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Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of ...

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Outreach<strong>in</strong>g to Immigrant Communities1 The Defence Forces have made a number <strong>of</strong> changes to <strong>the</strong>irrecruitment procedures <strong>in</strong> order to attract more applicants fromimmigrant communities. These have <strong>in</strong>cluded chang<strong>in</strong>g educationalcriteria <strong>and</strong> citizenship criteria for recruitment to <strong>the</strong> Cadets.Most recently <strong>the</strong>y have addressed <strong>the</strong> issue <strong>of</strong> direct outreach toimmigrant communities. The Equality <strong>and</strong> Diversity Officer <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>Defence Forces has undertaken a series <strong>of</strong> consultations with peerled immigrant groups.2 Follow<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> decision <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Department <strong>of</strong> Justice to remove <strong>the</strong>Irish Language requirement for <strong>the</strong> Garda Tra<strong>in</strong>ee role a number<strong>of</strong> <strong>in</strong>itiatives were <strong>in</strong>troduced to encourage people from ethnicm<strong>in</strong>orities to consider a career <strong>in</strong> An Garda Síochána. As well astargeted advertis<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>the</strong> NCCRI organised an <strong>in</strong>formation sem<strong>in</strong>ar,<strong>the</strong> Gardai organised open days at Templemore <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> NCCRI<strong>in</strong> conjunction with <strong>the</strong> PAS organised a brief<strong>in</strong>g session on <strong>the</strong>selection process. As a result <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se <strong>in</strong>itiatives, a significantnumber <strong>of</strong> c<strong>and</strong>idates from m<strong>in</strong>ority ethnic groups applied for <strong>the</strong>post <strong>of</strong> Garda Tra<strong>in</strong>ee, <strong>and</strong> a number have now graduated <strong>and</strong> areserv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> force.3.2.4 Application, Prelim<strong>in</strong>ary Screen<strong>in</strong>g & Shortlist<strong>in</strong>gThere was aga<strong>in</strong> a considerable degree <strong>of</strong> st<strong>and</strong>ardization across largeorganisations consulted with <strong>in</strong> both <strong>the</strong> public <strong>and</strong> private sectors with regardto <strong>the</strong> application process. The most common approach used was to require <strong>the</strong>c<strong>and</strong>idate to complete an application form, sometimes accompanied by a CV.Among those surveyed, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g large <strong>and</strong> small companies, 96 per cent requiredCVs while 31 per cent used application forms. Frequently, <strong>the</strong> application form canbe completed <strong>and</strong> submitted on-l<strong>in</strong>e, <strong>and</strong> guidel<strong>in</strong>es are <strong>of</strong>ten provided to giveassistance to applicants <strong>in</strong> do<strong>in</strong>g this. Most organisations consulted with weresatisfied that <strong>the</strong> application forms per se did not <strong>in</strong>clude anyth<strong>in</strong>g that couldprejudice applications from immigrants: for example, <strong>in</strong> most cases <strong>the</strong> forms donot require <strong>in</strong>formation on nationality. A small number <strong>of</strong> surveyed employers<strong>in</strong>dicated that <strong>the</strong>y had made some changes to application forms when <strong>the</strong>ybecame aware that some questions caused problems for immigrant applicants.53

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