If someone challenges a hiring decision months later, you will not be able to work out the answer from memory. Either it was written down at the time, or it is gone.
What to keep
| Document | Answers the question |
|---|---|
| A list of your AI tools | What software touches hiring, at which point, doing what |
| Supplier documentation | What the tool does, its limits, what testing they did |
| Your screening rules, dated | What you were looking for on that day |
| Decision records | Who decided, on what evidence, with what human involvement |
| Bias check results and actions | What you checked, what you found, what you changed |
| Candidate notices | What you told people, and from when |
| Deletion policy and proof it happens | What you keep, for how long, and evidence |
| Risk register | What you know could go wrong, and what you do about it |
Most of these are one page each. The work is keeping them current, not creating them.
Saving your rules is the important one
Module 4 made this a habit for a reason.
The most common question in any challenge is "why was this person not progressed". The answer is your screening rules as they were on that date — and they will have changed several times since.
Save the rules alongside the shortlist, every single run. It costs nothing at the time and cannot be recreated afterwards.
Handling a complaint
- Reply quickly and say when you will give a full answer.
- Do not improvise an explanation. Get the record first.
- Have a person genuinely review the decision against the rules — not as a formality.
- Answer in plain words: what the software did, what a person did, and which requirement was not met.
- Record the complaint and the outcome. Patterns in complaints are an early warning, and they are the first thing anyone investigating will ask for.
Never say "the algorithm decided". Either a person was involved, in which case say what they did — or one was not, in which case you have a bigger problem than this complaint.
Keeping records without creating a new problem
Your records are themselves personal data. Two habits stop them becoming a liability:
- Write notes you would be comfortable showing the candidate. They can ask to see them.
- Apply your deletion policy to the records too. An archive you keep forever is an archive you will one day have to hand over.
Where to start
The list of tools. Half an hour, and most teams find something touching candidate data that nobody expected to be on the list. You cannot manage what you have not written down.