Recruitment: a step-by-step guide

Throughout the recruitment process you should be mindful of equality and diversity considerations.

1. Prepare your vacancy

a) Review your requirements
Is recruiting the best solution to your needs?

b) Finalise your job description
Having an accurate job description and person specification is important. Start thinking about the assessment methods needed to test for these criteria.

c) Establish the grade for the job

  • ART vacancies: identify the appropriate HERA role
  • New or changed support vacancies: allow time for a role evaluation
  • Unchanged support vacancies: you just need to tell us who is being replaced

d) Get authorisation to recruit
The vacancy must be approved against your department's plans and budgets. Approval takes the form of a signed-off vacancy request form [docx].

e) Prepare your advert
You need to write an advert and assemble a candidate brief

2. Get your recruitment underway

a) Email your completed VRF to HR Services
Send it with the advert and candidate brief to hr-enquiries@york.ac.uk.

b) HR Services will contact you to discuss your recruitment
Agree where to advertise and your timescales. They will ask you to provide details of your selection panel.

c) The job is circulated to those on the redeployment register
Before advertisement there is a five day period when staff at risk of redundancy can apply for the role.

d) We advertise the job
If there are no suitable applications from the redeployment register, we advertise the job as agreed and on our jobs site using e-Recruiter, our online recruitment system.

e) Candidates apply up to the closing date
When your job closes we'll send you a reminder of how to log into e-Recruiter and view applications.

3. The selection process

a) Shortlist your interview candidates
Shortlist methodically against the criteria in the candidate brief

b) Tell HR Services who will be interviewed

c) We invite the candidates to interview
If it’s an ART post we’ll also request their references. You need to make the local arrangements - room bookings, for example. We also reject the unsuccesful applicants.

d) Interview day - assess your candidates
After you have interviewed (and perhaps used other assessment methods) your panel will decide who to appoint.

4. Making the appointment

a) Make a verbal offer
Once you've chosen your preferred candidate, ring them to make a job offer and probably agree a start date.

b) Tell us who you’ve offered the post to
Send us an offer of appointment form. Be sure to also send us all your interview notes and an interview summary form.

c) We send a written offer to the candidate
We will also begin to working to make sure the conditions of appointment are met. We will also reject the unsuccessful candidates, unless you want them as reserves

d) After the appointment: planning ahead
Once you have made an appointment you need to start planning for your new employee's arrival.

For assistance contact HR Services at hr-enquiries@york.ac.uk or on extension 4835.

Professorial and senior management appointments

Guidance on the procedure for making senior appointments can be found on the HoDs gateway.

Recruitment and selection training

A training course is available to all staff involved in the recruitment and selection of staff.