Young People Involved in interviews and recruitment
Planning for interviews
Consideration needs to be given to the venue for the interviews – to ensure it is not a venue that the young people may associate with previous negative times in their life. Also, consider which young people would be appropriate – do any of them know any of the applicants from previously having them as a worker? If so, how might this impact on both the interviewer and the applicant?
Preparation for interviews
Young people need to have some preparation. As a minimum this should be to attend one preparation session. This should include:
- What is expected from the young person
- What information will be shared
- The job description explained
- The skills, knowledge and experience expected of the candidate
- Preparation of questions. The questions need to be fully understood and the response that the young people would like should also be written for each question.
- The scoring system which is going to be used –This needs to be a system which is easily used by young people
As part of this preparation, the young people should meet with the chair of the interview process, to discuss how their input will affect on the overall decision. It is useful to remind the young people that their opinion is very important, but it is only part of the decision-making process.
It is important to seek the young people’s opinions in a meaningful way.There are a variety of ways in which young people can be involved in the process (you might want to think about their role in terms of the ‘Ladder of Participation’) – do they just meet the candidates but do not have a say in the decision, help write the job description, is there an adult panel and young persons panel, is there one panel of which young people are part, do young people lead in developing the whole process?
It is also important for the adult panel to retain the overall decision-making control, as it is the workers who will be held to account, if anything goes wrong after appointment. One way of managing this aspect of the interviews is to allocate the young people’s panel 25% of the overall score for each candidate, with each of the adult interview panel also having 25% of the score. i.e. the young people collectively contribute to one quarter of each candidate’s overall score.
It is appropriate to provide young people with some form of remuneration for this preparation work and the interview.
Interview day
The worker who is supporting the young people needs to organise appropriate refreshments and snacks for the young people.
Ask young people to arrive half an hour before interview. This is an opportunity to remind young people about the process, interview questions and information about the candidates. Young people can practice, with help of worker, until they feel confident with the routine and questions.
Young people can score each question – element of the interview and make notes of any relevant comments. Once both the process is finished, the young people’s panel will meet with the adult panel and discuss the candidates. Scores will then be added and given to the adult panel, with any other notes made in interview.
It is important that young people can get feedback both about who is appointed (and possibly support in the induction process) and about how they the young people have performed.
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