Session 35 Lightning talk: Inclusive recruitment in the Library Engagement Team

Abstract

Session overview:

We will discuss what steps the Library Engagement Team have taken to develop our interview and testing processes to make our recruitment practice more inclusive.

We have seen a consistent increase in applicants disclosing disabilities and with it a surge in requests to gain sight of interview questions in advance as part of a reasonable adjustment.

We explored the benefits and potential issues of providing this information ahead of time and researched practice elsewhere in the HE environment and beyond. This prompted deeper reflection on our wider practice and a number of conventions we adopt as part of the interview process.

The high-pressured and unfamiliar environment of an interview setting can be particularly intimidating to underrepresented groups, therefore our initial aim was to ensure we removed as many barriers as possible and alleviated the stress and anxiety interviews can cause.

We concluded that this fundamental change in practice would be beneficial to all candidates, not just those disclosing a disability and actively requesting a preview of the questions. Through using the institution’s guidelines, we determined to provide sight of the questions and a clear overview in advance to all applicants, we adjusted our approach to create more discussion-based interviews, we framed our questions as discussion points rather than interrogatives and we ultimately evolved our own practice during the interview process.

We will discuss feedback from applicants and panel members, and how it has become embedded into the Library Engagement Team’s recruitment practice.

Key learning points from this session:

The session will look at how the Library Engagement Team have developed our recruitment practices to make the interview process more inclusive. We will discuss how we have developed our methods, how we plan to evolve these further, and how the practice could be adopted elsewhere in the institution.

Inclusive recruitment in the Library Engagement Team PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource.