 24 hour legal advice line (http://www.peninsula-uk.com/business-services/24-hour-advice), assistance with documentation such as letters and contracts, and small business HR outsourcing (http://www.peninsula-uk.com/small-business-service/hr.asp). For further information on this, or any other employment law or health & safety matter, please call our specialist advisors free on 0800 328 9348 and they will be happy to help.

If you are a member of the media and need any further assistance, feel free to contact Sammual-James McLoughlin, head of media, press and public relations at Peninsula, on 0161 827 8511, or sammualjamesmcloughlin@gmail.com.

Website: http://www.peninsula-uk.com/