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Hiring staff

This section will guide you through the recruitment process, from advertising a position, selecting and interviewing applicants to making a job offer. After making an offer, this section will help you to understand what internal systems and procedures your business must put in place before onboarding any Anybody who works for a business, whether as an employee, casual worker, apprentice, agency worker or freelancer., including setting up personnel systems.

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Using a recruitment agency to find staff

  1. 1.When should I consider using a recruitment agency to find new staff for my business?
  2. 2.What do I need to know about sharing information about prospective candidates with a recruitment agency?
  3. 3.What should I look out for in the terms and conditions of a recruitment agency?
  4. 4.What do I need to know about a recruitment agency's fee structure?
  5. 5.What counts as an introduction by a recruitment agency?
  6. 6.How do I make sure a recruitment agency keeps by business's information confidential?

Advertising a job

  1. 7.What do I need to think about before I advertise a job?
  2. 8.Do I need to carry out a data protection impact assessment before I start my recruitment process?
  3. 9.Do I need to provide job applicants with a privacy notice?
  4. 10.What should my job advert contain?
  5. 11.How do I write a job description for a role?
  6. 12.How do I write a person specification for a role?
  7. 13.How do I ensure that I avoid discrimination in my job description or person specification?
  8. 14.Should I create a standard job application form?
  9. 15.What should my job application form contain?
  10. 16.Can I ask a candidate to provide information about past criminal convictions when they apply for a job?
  11. 17.Can I ask a candidate to provide information about their health when they apply for a job?
  12. 18.Can I ask a candidate to give me information about their health or disability if it will be relevant to their suitability for the job?
  13. 19.Do I have to monitor equality and diversity during my recruitment process?
  14. 20.What goes in my equality and diversity monitoring form?
  15. 21.Do I have any data protection obligations when using an equality and diversity monitoring form?
  16. 22.What are the risks if I discriminate in my job advert?
  17. 23.How should I advertise a job?
  18. 24.What must I think about when advertising a job internally within my business?

Selecting and interviewing job applicants

  1. 25.How do I choose the right person for the job?
  2. 26.How should I decide which job applicants to shortlist?
  3. 27.Can I use automated means or profiling (automated decision-making) as part of my recruitment process?
  4. 28.In what circumstances can I use automated decision-making alone to make a recruitment decision?
  5. 29.How should I conduct job interviews?
  6. 30.Can I ask whether a candidate plans to have children during an interview?
  7. 31.Can I take a protected characteristic, such as disability or gender, into account if it affects the candidate's ability to do the job?
  8. 32.Can I use positive discrimination with job applicants to boost diversity in my business?
  9. 33.How should I carry out other practical assessments of job applicants?
  10. 34.Can I ask candidates to carry out unpaid tasks to test them during the recruitment process?
  11. 35.Do I have to give feedback to rejected job applicants?
  12. 36.What records about candidates should I keep from my recruitment process?
  13. 37.How long can I keep recruitment records for?
  14. 38.Can I keep details about unsuccessful candidates so that I can contact them about future vacancies?

Making a job offer and negotiating terms

  1. 39.How do I make a job offer?
  2. 40.What should a job offer letter contain?
  3. 41.Can I make my job offer conditional on receiving satisfactory references or background checks?
  4. 42.What should I do if an applicant wants to negotiate on a job offer?
  5. 43.How do I make sure I am offering equal pay between comparable male and female staff?
  6. 44.Can I offer new applicants more money or benefits than existing staff who do similar jobs?
  7. 45.Can I withdraw a job offer?
  8. 46.How do I withdraw a job offer?

Background checks on job applicants

  1. 47.What checks should I carry out before hiring a job applicant?
  2. 48.Do I need to check whether a job applicant has a right to work in the UK?
  3. 49.At what point should I carry out a right to work check?
  4. 50.What if I find that the applicant does not have a right to work in the UK or only has it for a limited time?
  5. 51.How do I check a job applicant has a right to work in the UK?
  6. 52.How do I do a right to work check online?
  7. 53.How do I do a manual right to work check?
  8. 54.How does Brexit affect right to work checks?
  9. 55.Am I allowed to check whether an applicant has a criminal record?
  10. 56.How do I check whether a job applicant has a criminal record?
  11. 57.What data protection obligations do I have when handling criminal records data?
  12. 58.How do I check a job applicant's references?
  13. 59.At what point should I check a job applicant's references?
  14. 60.Can a job applicant ask to see the reference I have received about them?
  15. 61.How do I check that a job applicant has the qualifications they claim to have?
  16. 62.Can I make a job offer conditional upon the applicant undergoing health checks?
  17. 63.What data protection obligations do I have when carrying out health checks?
  18. 64.How do I go about arranging a health check for a job applicant?
  19. 65.What process must I follow to obtain a medical report from an applicant's current or former medical practitioner?
  20. 66.What process must I follow to obtain a medical report from a medical practitioner unknown to the applicant (eg a company doctor)?
  21. 67.Can I withdraw a job offer if the results of a medical check show they have a disability or long-term health condition?
  22. 68.Can I carry out credit checks on job applicants?
  23. 69.How can I be sure a job applicant is not subject to any restrictions from their previous employment?
  24. 70.Can I be held responsible if a job applicant is subject to restrictions from their previous employment and I hire them anyway?
  25. 71.Can I check a job applicant's social media or online profiles during the recruitment process?

Setting up personnel systems

  1. 72.What do I need to do before I hire my first staff?
  2. 73.How do I register as an employer with HMRC?
  3. 74.Who should be responsible for HR issues in my business?
  4. 75.Does the person dealing with HR in my business need any training?
  5. 76.What personnel systems do I need to set up before I employ staff?
  6. 77.What records about my staff will I need to keep?

Health and safety and data protection obligations for employers

  1. 78.What health and safety matters do I need to consider before taking on my first staff?
  2. 79.What do I need to know about data protection before I take on any new staff?

Hiring staff after Brexit

  1. 80.Does Brexit affect the rights that staff members are entitled to?
  2. 81.How does Brexit affect my existing staff members from EU countries?
  3. 82.Does Brexit affect my ability to hire staff members from EU countries?

Letter to a job applicant's current or former medical practitioner requesting a medical report

If you are carrying out health checks as part of a recruitment exercise, this letter can be used to request a medical report from a job applicant's current or former medical practitioner. It should be used where you have made a job offer conditional on you obtaining a satisfactory medical report about the applicant. Prior to sending this letter, you must obtain the job applicant's consent to you obtaining a medical report from their doctor, and provide them with certain information about their rights. You can use Letter to job applicant requesting consent to medical report to do this . If the job applicant informed you that they wanted to have access to the report before it is given to you, then this letter will help you to notify the doctor of this. You must also let the applicant know that you have written to the medical practitioner at the same time as you send this letter. You can use Letter to a job applicant confirming medical report has been requested to do this.
£20 + VAT

Job description

Use this template job description to set out your requirements when you are looking to recruit a staff member into your business. It will help ensure you are clear about what you’re looking for in candidates, and maximise the likelihood of attracting individuals with the right skills and experience for the job. You need to take care when writing a job description, to make sure it’s accurate and to avoid any discriminatory elements. The template has guidance notes to help you with this.
£10 + VAT
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