How to hire right first time: Employment Law Updates 2025

Components of hiring right first time​

Keeping communications alive​

You can have the best applicant tracking system in the world, but if it isn’t being used to facilitate communication, it’s a waste. Communication is the most vital component of any recruitment process: the difference between hiring or losing the candidate you want. ​

In fact, failure to properly communicate during the onboarding process in recruitment can cause three considerable HR headaches…​

• Vulnerability unfair dismissal​ claims – Failure to properly communicate during recruitment and subsequent candidate journey can provide grounds for unfair dismissal further down the line. Remember, with incoming changes, employees will have unfair dismissal rights from day one. You won’t have time to weigh up whether the person is the right fit once they’re in post. That process must take place during recruitment.
• Future contractual disagreements​ – You’ve identified the right talent, which has cost you time and money to attract, engage and hire. Can you afford not to be upfront with prospective employees about their contractual obligations?
• Long-lasting brand damage and future disengagement​ – With changes incoming to employee day one rights and fire and rehire bans, communication at every step of the candidate journey will be vital to ensure everyone is on the same page. Failure to communicate opens doors to disenfranchisement, disengagement, and disagreement. The result of which – your brand suffers.

Letting data enable decisions​

Hiring right first time is incredibly difficult, yet hiring poorly is easily done. But with employment law changes inbound, hiring poorly isn’t an option. It’ll cost you. ​ Which is why the interview stage has never been so important. ​

The more data you have at your disposal at this stage, the more informed your decisions, and the more informed, the better your hire is likely to be. That’s where data-led interview insights can really help. Especially now, video interviews are so ubiquitous. ​

With data-led interview insights at your disposal, HR can: 

• Reduce legal risks associated with disputes over the recruitment process
• Timestamp the interview so it can easily be reviewed
• Summarise an entire interview
• Monitor talk-time
• Can evidence fair hiring in case of claims of bias or unfair hiring practices
• Auto-record interviews
• Request instant transcription
• Easily collaborate with hiring managers to ensure the right hire is made

To improve and streamline your hiring, it’s necessary to have the right tools. First and foremost, you need a good ATS, one that includes a careers site builder, candidate assessments, video interviewing capabilities and a solid onboarding module. 

Tim Clifford, Talent Insights Specialist

Preboarding – a hiring right first time necessity​

​As changes to employment law land, preboarding checks are going to be increasingly essential. When your new employee walks through the door on their first day, you want to be absolutely sure they’re the right person. You don’t want any lingering doubts. ​

Preboarding checks and measures will dispel those doubts, allowing HR to ensure what was said at the interview checks out. ​Crucial to protecting the company from incoming day one rights changes will be the following:​

​​Background checks

HR can run multiple background checks to ensure you hire right first time. Chief among those checks is the following:​

• Criminal records
• Standard and enhanced DBS checks
• Employment verification
• Credit history
• Education
• Financial services
• Directorship
• Social media

Most ATSs will allow HR to pre-employment background screening from their platform. But not all. There are still many organisations that are running these checks manually. And those organisations that do, leave themselves wide open to risk. 

Right to work checks​

Does your new employee have the right to work in the UK? Digitalising this process can help simplify it, with many companies forming relationships with Identity Service Providers [IDSP]. ​

ISDPs are organisations that can provide Identification Document Validation Technology [IDVT], which can be used to automate the Right to Work check process in line with current legislation.  ​

For digital RtW checks, IDSPs will give employers access to a service through which they can invite UK/Irish candidates to upload their identity documents for verification (using an email or text link) and capture a photograph for biometric face matching.​ Some IDSPs can also offer an interface to the Home Office checking service for share code checks.​

Following the 2022 changes in Right to Work checks, when it comes to non-digital checks, service providers can also manage and upload RtW documentation on the employers’ behalf. This allows HR teams to capture and upload images of the physical documents that their candidates share, making compliance easier and more robust.​

The best thing? HR can now automate these checks from within their ATS. ​ Another step to hiring right first time.​

Reference checking​

References make up a vital component of preboarding. A solid reference will validate your choice and further ensure you make the right hire first time around. The issue is, of course, the difficulty and time it can take to collect those references. ​ 

With employment law set to shake up HR – can HR afford to keep this process manual? Time is of the essence. With reference checking portals, manually chasing up referees will be consigned to the past.​ Reference checking portals will allow HR to…

• Easily track the progress of ​references​
• Receive alerts when a reference has been completed​
• Resend requests if required​
• Set up both a referee and a candidate portal ​
• Reduce time to hire

Candidate portals – Allow candidates to enter the reference details of their personal and/or professional referees and review the progress of their reference requests.​

Referee portals – When a candidate has added the details for a referee via their portal, an email will be automatically sent to their referee containing a link to their portal to complete the requested reference. Receiving the employee references is the last piece of the ‘hire right first time’ puzzle.

Note: Without that reference, you have nothing to corroborate what you’re being told in an interview.​

How to hire right first time: A checklist

• Complete essential background checks – comply with the 2008 Employment Background Check Act and conduct essential pre-employment checks. Remember to ask a new hire’s permission before you conduct checks. 
• Send digital contracts directly to candidates – avoid potential lost contacts and send digital copies for candidates to sign with e-sign capabilities in your ATS
• Gather reference checks – obtain references from previous workplaces to understand your new hire, and gather the data you need for your HR system
• Validate candidate eligibility to work in the UK – carry out required Right-to-work checks to ensure your new hire is safe to work in the UK
• Register your new employee with HMRC – submit important information, including national insurance number, tax codes, and student loan deduction status
• Onboard new hires correctly – set up an onboarding microsite, answer any FAQs and offer a structured onboarding process upon their arrival

Want to see our entire onboarding checklist? Our printable onboarding checklist is now available to download.

Hire right first time with Talos360

Hiring right first time should always be an HR priority. But with changes to employment law imminent [day one rights in particular], the quest to solve the hiring right first time puzzle is even more urgent. ​

At Talos360, we’re experts in hiring right first time. It’s in our DNA. We’ve always helped businesses like yours find a better way to attract and recruit talent compliantly and responsibly, to ensure they’re best placed to hire right first time. 

Thanks to our market-leading, award- winning autonomous people tech, Talos ATS, your business can directly benefit from best-in-class candidate management modules, AI-powered Interview Insights, and preboarding modules: Hiring right first time, every time, is now a real possibility.​

FAQs

Article summary:

• Incoming Employment law changes, including day one unfair dismissal rights, fire & rehire ‘bans’ mean HR professionals must adapt their current hiring practices, to ensure secure, compliant hiring.
• Communication throughout recruitment and onboarding processes is essential to avoid potential contractual disputes, grounds for unfair dismissal, and damage to brand image.
• Data-led interviews and preboarding checks (background, right to work, references) help ensure new hires are the right fit for an organisation and legally compliant to work .
• Talos360’s autonomous hiring software, Talos ATS supports HR teams with automation, AI-interview insights, onboarding and compliance tools to help businesses hire right first time.