When it comes to recruitment and interviewing internal candidates for a job, it can sometimes be difficult to get an interview panel which has the right experience / knowledge but who do not know any of the candidates. This can at times cause an issue.

We have been involved in many interviews as the HR representative. There are occasions where one of the candidates is known to one of the panel members. On one such occasion, the candidate did not perform well in the interview, failing to answer several of the questions clearly / correctly. When it came to the deliberations on who the successful candidate should be, one panel member started to speak about how the candidate she knew was so much better than they had shown in the interview and started to give reasons why. However, be careful. Such an approach causes an unfair advantage – how did the panel member know that the other candidates were also not better than they had shown in the interview? Basically she didn’t.

The recruitment process had been defined to provide the most effective and fair way of getting the right person for the job, in this case the interview was a part of that process. As such, interview panels must remember this, remain objective and not let personal feelings cloud the outcome. Failure to do this may lead to a claim / employment tribunal from another of the candidates!

If you would like to discuss any aspect of this HR article in more detail, please contact our HR consultants at info@connectivebusiness.co.uk