• selection process guide

    • So, how to go about selecting who you’re going to invite in for an interview?  It may be that you have a stack of applications and you simply do not have the time to interview them all.  Here’s few tips to help you save time but ensure that you don’t miss out on that perfect person:

      Firstly take out those that do not fit the bill.  There may be quite a few of these depending on how you have gone about finding candidates – especially if you’ve used a non-specialist medium such as the generic online job boards. 

      Then separate out those that possess all your essential requirements – these are your A grade candidates and should be viewed in more detail first.  You may decide that you have enough here to be going on with but you may well have none. 

      It is worth noting that the more specialist the role, then the less likely that someone is going to fit the bill exactly, so you might have to compromise slightly.  For example, they might not have quite as much experience as you would like, but they have better relevant qualifications.

      If you decide to look at other applicants that possess only some of your essential and / or desirable requirements, then giving each bit of experience, skill or qualification a value and then adding up the total on each CV could be a way of effectively reducing the volume.  Putting this information into a table might help:

      Candidate

      Food degree

      10 points

      Bakery experience

      10 points

      Management experience

      5 points

      Retailer experience

      5 points

      Location


      3 points

      TOTAL

      Sarah

      10

      5

      0

      5

      3

      23

      Muneer

      10

      5

      5

      5

      0

      25

      Florina

      5

      10

      5

      5

      3

      28

      Colin

      10

      10

      5

      0

      3

      28

      Sophie

      10

      5

      0

      5

      0

      20


      It may even be the case that someone has some valuable skills or experiences that you hadn’t even considered!

      After selecting those that you would like to interview, you should at least email those that aren’t right for the role to let them know that they have been unsuccessful.  However, you should keep hold of the possible reserves, let them know that you are doing this and tell them that should anything come up in the future then you’ll be in touch – you never know, they’re not right for this particular role but they could be perfect for something else in the future.