Effective Recruitment - A Practical Guide to Staying Within the Law

The law is changing fast as pitfalls and penalties await the unprepared. The legal rules that apply to recruitment are drawn from virtually all areas of employment law. Sourcing the relevant law under each heading is difficult and time-consuming. This new edition pulls together all the relevant law relating to recruitment. Written by acknowledged experts, it provides a concise summary of everything you need to know and do to stay securely within the law. It includes updates on the increasingly complex and demanding legislation relating to recruiting from outside the UK, along with legislation applying to jobs that involve working with children and vulnerable adults.

• Provides a clear explanation of the key areas of law applying to the recruitment process including, where appropriate, the reasons for the development of those rules and what they aim to achieve
• Explains the application of the rules to recruitment processes
• Deals with typical practical issues, especially those arising out of case law and recent legislation

Who this report is designed for

• HR and recruitment professionals
• In-house legal teams
• Employment lawyers
• Employment and recruitment agency staff
• HRM students
• Students on CPD programmes
• Training professionals

What this special report gives you

1 Provides a clear explanation of the key areas of law applying to the recruitment process including, where appropriate, the reasons for the development of those rules and what they aim to achieve.
2 Explains the application of the rules to the recruitment processes.
3 Deals with typical practical issues, especially those arising out of case law and recent legislation.

Who this report is designed for

• HR professionals
• Recruitment specialists
• In-house legal teams
• Employment lawyers
• Employment and recruitment agency staff
• HRM students
• Students on CPD programmes
• Training professionals

Answers to all your questions and dilemmas

This report addresses all the most common dilemmas and problems facing recruiters. For example:

1 Does a contract of employment have to be in writing to be valid?
2 Is a job description part of the contract of employment?
3 If I offer a contract on a freelance basis, can I avoid employment law duties?
4 If I use a recruitment agency or ‘headhunter’ to recruit staff and they fail to comply with anti-discrimination law am I liable for them?
5 If I learn after offering a job that the candidate had what I consider a poor health record in their previous job, can I withdraw the offer?
6 If I find out that a job applicant lied on their CV what can I do?
7 Are there risks in not externally advertising posts?

You will find detailed guidance to these questions and many others in this report.

Important new topics fully covered

The law relating to recruitment has changed dramatically. Some very important new topics have been added or expanded, all covered in this report, including:

• Discrimination on grounds of religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender re-assignment.

• Major changes to disability discrimination law and equal pay case-law [there have been some radical decisions].

• Age discrimination law which came on stream in October 2006. Most commentators consider this likely to be a key issue for recruiters and the law itself is highly complex.

It is vital that you understand not only the scope of the law [few employers are not covered now by anti-discrimination law) but also the extent to which organisational policies and practices are subject to legal challenge.

It includes a direct link to the relevant legal source if a reader wants to follow up a more detailed point.

The major areas of law are all covered

• The law of contract
• Employment protective legislation
• Anti-discrimination law applying on grounds of sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender re-assignment, nationality, age
• Legislation relating to privacy and personal integrity, eg data protection law
• EU legislation on freedom of movement
• The law requiring screening, police checks etc.
• The law relating to immigration, asylum seeking, work permits
• The law of negligence

How to use this report for full benefit

The report takes the reader through the key stages of the recruitment process. It can therefore be read as a whole to provide an overview of the law and its application, or it can be used for specific purposes, for example, to identify the rules that apply to advertising or to the health screening of applicants.

Avoid the risk of damaging penalties

Being unaware of relevant legal rules or ignoring them carries obvious legal risks.

Claims can be made in Employment Tribunals but also in the civil courts. In some situations failure to comply with the legal rules can lead to the imposition of a criminal penalty. And if a case gets to court and attracts media attention, it can be very bad indeed for your reputation.

INTRODUCTION

• The key changes that are affecting the recruitment process

1 THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

• Employment contracts
• Legislation

2 RECRUITMENT NEEDS ANALYSIS

• Introduction
• Full-time or part-time?
• Permanent or temporary?
• Workplace or home-based?
• Employee or self-employed?
• Using an agency or temp?
• The recruitment process
• Recruiting through the internet

3 PREPARING TO RECRUIT

• Preparing documentation
• The job advertisement
• The legal pitfalls in advertising
• Considerations when advertising
• The application form
• Summary of key issues and further information
• Further information

4 THE SELECTION PROCESS

• Introduction
• Short-listing
• Interviews
• Selection
• Disabled applicants

• Making an offer
• Conditions of the offer
• Withdrawing the offer
• Other issues
• Accepting offers
• Verification
• References and health screening
• Health screening
• Further information

6 THE CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT

• Special terms of contract
• Form of contract
• Contract or written particulars/statement?
• Content of particulars
• The Employment Act 2002

APPENDICES

• Codes of practice and other sources
• Law reports and secondary literature
• Useful websites

Patricia Leighton is currently Jean Monnet Professor of European Law at the University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK. She has researched and written widely on employment law matters, particularly for HR practitioners. Her publications include The New Employment Contract (1995) Nicholas Brealey Publications, Discrimination and the Law: Fitness for Purpose (2004) CIPD and Out of the Shadows: Managing self-employed, agency and outsourced staff (2006) Butterworth Heinemann. She is a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium for whom she undertakes projects and consultancy work.

This course qualifies for the following CPD programmes:

• CPD certificate of attendance: 4.00 hours

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