Informal route to the job becoming the norm
10 May 06
Employers said to be leaving themselves open to claims by not asking for CVs
Informal methods of hiring staff are prevalent but could land employers in trouble, advisers have claimed.
A survey of 250 small and medium-sized businesses for Manchester-based Employment Law Advisory Services found that more than four in 10 of them do not insist on seeing a proper CV before hiring people. This, the organisation warned, leaves a company open to claims of discrimination and can make it difficult to fire people who have misrepresented their experience or qualifications.
According to the survey, personal recommendations and word of mouth are becoming increasingly common in the practice of recruiting staff.
Pam Rogerson, the head of recruitment at ELAS, said having CVs on file was a basic piece of procedure and that it was absolutely essential that employers could prove they had done everything by the book should candidates decide to issue tribunal proceedings.
Two contestants from BBC2's The Apprentice recently claimed they had not needed CVs for a number of years.