You must shortlist candidates as part of your recruitment process based on the person being best suited to the position. See Section 45 of the Public Sector Act 2022.
You must assess your candidates on ability, aptitude, skills, qualifications, knowledge, experience and personal qualities as relevant to the role. You must also consider any previous employment and the candidate’s potential to develop.
Assessing merit
Use a variety of assessments relevant to the role as part of your selection process to help you shortlist your candidates fairly and equally. Do not select a candidate based on 1 assessment (i.e. written application). Do not reject a candidate based on 1 performance in the assessment process (e.g. performed badly in the structured interview).
Weightings
Before you start shortlisting, apply weightings to your key capabilities (selection criteria) in order of importance. You cannot change these weightings once you start shortlisting. In the interest of transparency, you should inform your candidates of these weightings.
Ratings
Consider using a rating scale to assess your candidates’ performance against your key capabilities. Define this before you start shortlisting and do not change your rating scale while you’re shortlisting.
If you use a rating scale, you and your panel members need to explain each rating given and offer supporting evidence gathered during the selection process. Include this as part of your selection report.
Do not rate referee reports.
Benchmarking
Before you start shortlisting, decide what information you’d like from a candidate or what demonstrated behaviours you’d like to see. This is called benchmarking. Develop this for each key capability. Use this to help you identify preferred candidates. Do not use it to eliminate candidates (because they didn't use a key word or statements).