For Shadowers

1. Communicate your interest during your Annual Review and/or through School/Department development mechanisms, where available.
2. Research advertised roles at the university to understand the essential and desirable criteria of the roles you seek. If you want progression to a higher grade, the University Grade Profiles can help you to identify the skills and experience you can already demonstrate and those that you may need to develop. 
3. If there are any specific jobs you are interested within your School or Department, don’t be afraid to contact the Recruiting Manager and ask for more information about the role and the potential to either shadow or apply.

Reflect on what you wish to learn from the process:

• Do you wish to learn about interview practice at our institution?
• Do you hope to improve your own interview skill set?
• Are you hoping to be inspired by the career development of others?
• Will you identify skills and thought processes you need for your career progression?

Pre-Interview

1. Engage in an honest conversation about what your goals and hopes are for this process.
2. Ask any questions you may have about the desirable and essential criteria, the questions that the candidate will be asked, and the types of evidence the panel will expect to see demonstrated.
3. Take the opportunity to share your fresh perspective on the planned approach, such as any potential barriers for candidates that you may identify.
4. Discuss how you wish to be introduced to the candidate. Consider using the following statement:

“I am (Your Name), I am shadowing this interview as part of my development. I will not be asking you any questions nor taking part in the decision-making.” 

During the interview and panel discussions

1. If appropriate and agreed with the Recruiting Manager, you should introduce yourself, or they can do it for you.
2. Observe the interview as agreed with the panel.
3. As a Shadower, you will not be part of the recruitment decision-making. However, listening to the panel discussions will help you to understand what evidence the panel is looking for to best satisfy the role criteria.

After the interview

Next steps to aid your development journey

1. Take the opportunity to discuss your experience of the interview process with the Recruiting Manager. How has this informed your own interview practice? What aspects have you found of interest? Do you have any questions about the process?
2. Reflect on the skills and experience required for the role you aspire to and identify the actionable opportunities that support your career progression and include these in your Annual Reviews and other development conversations.
3. If feasible and appropriate, you may want to develop your learning and networking with members of the panel or ask members to connect you with their own networks.
4. Sharing interview good practice with other aspiring colleagues is encouraged, however, we ask you to keep confidential the names of candidates and panel members.

Observing an interview process will have given you plenty of food for thought. The following tips are designed to guide your next steps.