2024-05-03 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board May 3, 2024 A "continuous recruitment" means that the recruitment just stays open, so that more applications can be submitted, and received, and screened for the position. When a recruitment is on continuous, as qualified applicants are identified, their names are immediately referred to the department for action. So, once the applicants—or the applications are screened by our Recruitment and Examination DivisionHR's ability to, kind of, control what happens with that list—is out of our hands. That becomes something that the department needs to move on. MR. WISEMAN: I see. MS. TOKIHIRO: But we'll continue to refer names as we receive qualified applicants until the position is filled or until we've referred a sufficient pool and the department needs to take action. So, it can be that on some continuous recruitments, we may be referring a couple of names a month. The department may be interviewing, for whatever reason, not making a selection. So, the recruitment would stay on continuous. But we are evaluating continuous recruitments because if there've been multiple, eligible applicants referred—and the department hasn't taken any action—we're going to close that continuous recruitment so that the department will take action with the list of applicants that they have. MR. WISEMAN: Thank you. It sounds complicated but I have an understanding now. So, thank you. MS. BOND: It just seems to me to be unfair to the people who apply at the beginning that now two, three, four, five, six months down the road—they still don't—there's no judgement made. Are they immediately told, after they've been referred, that, "No, you're no good" or "We don't want you"—or do they have to sit and wait for eight months to find out that they don't get this job. MS. TOKIHIRO: So, again, the part that I can adjust is the part that happens in Human Resources. So, when we receive the application, it's screened—our application screening is occurring within 30 days because we're fully staffed. And so, we're able to screen the applications quickly. Once the application is screened, the applicant receives a letter either confirming that they met the qualifications and their name is being forwarded to the department—or if there's some issue where they don't qualify for the position, they're provided that feedback as far as what is needed or what is lacking in documentation on the application to help us to certify their qualifications. And then, they can follow-up with us to provide more information. After the list is sent to the department, we always encourage our departments to act on the list as soon as possible by scheduling interviews. No notification from the department should come that an applicant—they're not interested in an applicant unless the interview has occurred— Page 8