Commitments
Candidates Matter uses its ethical framework to allow users to make ethical commitments which are actionable, measurable and help both parties build trust early on in a transaction or relationship.
The commitments demonstrate how you can expect a person or business to behave in certain situations (in our case, the recruitment process). Take a look at the commitments our members are making and join them today in showing how your ethical approach to business can be celebrated and demonstrated in a real, tangible and practical way.
Candidate Commitments
1 / Only apply for roles you where you meet the criteria
If you do not meet the criteria, do not apply. If you are applying to a Candidates Matter employer or recruiter, they have committed to only asking for what they really need. If you don't meet it, don't apply. However, some Candidates Matter employers and recruiters will have an option to apply if you 'nearly meet' the criteria via a separate process. You commit not to game or abuse this system. This allows you to express an interest in a role that you don't quite meet (for example, you have 5 years experience when 10 is asked for). But if you have no experience in data architecture, don't apply if the role is for a data architect for example.
2 / Realistic salary expectations
If a Candidates Matter employer or recruiter puts up a salary range which is below what you are looking for, do not apply unless the advert expresses that the upper limits may be negotiable for the right candidate. But be realistic. If the salary range is £40k to £50K then don't apply if you are expecting £90K.
3 / Honesty
Be honest. Honest on your CV, honest in interview, honest about your salary expectations, honest about any accessibility needs, honest about any personal circumstances that may impact the employment. Commit to being upfront and honest.
4 / No fishing trips
If you apply for a role, it is because you are serious about taking it and that means serious about leaving your current employer. This is important. You commit to not using recruitment processes as evidence for salary increases at your current role. This is a surprisingly common position where a candidate is chosen for a new role only to turn it down because they have accepted the negotiated pay increase to stay put. Do not use Candidates Matter employers or recruiters for 'market testing'.
5 / Notice periods
Commit to being realistic about notice periods. If you have a 3 month notice period, say so. Do not pretend to have shorter notice periods than you have. If you have genuine evidence that your notice period can be shortened (you have discussed already with your current employer) then it is reasonable to say so (but do not guarantee it as it is out of your control).
Employer and Recruiter Commitments
1 / Clear, open and honest job adverts.
You want the best people, we know that, but do not dress up the role to be something more than it is. Remember, if you are not open about the role, how can you expect the candidates to be open about themselves? This cycle of escalating deceit to overcome progressively poorer behaviours on both sides is a race to the bottom.
2 / Realistic salary expectations
Publish the salary range. Virtually nothing causes frustration from candidates more than not being able to determine what a role could pay. The result is simply that you will be inundated with CVs whose candidates would not otherwise apply if they knew the salary range. Everyone knows why this poor practice is done. Nobody likes it and it is not clear that it even creates the results the proponents claim. This is a key commitment.
3 / The role is genuine
You commit to not running recruitment processes for the sake of internal protocols and rules about fair and open competition. If you have a person you want to hire, do not pull large numbers of candidates through a process where there was no hope of success just to be seen to be running a recruitment competition.
4 / No fishing trips
You commit to only advertising real roles which will be recruited as advertised if the right candidate is found. No fishing trips to gather CVs for your database or potential future roles to test the market and gather potential candidates for the future.
5 / Realism in the job criteria
Probably the second biggest complaint in recruitment is the unrealistic criteria. We have all witnessed the advert, must have 25 years experience in XYZ, must be able to lead teams of 10,000, must be able to speak 3 languages fluently, must have 2 degrees and a PHD, must be able to start tomorrow, pays minimum wage.
You commit to (and stick to the spirit, not the words),
Minimise the essential criteria. Realise qualifications are not always the answer (in many fields) and experience counts for a lot.
Be realistic in what you are asking for. Do not over ask and do not spread the net too wide. The candidate should be able to look at the role description and decide accurately whether they could do the role.
Be realistic about any real red lines. In so many cases we have spoken to employers who have long lists of 'essential' criteria only to find most are actually desirable. Make explicit - do not apply if ....
6 / Recruitment is not free consultancy
You commit to not treating candidates as free consultancy. Report after report is made about organisations who simply ask candidates to present solutions to their problems. While this is tempting, it leaves a very bitter taste in the candidate's mouth and damages your reputation. Only use entirely hypothetical scenarios (do not game this) if you want your candidates to do some work on something.
7 / Commit to a 2 lane process
We can guarantee your organisation is missing out on some great candidates. Internally, your client will look to develop its existing employees who are ready to step up to the next level. But in recruitment, it is pretty much the case that if you have not done the role before at that level, you will not get this one. Generally this happens because of over asks on essential criteria. You miss out on all the candidates screened out as they don't currently fit the essential criteria. As a result, you get way more CVs from people who feel they are ready for a step up but maybe not have the experience you require in essential criteria. They are then generally filtered out in an automated process.
Your commitment is to run an explicit 2 lane process and be explicit to the candidates who apply.
Lane 1 - apply for the role stating you meet the essential criteria.
Lane 2 - apply for the role under lane 2 stating you do not meet the essential criteria but could step up to do the role in question.
You will achieve 2 things from this commitment. The first is pre-sorted candidates, secondly, avoid the automatic rejection of the lane 2 candidates.
Lane 2 candidates may provide a better outcome. More grateful employee for getting the chance (showing you believe in them) and a reduced set of CVs which will be easier to manage.
8 / Speak to all applicants
This is perhaps the key commitment of all of your commitments. The dehumanisation of the process through automation. There are so many tales of people whose CVs were rejected but managed to badger their way through to actually meet or speak to someone only to find they were the perfect match.
CVs are notoriously difficult to assess. They only talk really of experience. They do not say anything about the person, their intelligence or wisdom, their cultural fit with your organisation, their work ethic, their dedication to their employers, their new ideas, their approach to problem solving.
And yet, those experienced in interviewing (and in may cases novices) can quite easily draw some conclusions in the first 5 minutes of an interview.
The commitment you will make is to speak to all Candidates Matter applicants as a minimum. This will be at least a 5 minute conversation with the decision maker prior to any decision to exclude from the process. This need not be an interview, but a simple conversation to talk to the candidate about the role or themselves.
Yes, we accept this is a huge commitment but Candidates Matter is about putting people first. You will be surprised how positive the experience is for both sides.
9 / Applicants Data
Do you know how invasive it feels for candidates when they apply for a job and not only have to provide the CV (an acceptable necessity) but complete what seems endless personal questions about religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity and so on. This, often before a CV can even be sent (or during the application process). This is a deeply disturbing trend. The GDPR regulations are clear about need. Why such extensive information is needed before even deciding whether a candidate is suitable for interview? Furthermore, how can candidates be sure their application is not subject to positive or negative discrimination? Such information is not necessary for the decisions required and debatable whether such information is required until later stages.
Finally, the candidates rejected face the prospects that large numbers of organisations have gathered personal information and not know how to get it removed or what will be done with it in practice.
Under this commitment, you agree not to gather such personal information until such a time that it is demonstrably necessary (and necessity does not include a need for analysis on your performance against diversity targets for applicants.
The second part is the commitment to automatically delete all candidate data should the candidate be rejected at any stage of the process. The only exception to this should be where the rejected candidate is explicitly asked if they would like to keep their data with that employee for future roles and the candidate explicitly states this is acceptable. This should not be a tick box on a form, this must be an explicit question and explicit answer.
10 / Notice periods
Notice periods are a tricky to navigate. At Candidates Matter we require all member candidates to be completely honest about notice periods. We ask the same commitment from you.
The setting of unrealistic notice periods causes a cycle of issues. Where you ask for someone to start in 1 month only to find your recruitment process takes 2 months and all the candidates on 2 months notice fail to apply. Be realistic about notice periods. State what you will actually accept and be ethical. You expect your employees to give you reasonable notice periods, expect other employers to do the same. Forcing candidates into artificially low start times generates deceit to try and get a job (not be honest about notice periods in reality).
Your commitment here is key. While it is clear many roles are needed with some urgency, tread carefully.
11 / Applicant feedback
Most candidates have shown a desire and a commitment to your business/organisation through applying to your job advert. They are often committing to travel expense, time and effort to do what they can to be successful. Sadly, only one candidate can get the role and therefore many will be unsuccessful.
You commit to providing a detailed feedback on why a candidate did not succeed, ideally verbally in a feedback session. Humanise the process. Even 5 minutes will build respect for your business and this will be noted and your reputation improved. Feedback enables an unsuccessful candidate to grow, to learn and the investment in your process would then be repaid in improving their chances next time.
12 / No reverse sales
This commitment is specific to recruitment agencies and organisations (not direct employers).
You commit to not participating in reverse sales type practices. This comes in two forms. The first is to engage with candidates and, after rejecting them, offer services (paid) to improve their chances of success, rewrite their CV etc. This is now quite widespread and is a clear conflict of interest with some engagements reported as fake (fake job adverts) just to attract CVs for upsell of services. The second is the intelligence gathering. The requests of candidates about who their last employer was, details of the role and contact details. The recruiter then approaches the previous employer to attempt to recruit a replacement. Again, this is a conflict of interest (and can lead to informing a current employer of an employees intent to leave).