Is this legal?

[Tigertigers]

At work we had some external applicants and an internal applicant apply for a job. The external applicants did their interview through video call and the internal applicant did their interview in person. When it came to the 2nd interview they only interviewed the internal person. They said the external candidates were not good enough. The internal candidate got the job and they even confirmed they were the only one who was interviewed.

Why would that not be legal?

Which bit are you questioning? It’s normal for people to be dropped after the first round of interviews.

Yes of course that’s legal. I’d say it’s not great practice to mix online and in person interview. And now candidates can request interview notes so HR should be checking and filing those in case one external candidate asked

Are you suggesting that the external candidate was at a disadvantage because they were interviewed on line?

Yes all legal

Yes that's completely legal, why wouldn't it be? Thats very often how it's done, first round of interviews is to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sometimes only one good one gets through to round two, such is life.

There are no 'laws' governing how to manage interview processes apart from not discriminating against protected characteristics. In fact if they had wanted to they could have hired the internal candidate without an interview if they had wanted to. Might have been against company policy though.

What is the problem?

Sounds legal to me.

So many companies interview through video call these days and most applicants are used to it so I don’t think eg external applicants are at a disadvantage, no.

Thanks for the replies. Just wondered if it was normal to only interview 1 candidate at second stage that was all. I knew online and in person interviews were ok.

Yes of course, you can’t really have tnought there was a law that there had to be more than candidate at second stage? How bored would any government need to be to make that a law 😂

Yes it's normal, happens quite a lot. Even if only one candidate gets through to interview #2 they still have to do the interview, rather than just giving them the job.

They may still not be suitable in which case a second round of recruitment would need to take place to try and get more possible candidates. Something in interview #2 might reveal issues with them that could cause a problem.

The processes still need to be followed even with only one candidate.

Does the second interview doesn't really have to be done - of course, it's advisable but surely it's not against the law?

Where did I say it was against the law???

Of course it's OK.

What would be the point of inviting candidates back for a second interview if it was already clear from the first one that they weren't good enough? That would be a complete waste of their time as well as the interviewers.

The organisation could have offered the role to the internal candidate straight after the first interview, if they had wanted to. Presumably, there were still some things that they wanted to explore with that candidate before deciding whether to offer them the role or readvertise. All perfectly reasonable.

And while I agree that it probably isn't best practice to interview some candidates in person and some remotely, we don't know if they were all given a choice about what would suit them best, and in any case, there is certainly nothing illegal about it.

It might have to be done if that's what the company policy says, or it might be at the discretion of the recruiting manager. There is no legal requirement.

There might be only one candidate who was suitable to go to the next round. They were then interviewed a second time to confirm that they were the right person for the job.

That is all.