1 person shortlisted for interview

[Socksanddocs]

How unusual would you say that is? Seems highly suspect to me - not a job with extremely specialised or rare skills

It’s a fix

Was it advertised externally?

Is there a HR department overseeing the process?

It depends what it is. I interviewed last week, only one applicant. Excellent application and interview. They got the job, all HR processes were followed correctly.

Internally and externally. HR ‘overseeing’ yes.

Definitely more than 1 applicant, these roles are always popular when they go out

We score applications (civil service). There is a threshold to make interview. It would be quite commonplace for this to happen in my, rather small, department.

Extremely common in my industry. Not super niche but does require a professional qualification and ideally a specific specialism post qualification depending on what level we are recruiting at.

From someone in HR who running 3 vacancies at the moment very possible, one of the vacancies has 20 applications, only one person I'm suggesting they interview and the person isn't known to us.

Not unheard of. I was the only applicant to my current job 🤣

In DH department they had 3 applicants only 1 made the interview stage and didn't get the job. They waited 8 weeks then re-advertised.

In the NHS there is often only 1 suitably qualified and experienced person applies

I'm NHS and I noticed that good candidates apply for jobs, but they don't align the application form with the person spec. Therefore they don't hit the short list when they likely are experienced and if the form had been completed differently they might have. Not too unusual to not have any shortlisted so yes, one is possible.

Fairly usual with me (in a reasonably niche role).

Occasionally we’ve taken a punt and interviewed someone who doesn’t look great on paper just in case/ to provide a comparison, but it’s always a waste of time.

Same. While not in a small department, the way sift works and the nature of the work means that we usually end up with 1 or 2 for interview. Sometimes not enough people apply and the single person that made it through gets the job. Admittedly 'Open and Fair' does mean that single person has the same interview as if there were more candidates so it isn't like they get it without trying.

Internal EOIs on the other hand, those are 99% a fix for a certain candidate. I suppose the external posted job could also be fixed but they need the IPM on the panel to look the other way.

I think it is a jobseekers market at the moment. In my organisation, the last 3 jobs we have advertised only received one or two suitable applicants even though they went out externally in a lot of places and were not niche/ specialist jobs.

Echoing a lot of posters here.

We shortlist against the person specification. The worst I've had is when someone I knew applied, their application was terrible. As I knew them I agreed to meet with them and go over why they weren't shortlisted, using the PS and their application. They were furious I hadn't assumed things and hadn't given them a mark for things I knew they had. Yeah, because I'm going to risk my job so because you screwed up the application.

A while back, I had seventy two applicants for an admin role. Two were shortlisted.

Common in teaching

We will only interview people we think can do the job. So out of all the applicants if that is only one person that is who we interview - it's not a numbers game. Time is precious, no point in wasting it on people you have no intention in offering the job to. If the one candidate doesn't meet the standard at interview - we reject and start the process again.

We do scored sifting of applications, so we can only interview candidates who get a passing score (against the person spec) on their written application. If its a bad batch, its entirely possible for only one person to get through the sift.