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Report identifies inadequate focus on voluntary experience as bane of recruitment

By Yetnde Ebosele
29 July 2015   |   11:00 pm
THE United Kingdom-based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has blamed employers for not looking out for voluntary experience when carrying out recruitment exercise. According to the human resources experts, less than 16 per cent of employers ask about candidates volunteering on application forms and under 31per cent ask about it during interviews. CIPD…

THE United Kingdom-based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has blamed employers for not looking out for voluntary experience when carrying out recruitment exercise.

According to the human resources experts, less than 16 per cent of employers ask about candidates volunteering on application forms and under 31per cent ask about it during interviews.

CIPD explained that employers are missing out on candidates with valuable skills by failing to recognise “volunteering and social action experience during the recruitment process”

To tackle the challenge, CIPD advised employers to embed social action, which can include experience of volunteering, fundraising, and campaigning, into their recruitment practices in order to allow candidates the opportunity to talk about skills they have gained outside of education and traditional work experience.

This according to CIPD will provide employers with access to candidates with improved work and life skills, such as teamwork, communications, and leadership.

The report titled; ‘Unlock new talent: How can you integrate social action in recruitment?’ was published as a result of a recent survey from the CIPD, which found that 67per cent of employers report that entry-level candidates who have social action experience demonstrate more employability skills.

The top three skills cited by respondents were teamwork (82 per cent), communication (80 per cent) and understanding the local community (45 per cent).

However, despite this, CIPD explained that less than a fifth (16 per cent) of employers currently ask any questions about social action experience in their applications forms and only 31 per cent ask about it during interviews.

Integrating social action into the recruitment process, the report argues, allows employers to tap into a pool of talented individuals that otherwise might be overlooked, at the same time as demonstrating to young people that social action is worthwhile in terms of helping them to develop key skills that will be of value to employers.

The report provides practical tips on how social action can be embedded effectively into recruitment processes, based on best practice advice from eleven leading employers, including PwC, Barclays, British Gas and National Grid.

Chief Executive of the CIPD, Peter Cheese, said: “Historically, concern with social action, including volunteering, typically fitted within organisations’ corporate social responsibility agenda, and was often seen as a bridge between companies and the community.

“ However, we believe that there is a strong case for social action to be integrated more widely into organisations’ people development and resourcing strategies.

“A key challenge for recruiters is that candidates often fail to highlight their social action experience, unless given the opportunity to do so, as many still regard traditional work experience as being more important to employers.

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