Advice appreciated on this please - job offer a year later

[DilemmaTime]

Is it possible and legal for a job candidate from last year to be contacted out of the blue this year and be offered the job they originally applied for, without another interview etc? The job was readvertised but no candidates turned up to interview this year.

Hope that makes sense - trying to keep it brief and simplified!
Thank you

Not sure but bumping for you. Our place offers up to 6 months after interview. That's how I got my job :)

Yes, employers with good systems and records will keep candidates on file and contact again if something comes up.

Absolutely.

There is a misconception that it is 'law' that all vacancies must be advertised. It's obviously good practice but not law to do so. Mainly public sector and larger companies will have their own policies on advertising a vacancy for x days/weeks.

Having a pool of candidates to call on when vacancies arise is a great recruitment tool.

Thank you ragusa for the bump :)

Thank you for the reply, hermione. I didn't know that and my googling hadn't provided me with clear answers! The situation has just come about and seems to have been tackled strangely by the employer, including the incumbent employee just finding out when the new one walked in this morning that they were being replaced by someone who hadn't even made it past the first stage of the recruitment process last year. I'm guessing the retention of candidate details still applies regardless of how far they got in the recruitment process?

There is no legislation on recruitment and selectin process, except that you may not unlawfully discriminate based on a Protected characteristic (things like race, disability, gender etc). If a company chooses to randomly offer a role to someone who applied previously but wasn't successful then while it may to be the best or most thorough process, I can't see that it is discriminatory, though of course it might be argued depending on the circumstances.

Are you the incumbent employee?

No, DH is. Glad to be leaving (it's not a happy place at all!) but it's being dealt with very insensitively imo.

Thank you ever so much for explaining that to me. It seemed odd but I wasn't sure how to find out!