NSPCC has introduced a policy whereby candidates for jobs at the children’s charity will receive interview questions ahead of time.
The initiative, introduced as part of the charity’s equality, diversity and inclusion commitments, is being rolled out after consultation with the NSPCC’s “lived experience groups”, its EDI trustee Sheanna Patelmaster, who is also a strategy manager at the Lego Group, and several of its managers.
The move is understood to be motivated by the charity’s desire to become more accessible to candidates and to create a more level and fairer playing field, particularly for those who are neurodiverse, have mental health conditions or struggle with self-promotion.
In an internal article shared via the staff intranet, the charity said that over the next six months, NSPCC managers will be supported to “grow into” the approach before it becomes standard practice from April 2024.
In the article, Jack Lewis, senior fundraising manager at the NSPCC, said: “Having recently conducted a round of interviews for senior philanthropy managers across the UK, I was pleased to have a go at sharing questions in advance, with all candidates.
“Such a simple tweak to the interview process, and yet without exception the feedback was positive. Even from those who were unsuccessful. Recruitment agencies also commented that more and more organisations (not just charities) are moving towards this approach.”
The NSPCC plans to publicise the move on its career pages, being clear that it is not standard practice yet but that candidates can contact managers to find out whether interview questions will be shared.
Brett Terry, people director at the NSPCC, said in a statement: “In order to be there for every child we need to ensure that we more fully represent and reflect the wider community we serve and support.
“This is so all applicants can have the time and space they need to prepare to give their best interview, so we can better understand their skills and experience to make sure we employ the best person for the role.”
A number of other charities have also started to adopt this approach in recent months.
Harry Christaki, a recruitment consultant specialising in digital roles in the charity sector at Understanding Recruitment NFP, said the company had seen charities including Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK, the British Red Cross and Girlguiding UK also sharing interview questions in advance for some roles.
“It’s becoming much more prevalent within the sector,” he told Third Sector.
“We’re trying to push for the charities that we work with to implement this in their interview processes and we’ve also seen charities approaching us saying this is how they want to do things.”
Christaki said the current market was challenging for hiring managers and this was a useful mechanism for incentivising a wider pool of candidates to apply for roles because it “takes away a lot of the downsides of an interview”.
He said that, of the 83 candidates his team had placed in charities since the start of the year, about one-third had interview questions shared with them in advance.
Writing on Twitter in February, Rose Kigwana, senior producer at the Brighton-based arts charity South East Dance, said the charity had been sharing questions with candidates for a few years.
“It takes away the surprise factor, which can trip people up because they can’t think of anything suitable or are so nervous they don’t say much,” she wrote.
“I find it helps them relax and gives a better insight into candidates.”
Caroline Pantling, head of heritage services at The Scouts, also tweeted in February that in the past two sets of interviews undertaken by her team, topics were shared a week in advance.
“This gave them a chance to reflect on their experiences in these areas but also showed us their listening skills when they responded to the question [in] context,” she said, adding that it had resulted in highly positive feedback from candidates.