Plan the process
Plan your recruitment process before you start:
- Schedule the time you will need to read applications, conduct interviews, and run any other assessment process.
- Decide your application assessment method/s.
- Decide who to involve, what they will do and when they need to do it.
By planning these steps early, you will be ready to start as soon as you receive applications and avoid unnecessary delays in getting new workers on board.
Assessment approach
The assessment approach you select will depend on the kind and number of positions you need to fill, their responsibilities, the capabilities they need and available resources. It isn’t possible to assess all capabilities in a recruitment exercise without making it too long and too complex for both the candidate and the assessor. When designing your recruitment activities, a first step is to consider which of the capabilities from the NDIS Workforce Capability Framework, and any other requirements for the role, are your priorities for assessment. This will help you select the best approach and assessment methods.
There are two broad options for structuring an effective assessment approach. You can either assess applicants one at a time or in groups.
Regardless of which these options you choose, using more than one assessment method is likely to improve the reliability of your selection decision. An interview alone is not a strong predictor of candidate success in any role. It is especially limited when selecting people for roles that depend on communication and interaction as well as applied skills.
The drop down headings below describe the individual and group assessment approaches and the pros and cons of using each.
This is the most common approach when choosing between a small number of applicants. It normally involves shortlisting applications based on agreed criteria, interviewing each candidate in turn and asking them to complete one or more other assessment activities (described in the next section on selecting assessment methods) and conducting referee checks.
This approach can be easier to organise and is a familiar process for many candidates. The main limitations are that it can be time-consuming and interviews may need to be scheduled over a long time period; it is not the most effective way to assess how applicants communicate and interact in an authentic situation; and, when interviewing multiple applicants over a length of time, it can be difficult to accurately compare candidates.
How to get organised:
- Decide on your assessment criteria: Which capabilities or other requirements are most important for this position? Use this to decide on your criteria for shortlisting applications. Refer to the shortlisting section for further information.
- Select assessment methods to match your priorities: refer to the section on assessment methods for information on options.
- Choose your panel: Having more than one person assess your candidate(s) allows you to obtain different viewpoints on an applicant. It is always good practice to include panel members with lived experience, and you may also choose to include people with HR knowledge, management experience and/or expertise in the role you are looking to fill.
- Decide on interview questions and who will lead them: Other assessors can prompt for further information.
- Prepare for other assessment activities selected.
Group assessments (also known as assessment centres) offer well-established benefits in terms of cost efficiency (all candidates are assessed at the same time) and better outcomes in terms of ‘fit’ and lower turnover. They typically involve inviting groups of shortlisted applicants to attend a session over a half or full day to undertake a range of individual and group activities, observed by several assessors.
Assessment centres are a good option when you have many applicants. Group processes are well suited to assessing capabilities such as collaboration, leadership and communication. Other advantages are that they are often more objective as a result of having several assessors observing different activities (see assessment methods for information on activities) and can be more time efficient as multiple applicants can be assessed at a time. The moderated scoring used for assessment centres gives appropriate weighting to the outcome of each activity.
Typically this option is used by larger organisations. However, if you are a smaller organisation, have limited HR capability or resource constraints, you could consider pooling resources with one or more other organisations to run a group recruitment process. If you do this, make sure you have clear agreement on the process you will use to allocate suitable applicants to the different participating organisations.
To plan and manage an effective group assessment process you will need input from an experienced HR practitioner.
How to get organised:
- Decide on your assessment criteria: Which capabilities or other requirements are most important for this position? Use this to decide on your criteria for shortlisting applications. You can download shortlisting scorecard template from the provider resources online for a guide to the information to include.
- Select assessment methods to match your priorities: refer to the section on assessment methods for information on options.
- Choose your assessors: The number of assessors you need will depend on the number of candidates and number of separate assessment methods you are using. As a guide, there should be at least 2 assessors to observe each method. It is always good practice to include members with lived experience, and you may also choose to include people with HR knowledge, management experience and/or expertise in the role you are looking to fill.
- Prepare for assessment activities: This will depend on the activities you choose, for example, you may need to prepare case studies, role plays etc
Continue to the next stage of the process: