Hi Emiah

It is impossible to say what any specific employer is looking for. It will depend on the nature of their businesses and the kinds of ER issues that tend to occur. However, you could take take very many of the posts on here as descriptions of complex ER cases that the person posting is involved in.

Interviewers don’t expect interviewees to breach confidentiality, but to describe their experience similarly to posts on here, i.e. anonymising it. I would also avoid using any incidents that show your current employer in a bad light.

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Would it be possible to recommend a book which contains ER cases and how professional have resolved them? I am looking into the internet for such type of books but cannot find anything.

Thanks a lot

Surely the OSA bit of most jobs is specific??. I would have thought therefore that certain things are covered Like names, or dates or materials. Not necessarily everyday mundane events? Surely you can tell someone you had a coffee at tea time? Or went somewhere? Or had a discussion about something not covered?

(I signed the OSA and everything you did wasn't covered/relevant - otherwise It would have wiped several years off my life!)

I'm sure you could find a case you were involved in and simply not use names or anything else that could make it identifiable??

Just make one up. They won't know and won't care. What they want to know is what they asked. (How it was handled by you!).

And of course you can always say that you are unable to answer question X because you have signed the OSA.

The question may be along the lines of 'tell us about the most complex disciplinary/grievance case you have been involved in. What did you do? What was the result and what would you do differently in the same situation arose in the future?' So your answer is very general and does not include dates, names, company name, address, etc. The interviewer will be looking for the level of case that you think is complex, what your involvement was, that you followed a proper procedure and what you learned from it.

Hi Emiah

I agree with previous threads, I think what people are looking for is not specifics around names but your general approach. When I was asked this recently I spoke about a case which involved an individual with protected characteristics, how we made reasonable adjustments etc, whilst managing performance. It was a lengthy complex case, but I demonstrated each stage, how we dealt with it (eg OH advice) to final conclusion.

In reply to Fiona Mary Palmer:

Thank you all for your comments.

In reply to Fiona Mary Palmer:

My request was not really for an interview. It would have been nice to have some example of best practices in different company. I appreciate different company can have different approach but is still a good example. For instance your case is a good one to tech a junior which steps to put in place for such situation. In my CIPD I did not have any practical example on such topic

I agree with you, Francesca. I have probably done 10 interviews for HR Advisor and I always fail that part when they ask me to talk about complex ER cases, how I solved it, what would I change looking back... I have looked for books/ blogs/ case studies with ER cases in practice but there is a market gap. If any member here could help, I would be immensely thankful :)

In reply to Sandra Maria:

Posted this a few years ago, wanted to follow up. I've found knowing your up to date employment law and process steps. I've read a lot of employment tribunal cases. I agree this needs to be covered as a skill for interviews.