Those of us on recruitment panels can confidently tick the box to say we have attended safer recruitment training. But how many of us can say we have adopted a different approach because of our learning?
Interview notes should be reviewed regularly to ensure they are fit for purpose. They should also include a section for safer recruitment to ensure issues identified at the shortlisting stage can be explored at interview, and not forgotten.
It is important to explore not just someone’s previous experience of working with children (if any) or their relevant qualifications or skills, but also if they are the right person with the right attitudes and motives to work with children. You are therefore able to tailor the safer recruitment questions to the applicant to ensure you can test their motives, values and ethics as well as their emotional maturity and resilience when working with children. These types of questions are known as ‘value based’ interview questions. Value-based interviewing is a way of helping schools to recruit the most suitable people to work with children. It focuses on "how" and "why" an applicant makes choices in work and seeks to explore reasons for their behaviour.
We should now also carry out online searches as part of our shortlisting process, informing our applicants that online searches may be done as part of our due diligence checks. ‘Should’ in statutory guidance means that this should be done unless there is good reason not to; if there is a good reason not to undertake online searches, you should have a written rationale for this. It is important to note that the DfE is not encouraging potential employers to search candidates’ social media presence; you should not be looking at Facebook, Instagram, etc., as this could introduce bias into the recruitment process and result in recruiters discriminating against candidates.
However you decide to carry out the online searches - be it in house or through a third party provider - we need to highlight any information found which may make the applicant unsuitable to work with children. This information should be given to the interview panel so that it can be discussed with the applicant it interview (taking into account DBS filtering rules).
References are another undervalued area of recruitment. In the commercial sector, they are frequently regarded as one of the post-interview checks made after a decision about who is to be offered the post has been taken. There is an assumption that references are unlikely to reveal any information that will help the selection process or anything that is detrimental to the applicant.
This can be the case if references are only used to confirm details of a person’s present or previous job, or to obtain general testimonials about the person’s character. However, this is poor practice where individuals are seeking work with children. Research shows that how a person has behaved in the past is one of the most reliable indicators of how they will behave in the future.
Have a safer recruitment section on your interview notes and ensure the following are included:
We all get absorbed in the actual interview and quite rightly so as we must ensure all applicants are appropriately assessed. Often it is at the detriment of our safer recruitment obligations. We repeatedly overlook asking or refer to the above questions as our interview notes omit the prompts.
Just by simply adding the above checklist to our interview notes, we reduce the risk of missing vital information to help support our recruitment decisions.