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I just had a job interview (permanent lecturer position not connected to a grant) and, immediately afterwards, I found out that the person who is the group leader and responsible for recruiting is the sibling of one of the candidates.

I made sure that this is actually the case. It is not a suspicion; it is a fact.

Could this be justified under some circumstances? This seems ridiculous. Should I raise a complaint?

This in the UK.

Interviewing a family member is not permitted. Yes, you should raise a complaint. Do it politely, of course. But in the end, you have to ask yourself whether or not a work group that would even try to get away with this is one you want to get involved with.

From my personal experience, very unsubstantiated and anecdotal, family hire and similar conflicts of interests do still happen in UK universities. It is very frustrating and demotivating for other candidates, particularly when your skills match the job description well and you've put a lot of time and effort to prepare the application and the interview presentation.

Such conflict of interests are of course unethical and potentially illegal, but it is not easy to prove a case, particularly if HR are inclined to turn a blind eye towards the problem. If you want to raise a complaint, take care not to reveal your identity to your immediate line manager (Head of School) and explicitly request form HR to maintain your anonymity, particularly if you are still on the probation period. It may be a good idea to talk to your local unions. Good luck.

Background

Some countries, and I don't know about the UK specifically, have requirements at state-funded universities when it comes to hiring.

One such requirement is that someone cannot be hired directly. The position needs to be opened and announced in some public medium, and kept open for at least X time so everyone has time to apply. Then interviews, etc., are carried and the best candidate is hired, if one is found.

Another requirement is that those with a conflict of interest with any of the candidates should state so. And hopefully excuse themselves from the hiring committee in order to not influence the result, independently of whether this is mandatory.

In practice, sometimes a candidate has already been chosen in which case the position requirements are tightened, if possible, to ensure their champion is the right fit for the position. This leads to positions, which have already been filled, being opened with the sole purpose of meeting hiring regulations.

Consequences

This is the most important part. I'd like to speak of consequences.

Raising a complaint brings you little or no benefit, but might gain you an enemy:

• The end result may or may not change, but complaining will ensure you're not hired. The group leader is the accused here, sounds unlikely he'll hire you to his group after your complaint.




• The group leader might affect others' impression of you, not only on this particular group but on other locations as well where he might know someone. If he didn't bother excusing himself from interviewing his sibling (which is morally reprehensible, if not illegal) then this seems a possibility.




• Between two prospective candidates of equal competence, I'd guess the one most likely to be hired is the one not known to be a troublemaker.

There might be some degree of privacy when presenting a complaint, but I don't know how these are processed. Meaning there's a chance the accused party would not know who presented the complaint. In this case in particular, you're simply pointing out something that is easily proven. You don't have to present a lengthy justification.

Complaint without complaining

A simple email to the right person asking whether such behavior is allowed by the institution's regulations might be all is needed for someone to look into it. You could add a note stating you'd like your identity to be kept private for fear of reprisals. But without an official complaint it's possible they'll ignore it.

You describe a situation as you see it, but you have no way of knowing or understanding what's going on behind the scenes. My own assumption would be that if you know about this, than others know about this, including members of the home department that work with the group leader in question every day.

There is an obvious appearance of a conflict of interest, but there are ways of managing conflicts. My own assumption, which can certainly be wrong, is that this is so obvious that they must be managing the conflict.

So, should you complain? I don't know laws or procedures in the UK, but I'd first ask, who do you plan on complaining to?? Next, keep in mind that you don't know the whole situation, a complaint might be impugning the integrity of a person when the whole conflict might be handled behind the scenes already. This is a fairly serious accusation. You'd also be impugning the standards of the department, questioning whether they'd let such a conflict stand unchecked.

Next, lets say the conflict is unmanaged. Would you really want to work in an environment where such obvious conflicts are left to stand? Not getting the job may be a blessing.

With all this in mind, and the possible harm to your own reputation this may cause, I wouldn't recommend complaining. There may be nothing improper going on, and if there is, it just doesn't seem like you have any options that can improve your situation. I'd move on, and see if you get the job offer.

Is it ridiculous, maybe. Is it justified, yes. Should you raise a complaint, no.

It is ridiculous when HR gets in the way of a group leader not being able to hire the person that the group leader thinks is most qualified. HR would probably prefer the group leader to not be involved, but then you lose a key person, possibly the only person, who can evaluate the technical competency of the candidates. Realistically HR will probably be happy with an independent observer of the interview and might even be happy with documentation that the selected candidate is the best candidate.

Either the process has been approved by someone, in which case you are not going to get anywhere and just come off as a complainer. If it hasn't been approved, then you just made an enemy of the group leader, which is not helpful either.