To think he should have got an interview?

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We (DH and I) don’t know if we’re being unreasonable with this, so posting here more for traffic.

My husband is recently trying to go back to work after a prolonged period of being off due to a mental health problem. So far he’s had a temporary job for 10 weeks, but this role ended a few weeks ago.

He recently applied for an admin type job at a university and clicked the two ticks box as he still suffers from the condition, which stated that if he met the essential criteria he would be guaranteed an interview. After three weeks but he received an email to say that although he’d met the criteria and the panel were really interested in his experience etc etc, there was a lot of interest for the role and he was down as a reserve as others had scored more highly. It finished by asking him for his availability for notification should a slot become available.

He was a bit confused due to the wording saying he’d met all the criteria and the wording of the two ticks when he applied, so he emailed back to try and clarify the situation politely. He got a reply back today which says that in order to be guaranteed an interview through two ticks he had to meet all of the essential criteria fully, but he hadn’t met all of the criteria fully which was why he was only a reserve. This has confused him even further, as the wording of the first email made it sound like he had met the criteria but others had just been more qualified/had more experience. The email did say that the shortlisting panel could be asked for feedback, but he’s still a bit confused. If he didn’t meet all of the essential criteria, surely he would have not got through the shortlisting process and it would have just been a no? He wanted to ask for the feedback but doesn’t want to be awkward. Could someone have messed up and not flagged him as two ticks initially? It’s just knocked him a little I think and he doesn’t quite know how to respond. All the emails have come from someone in HR.

Any advice would be great, thank you.

It sounds like the first reply was a bog standard generic "why we didn't hire you" statement and the second reply was specific to him. Does he know Which essential criteria he didn't fully meet?

I hear that university admin jobs are very sought after, so he shouldn't lose heart.

I suspect that there were a ton of applicants who met all the criteria and ticked the boxes, so they didn't have time to interview them all.

even though he met the minimum criteria, there might have been people who applied under the scheme who were more qualified, and they interviewed those. The scheme isn’t legally binding, and I think employers are probably pragmatic about it whilst being as fair as they can. I imagine he scored lower than other candidates who also applied under the scheme, and the cut off has to be somewhere.

Even if he had got the ‘guaranteed’ interview, it sounds like there was a lot of competition.

Thanks for the replies.

He doesn’t know which ones he didn’t meet yet, which is what he’s hoping to ask for feedback on. The first email did seem a little ‘we liked your application, but the others have more experience so you’re a back up’, but I think it’s where it said ‘being a reserve means you met the criteria..’ that’s been confusing as the wording of two ticks just says that if you meet the criteria you get an interview. It’s then the second reply which said that he did meet the criteria, but not fully which has kind of made him go

I think I’ll advise him to just ask for feedback and keep going.

Where I work we have a scorecard for shortlisting for interviews with, basically, "does not demonstrate", "demonstrates to some extent" and "demonstrates well" or something like that for each of the criteria. So you can meet the essential requirement without scoring full marks in it. Also, for the admin type jobs we get at least 3x as many applicants as we have time to interview - unfortunately, there has to be a cutoff somewhere and sometimes that means people who probably should be interviewed miss out through no fault of their own.
It sucks and I'm sorry, but don't give up!

Yes, he should have got an interview. Unfortunately, plenty of employers only pay lip service to the two ticks scheme. Since it's voluntary and not legally enforceable, there's nothing you can do.

If he met all of the essential criteria then he should have been interviewed. At my university we shortlist without information relating to disabilities. After we've shortlisted HR ask us to look at any applications where that box has been ticked. If they meet the essential they are interviewed.

However, as someone has mentioned previously university admin jobs are highly sought after. They could have had up to 100 applications and many of those will be from people already working in the sector. It's tough to get into sometimes.

Yes, he should have got an interview. Unfortunately, plenty of employers only pay lip service to the two ticks scheme. Since it's voluntary and not legally enforceable, there's nothing you can do.

Matches my experience.