Recruitment Process Shady Shenanigans

Recruitment Process Shady Shenanigans

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sutoka

Original Poster:

4,702 posts

115 months

Saturday 3rd September 2022
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Won't name the organisation but little bit of a story of how not to do things. Relative works for an organisation they don't have an owner as such but decisions are supposed to be made on a majority basis by a board and committee members. A few years ago one of the ladies on the board decided to pipe up and suggest they recruited a new chief executive, on £30k a year ( Good luck finding anyone to become a CE for that wage)

So after years of deliberations and a pandemic they finally got around to the recruitment process.This is were it gets very shady and almost certainly breaches employment law.. The lady who suggested the CE job took over the recruitment process alone, she recreated a secret email address and encrypted folder for applications that only she had access to. She also told the other two experienced members of staff that they were under no circumstances to apply for the CE job or they'd be dismissed. However were told they are expected to train the new member to do the job.

The job was advertised in a single place for a week, and after a month three applicants were invited for interview. The same person created the questions and sat as head of the the interview panel. Just two hours later she decided who the successful applicant would be overruling most of the panel.

Now having done a bit of digging on behalf of a relative it would seem that they know each other very well, have been on the same boards together, on the PTA of the same school, used the same web design company for their now websites and promote and share the same campaigns even liking each others posts.

I'm sure there is one if not multiple breaches of recruitment process.

Edited by sutoka on Saturday 3rd September 01:26

Ouroboros

2,371 posts

46 months

Saturday 3rd September 2022
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What do you mean by breach of recruitment process? This sort of stuff happens all the time.

sutoka

Original Poster:

4,702 posts

115 months

Saturday 3rd September 2022
quotequote all
Ouroboros said:
What do you mean by breach of recruitment process? This sort of stuff happens all the time.
Well i'm sure threatening existing members of staff with the sack if they applied wouldn't go down well with a tribunal.

Ouroboros

2,371 posts

46 months

Saturday 3rd September 2022
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sutoka said:
Well i'm sure threatening existing members of staff with the sack if they applied wouldn't go down well with a tribunal.
Well they should raise a greivence then. When you say tribunal they would have to get sacked which I doubt many would just to raise a point.

Countdown

42,064 posts

203 months

Tuesday 6th September 2022
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No owners, management by Committee, and a CEO salary of £30k sounds like a Charity to me.

if that's the case then it's the Trustees that need to be alerted if dodgy goings-on are suspected. If it's the Trustees themselves that are the ones behaving in a dodgy manner then it's the Charity Commission that needs to be told. Anybody who's not happy could also let the main donors know what's going on.

MickC

1,041 posts

265 months

Tuesday 6th September 2022
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It depends completely on the type of organisation it is. If its privately owned and that individual is either the owner or the owner is happy with what they do, then they can do and appoint what/who they like (within reason, telling people it would be pointless to apply is ok although saying they'd be sacked if they apply might be pushing it a bit).

If it's a charity or public body of some sort, then there SHOULD be rules to stop just appointing your friends, but as someone else says that sort of thing goes on all the time, if the person in charge likes it that way and there's no-one above them to put it right, then they can do as they see fit. As above if the people already working there think they have been wronged they can raise a grievance - doubt it would go very far if the person doing the hiring is above them, and they'd have to have something concrete to complain about. 'They told me I'd be sacked for applying' would be met with 'I told them there was no point in them applying not that they'd be sacked' etc etc