Case study - rethinking our recruitment

As an organisation, we are working to increase our diversity and become more representative of Scotland’s population.

We are fortunate to be an organisation that retains our colleagues. The average length of service of those who left RoS in 2023 was 12 years. Over a third of colleagues who left RoS, did so after more than 10 years with the organisation. This also means we must make the most of our external recruitment campaigns to increase our diversity.

Recently we recruited for multiple Admin Officer roles. We used this campaign to try a new approach. Our Resourcing Team led this work along with our external assessment supplier and managers across RoS.

Firstly, we looked to experts in this area to support us. Advice from CRER (The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights) was invaluable to us in attracting a more diverse range of applicants. Crucially, with their support, we were able to create a level playing field for our diverse candidates to achieve success.

Our new process focused on changes to how we selected applicants at the initial stage. Previously for these roles, we found that applicants struggled with competency-based answers and many did not make it through the initial stage.

This time, we used an ability test with a minimum score that candidates had to reach to progress to the next level. We found this to be more impartial and we saw more candidates apply and more taken forward to the next stage.

We attracted a larger, more experienced and diverse pool of applicants. We appointed almost all candidates that passed the initial assessment and considered part-time, or flexible working requests.

We had multiple roles available, with a range of start dates. This meant we could onboard cohorts of applicants. We found benefits of staggering the start dates for some applicants with protected characteristics.