- January 30, 2023
- |Law Everyday
It is our understanding that after gathering CVs, an organization must narrow down the selection by screening the applicants who meet the minimum requirements and preferred qualifications. Applicants who meet minimum requirements and preferred qualifications move on to the shortlisting stage. Deciding on which applicants get shortlisted for the interview phase depends on the organization’s recruitment needs. For high-volume recruitment, generally, all candidates that meet the minimum qualifications
move forward to the interview process. For low-volume recruitment, generally, only a few candidates that meet both the minimum and preferred qualifications are called for an interview.
According to
https://ideal.com/resume-screening/, you can determine how many candidates you should shortlist using your recruitment convention rates:
– 12% for application to interview.
– 17% for interview to offer.
– 89% for offer to acceptance.
That means that for every 100 candidates, you need to shortlist 12 of them to interview, two of them will receive an offer, and one candidate will accept to result in one successful hire. We understand that the biggest problem in this process is the volume of CVs received. There are simply too many applications given the high unemployment rate in Namibia. Be that as it may, we believe that employers must strive to narrow down the number of applicants that make it to shortlisting and eventually interviews. We do not
know the formula used in Namibia, but whatever the formula is, it must produce realistic shortlists, using best practices and taking into consideration prevailing socio-economic factors.
When one applies for a job, he/she hopes to get that job. That hope is shouldered by the applicant until they are rejected. Once the job application is handed in, the applicant has no control over the selection and shortlisting process. This means that the ball is totally in the hands of the employer. Hope is a powerful aspect of human existence that encourages one to look forward to tomorrow. If you remove hope, you essentially remove someone’s reason to live, and that may lead to suicide and other negative things. Hope has been central to human existence since the beginning. Biblically, Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, and because of that, we have a population of approximately 2.38 billion believers. In the context of colonialism and slavery, it has been argued that systematic oppression bred a culture of ‘living for today’ and not worrying about tomorrow, which in turn makes people do anything just to
survive the day (have you wondered why you struggle to save or invest money, but easily blow money in a day?). Some have even argued that this can explain the leadership style of African politicians of ‘politics of the belly’, taking care of their own, and clinging to power. Without hope, people will be disappointed and angry and that has a negative impact on people, individually, and collectively as a nation.
It is therefore important that where hope is given or expected, it must be preserved and protected. Today, we want to address the issue of hope in the labour context. We want to address the recruitment process in Namibia where unemployment is high and applications for the few available jobs are even higher and disproportionate. The question is what are the legal implications of such practice? For obvious reasons, we are not experts in Human Resources processes, but by applying logic, we submit that the practice of disproportionately shortlisting applicants is flawed. We further submit that the practice offends fundamental human rights enshrined in the constitution and/or other human rights recognized by the international community. In the end, we submit that the practice can, and must be avoided. Let us look at a few reported cases first.
On 19 January 2019, the Confidante reported that more than 3 000 applicants stormed the premises of Nehale lyaMpingana Railway Station of TransNamib to compete for only 40 temporary jobs. One of those trying their luck at getting employment said that a fairly big number of people was already waiting at the station’s perimeter fence when he arrived there at around 02:00 and by sunrise, the number had swelled to more than 3 000 souls. It was further reported that TransNamib officials started collecting CVs and other personal documents at around 08:00 after which they started calling candidates for a physical fitness test which included carrying heavy loads over a distance. A local PDM councillor described the
situation as unacceptable and unprofessional.
Most recently, it was reported that almost 700 applications were submitted for one teaching position at Ofifiya Primary School in Ohangwena Region. The legitimacy of the practice of accepting job
applications that outnumber the number of job positions available requires closer examination in light of the country's horrifying unemployment rate. This is also relevant because the unemployed and poor who apply for these jobs have to use the little resources they have to make copies, courier documents or pay for internet to send emails, travel to other towns to write or undergo written or physical tests, travel to other towns and pay for accommodation and food, among other things. According to Job Angula (https://www.namibian.com.na/119198/read/Overhaul-Recruitment-Processes-in-Namibia), recent media reports about a certain entity shortlisting 15 000 candidates for 200 roles is an example of capitalist exploitation of our people, and it should be condemned and frowned upon. If, for example, there are
15,000 candidates for a position and each applicant's application file is say 10 pages long, 150 000 sheets of paper would be used. Imagine there are 100 of these openings in a given year. The price of printing alone may easily reach millions of dollars and it is not the job applicant who benefits.
Now, the concerns highlighted above are in our view genuine, but the practice is most likely to continue. Therefore, we wanted to take the lamentations further and look at things from a legal point of view. The last 10 years or so saw the emergence of “the right to hope” as a human right in Europe. In Namibia, the right to hope found expression in S v Gaingob and Others (SA 7 of 2008) [2018] NASC 4 (06 February 2018) where the Supreme Court had to deal with the issue of whether inordinately long fixed terms of imprisonment which could extend beyond the life expectancy of an offender, constitute cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in conflict with Art 8 of the Namibian Constitution which entrenches the right to human dignity.
The apex court held, among other things that, the absence of a realistic hope of release for those sentenced to inordinately long terms of imprisonment would in accordance with the approach of the court in other cases offend against the right to human dignity and protection from cruel, inhumane, and degrading punishment. Those sentences, by effectively removing from all of the appellants the realistic hope of release in the sense referred to during their lifetimes, amount to cruel, degrading, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and infringe on their right to human dignity enshrined in Article 8. We recognize and appreciate the fact that S v Gaingob is a criminal matter, but the principles elucidated
around the notion of the ‘right to hope’ are, in our view relevant to this discussion. In that case, the Supreme Court referred to Vinter and others v UK ECtHR (apps. 66069/09, 130/10, and 3896/10) July 9, 2013 (GC) wherein it was stated that:
‘. . . what tipped the balance for me in voting with the majority was the Court’s confirmation, in this judgment, that Article 3 encompasses what might be described as “the right to hope”. It goes
no further than that. The judgment recognizes, implicitly, that hope is an important and constitutive aspect of the human person… To deny them the experience of hope would be to deny a fundamental aspect of their humanity and, to do that, would be degrading’.
In addition, The European Court of Human Rights in Matiošaitis and Others v Lithuania (2017) held that:
“Even those who commit the most abhorrent and egregious of acts…nevertheless retain their essential humanity and carry within themselves the capacity to change. Long and deserved though their prison sentences may be, they retain the right to hope that, someday, they may have atoned for the wrongs which they have committed. They ought not to be deprived entirely of such hope.”
It is our submission that shortlisting a high, disproportionate, and unrealistic number of applicants for one or very few positions removes the hope of many to get the job applied for. Remember that, not one of those applicants knows that he/she will be competing with 700 others for one post. He/she believes that they stand a realistic chance. Therefore, the ensuing recruitment process should likewise present a realistic chance to actually get the job, failure to which such a process could be found wanting. If convicted criminals can be afforded ‘realistic hope’ to be released from jail, so should unemployed people who apply for jobs.
If our argument is to hold water, it must be linked to one or two entrenched provisions of the law. The very first statement in the preamble to the Constitution expresses ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is indispensable for freedom justice and peace’ as a foundational principle of the Constitution. Article 8(1) declares inviolable the dignity of all persons and subsection (2) states that no person shall be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment. Article 18 of the Namibian Constitution enjoins administrative bodies and officials to act fairly and reasonably and to comply with statutory requirements imposed upon them.
When a big, disproportionate, and unrealistic number of applications are shortlisted for one or a very small number of vacancies, it should be regarded as inhuman or degrading, unfair, and unreasonable in terms of the provisions of the constitution. This is a mathematical impossibility because only one of the 700 applicants, for example, will be hired. What happens to the 699 should be considered inhuman, degrading, unfair and unreasonable. These people would have been exposed to all kinds of exploitation
including, but not limited to, financial and sexual exploitation. If the practice continues, the merciless exposure of applicants to the hard realities of unemployment, poverty, and the weak health of the
Namibian economy will continue and that will have grave ripple effects on all of us. In conclusion, those responsible for government policy on recruitment should work in isolation but in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that all relevant factors are taken into consideration.
By
Fedden Mainga Mukwata – Legal Pundit
Uno Uanivi – 4th Year Law Student, UNAM