Case Study – Safeguarding in Recruitment for Children and Vulnerable People Services

In 2023, safeguarding in recruitment for children and vulnerable people services remains a critical challenge for organisations. When recruiting for posts working with this group the interviewing and selection process is critical. This case study explores how a group of key managers addressed safeguarding concerns during the recruitment process by incorporating behavioural interviewing and online safeguarding questioning.

A charitable organisation, focused on providing services for vulnerable young people and adults, recognised the critical importance of safeguarding during their recruitment processes. To enhance their approach and address potential vulnerabilities in their selection process, Metis HR was commissioned to undertake a review of their existing use of behavioural interviews in the recruitment process.

Challenges Identified:

During the review, several challenges came to light regarding the behavioural interviewing. Existing practise using behavioural interviews showed that:

• They were carried out on two or three preferred candidates following the completion of a ‘traditional’ interview and assessments. Depending on how many candidates are taken through and how long the interview lasts, this could create an additional 2 – 24 hours of management time.
• They were conducted by 2 managers using 6 sets of questions. Some of the questions were very similar. They offered the potential to reduce the questions being asked and shorten the interviews.
• It was common that they took between one and two hours for each candidate. The number of people trained to carry out behavioural interviewing had dwindled. This placed a considerable time burden on those remaining.
• There had been no safeguarding allegations made against staff during the period behavioural interviewing was carried out.
• Behavioural interviewing needs to be somehow incorporated into the selection process. It offers the potential of only inviting potentially ‘safe’ candidates for traditional interview.

Key Learning Points:

• Behavioural interviewing is key for the organisation. However, preferably in a more streamlined format.
• That an ‘on-line’ approach to initial selection of candidates incorporated elements of behavioural interviewing. This helps sift out unsuitable candidates before conducting traditional interviewing and assessments.
• The value of behavioural interviewing is in narrative responses to questions posed. It does not lend itself to multiple choice type responses.

Approach and Outcomes:

To address the identified challenges and achieve the objectives, the organisation took the following steps to:

1. Redesign Behavioural Interviews: The management team collaborated to redesign behavioural interviews, aiming to create a more streamlined process with a reduced number of questions sets.
2. Introduce Online Safeguarding Questioning: To enhance initial candidate screening, the organisation integrated online behavioural questioning into the application process. This allowed for more effective assessment of candidate responses and early identification of potential concerns.
3. Emphasise Safer Recruitment Techniques: By incorporating online safeguarding questioning alongside the more in depth behavioural interviews, the organisation increased the application of safer recruitment practices to all candidates.

Lasting Benefits:

Clients using on-line behavioural questioning can expect to demonstrably increase the safeguarding checks within the recruitment and selection processes.  This increases the calibre of the candidates you invite to attend formal interview reducing the time and associated costs of behavioural interviewing over manual methods.

Metis HR Ltd is an outsourced HR company based in the North West of England. It offers Consultancy Services to clients nationally. Call us now on 01706 565332 or contact us to discuss how Metis HR Ltd can help you improve safeguarding in recruitment for children and vulnerable people services.