The experts, Adam Partington and Esther Smith advise on whether late applications can be accepted in an internal job post.
The question: Internal job post – applications after closing date?
My employer listed a job on the internal recruitment website; for a position which I applied; I know for a fact I am the only one that applied before the closing date advertised alongside the job.
Yesterday I received my confirmation date and time of interview along with the others who applied after the closing date. Is this allowed?
I am now considering removing myself from this position due to the fact the people applying have somewhat of a close connection to the interviewer.
Legal advice:
Adam Partington, solicitor, Speechly Bircham
Whether or not an employer accepts job applications received after the advertised closing deadline is generally a matter of discretion for that particular employer. However, issues may arise if this decision could be considered discriminatory.
Section 39(1) of the Equality Act 2010 specifies that an employer must not discriminate against a person;
- In the arrangements they make for deciding to whom to offer employment; or
- As to the terms on which employment is offered; or
- By not offering the person employment.
The Equality Act 2010 is concerned with discrimination in respect of specific protected characteristics set out in section 4: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation. If you considered that the decision to accept applications after the deadline was motivated by discrimination then you might have grounds to bring a claim. However you have not referred to any suggestion of this in your question.
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Esther Smith, partner, Thomas Eggar
Unless your employer has a contractual document prescribing provisions in relation to handling internal recruitment processes (which would be quite unusual!) then I am afraid that there is probably very little you can do about this.
You could put in a grievance about this if you are really annoyed about it, but unless you want to try and argue that the company’s actions somehow amount to a fundamental breach of contract on which you can resign and claim constructive dismissal (which would be a very difficult argument to substantiate!), then there is no route open for you.
In addition there may be some good reasons for the other applications being late, if indeed they are, which would explain or mitigate the employer’s actions.
If you are interested in doing the job I wouldn’t pull out of the process just because of this!
Esther Smith is a partner in Thomas Eggar’s Employment Law Unit. For further information, please visit Thomas Eggar.
One Response
Late Job Applications
I fully support Esther’s suggestion: if you are really interested in the job, go for it!
You won’t know what opportunities you may have missed until you apply formally. And, if you are wanting a fight against any possible and completely unacceptable favouritism, potentially displayed to ‘internal candidates closer to the interviewer’ as it would appear from your posting, you’ll have a much better-evidenced complaint if you wait to see if your suspicions are well-founded first.
In passing though, let me warn you against believing that published ‘application-deadlines’ in recruitment have any real force in practice? Deadlines may suit those directly in charge of administrating internal recruitment processes to make their lives simpler, but they are necessarily arbitrary, self-imposed and often only departmentally self-serving. The primary task of any organisation is to attract, assess and recruit the very best candidates for any job. So of course, if any candidate applies too late to meet a complex interview schedule involving many senior decision-makers that cannot easily be adjusted, that is their personal misfortune.
But even in an apparently ‘buyer’s market’ (which we currently have in many sectors), the primary need of any employer is still to attract and then recruit the very best candidate available; not someone who might meet an arbitrary and bureaucratic deadline.
So if potentially great candidates might have been indisposed, on holiday or even away on business when the ad appeared – whether internal or external – why should any self-imposed deadline ever be allowed to get in the way of any organisation considering their merits?
I am all in favour of promoting from within, by the way. But I am also firmly in favour of organisations recruiting the very best candidate from wherever – properly and fairly assessed – and without any artifical restraints of application deadlines.
If you were running your own business – just for example – wouldn’t you do the same? (And as an employee – wouldn’t you want your employer to do just the same too? I would!)
Best wishes, and all good fortune.
Jeremy