About GoldStar 
Ensuring selection procedures are effective
Selection methods need to be effective so that the image and credibitly of yoiur organisation can be protected. The process should mirror that used for employement, at this stage the issue of legal requirements may arise, for example in relation to minors and vulnerable groups. It should also be clear within the organisation, who is authorise to decided to recruit a volunteer.
Below are a few examples of how other organisations have accoplished this: |
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Cheetham Hill Advice Centre have a deliberately lengthy process to ensure they recruit the best volunteers for each role. |
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Cheetham Hill Advice Centre recruits about 15-20 volunteers a year. The project focuses in particular on the recruitment of volunteers in groups at risk of social exclusion. This is achieved through paid adverts in the Manchester City Council Jobs Update publication. They have a deliberately lengthy process, including training to prepare the volunteering activities and matching volunteers to appropriate work. There is a strong degree of structure and formality in their procedure.
The advertising also attracts people from BAME communities, by stating that the organisation is “particularly interested in applications from asylum seeks, refugee, and bilingual speakers of Urdu/Punjabi or other community languages.”
Most of the centre’s clients are those at risk of social exclusion. Some users of the centre, who have benefited personally from the advice of Cheetham Hill, enquire about volunteering at the Centre. Many of these might not have done so at another volunteering agency.
The selection process is used to target volunteers in groups at risk of social exclusion. In recent years there has always been more suitable candidates applying than volunteers places available. This has meant that additional criteria for selecting volunteer advice workers has been created and used to encourage recruitment of those at risk of social exclusion. The project does not prioritise people based on qualification or standard of written English, but rather on criteria’s such as ‘future plans’ (i.e. how helpful the volunteering placement will be for the individuals personal development),and speaking community languages and loving locally (and therefore more at risk of social exclusion than residents of many other areas).
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