Last reviewed: 22 June 2022
- Traditional interviews are not always the best opportunity for candidates – including disabled candidates – to demonstrate their ability to do the job.
- There are many alternatives that could give you a better impression of what candidates can do – such as practical assignments, working interviews and job trials.
- You don’t have to use alternatives for all candidates – some methods will work better for some candidates, and sometimes treating people fairly means treating people differently.
Why consider alternatives to assessments and interviews?
Interviews and assessments are popular ways of assessing the capabilities of a candidate and their suitability for a role. In many cases they are good ways of doing this – however, for some disabled candidates, traditional interviews and assessments do not give them a fair opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.
Think about it – is it more useful for a candidate to tell you about what they can do, or for them to show you? Business Disability Forum CEO Diane Lightfoot explains why she is encouraging employers to focus on recruitment practices that ‘show, not tell’ what candidates can do – read her ‘#ShowNotTell’ blog for more information.
Some candidates’ disabilities may mean that interviews are not the best forum for them to showcase their abilities, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be perfect for the role. These candidates are valuable sources of talent that you wouldn’t want to miss. Alternatives to testing and assessments will allow you to find the candidate who is genuinely the best for the role, regardless of disability.
Employers also have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to tests and assessments, and this can include doing things in a different way. It could be discriminatory not to consider alternatives to interviews and assessments for some disabled candidates.
What alternatives are there?
What alternatives are possible will depend on the nature of the role and the competencies you are seeking to assess.
You could:
- Practical assignment – ask the candidate to complete a practical assignment that is more similar to the task they will actually be performing in the role.
- Working interview – this is like a mixture of an assignment and an interview. You give the candidate a task to complete, possibly with the team, and ask them questions as they work.
- Informal tour of the office – This could allow you to show the candidate the workplace and the people they’d work with in the position, and ask them questions in a more informal setting. This can be useful for candidates who don’t perform well in the formality and pressure of a traditional interview.
Contact our Advice Service for tailored guidance about what alternatives you can consider.
Job trials and internships
Instead of job interviews and assessments, some disabled candidates may be better able to show you their capability while working for you for a short time. You would pay a candidate or a number of candidates to perform the role for a time-limited period.
Job trials are shorter, typically one or two weeks, where they perform the role and you see how they would do. This could last for one or two weeks, giving the candidate some time to get acclimatised to the role and the team, giving a more accurate impression of how they would perform.
An internship is similar to a job trial, but on a longer basis – up to several weeks. Paying a number of potentially suitable candidates to work for you for a month or two will make it easier to compare how each performs.
How to use alternatives to assessments and interviews
Doing things differently for one candidate doesn’t mean you have to do the same for all candidates. Just as it wouldn’t always be fair to ask some disabled candidates to interview or be assessed in the same way as other candidates, it might also not be fair to interview and assess all candidates in an alternative way.
Adopt a flexible approach to the methods you use to interview and assess candidates. You are most likely to find the best candidate if you approach each one as an individual with their own unique ways of demonstrating their knowledge and capabilities.
That said, make sure that any alternatives you do use don’t give any candidate an unfair advantage others and still allow you to assess the competencies that you are looking for.
When advertising the role and inviting candidates to interview and assessments, let them know that you are open to alternative ways of doing things. Invite them to get in touch to talk about what alternatives are possible.
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