Employee
Recruitment and Selection
(Source: Smith,2015)
Introduction
The process of
identifying willing and able applicants to fill actual or anticipated
organizational vacancies is known as recruitment (Decenzo, Robbins and
Verhulst,2010). Normally, an organization will have a pool of applicants who
are sourced from recruitment process. Shortlisting applicants from the pool created
by the recruitment process using screening tools to match the Knowledge ,Skills ,Abilities and other
Competencies(KSACs) which are required for performing the Job with the
applicant’s/applicants’ KSACs is called selection (Dessler,2017).The main objective of the recruitment and selection
process is to acquire required number and quality human resource to fulfill the organizational
human resource needs at a minimum cost. Armstrong (2006) explains the
recruitment and selection process in 3 steps as mentioned below.
1.
Outline Organizational Human Resource Requirements –
preparing job descriptions and specifications; deciding terms and conditions of
employment.
2.
Alluring Candidates to apply for Vacancies – reviewing
and evaluating alternative sources of applicants, inside and outside the
company, advertising, using agencies and consultants.
3. Selecting Candidates best fit for the Job and
the Organization – sifting applications, interviewing, testing, assessing
candidates, assessment centers, offering employment, obtaining references;
preparing contracts of employment.
Importance of Recruitment and Selection to an Organization
In today’s
dynamic business environment, it is important to survive and thrive for an
organization to achieve its short to long term business objectives. It is only
with the development and nurturing of leadership and management competencies of
the new staff that an organization could achieve this (O’Meara and Petzall,
2013).
The following
are the most significant factors why an organization should have a sound
recruitment and selection process.
· To ensure the workforce has the required KSACs to meet an
organization’s short- and long-term objectives (CIPD,2018). With the aging,
retirement and employee turnover the KSACs of employees in an organization
which are required for survival and growth in the competitive business sphere
may be diminished. Only with a robust recruitment and selection process this
could be avoided.
· To introduce new knowledge, skills and innovations to
outperform competition and to face unknown future challenges (Storey,Wright and
Ulrich,2008).Especially in knowledge based industries like financial service
providers and high-tech companies, new knowledge and innovation which could be
introduced through employing the best
are key factors to outperform competition.
· To reduce costs. Hiring and training of a new employee
involves seen and unseen costs, such as time spent by a supervisor to train a
recruit, to an organization (Whitford et al., 2005). Hence it is important to hire the “right” person to a
job who will remain with the organization and perform expected duties in a
correct manner.
· To avoid legal issues which are time consuming and
costly. Laws governing discrimination, right to work in a country, criminal
record checks and data protection may affect recruitment and selection process
(CIPD,2019).
Recruitment and Selection Methods
Recruitment
methods as identified by (Torrington,
Hall and Taylor, 2005) could be broadly mentioned as follows.
·
Internal Recruitment-filling a job vacancy internally
from existing employees. This could be done by way of a transfer, job rotation
or a promotion.
·
External Recruitment- calling for applications for a job
vacancy externally using Advertisements in press, business journals, electronic
media, corporate web sites, liaison with education institutes such as
universities, colleges, executive recruitment agencies and consultants, word of
mouth. Under external recruitment 2 most commonly used techniques are:
1.
Recruitment Advertising-using an external recruitment
advertising agency who are experts in drafting job vacancy advertisements and
know how to select suitable media to communicate and attract applications for
vacancy/vacancies to be filled in an organization. This method is often cost
effective as opposed to head hunters and recruitment consultants.
2.
E-Recruitment-with the low cost, innovative use and
popularity and success of social media networks websites, Internet and mobile
technology platforms are widely used as a recruitment method across the world (Newell-Brown and Swain, 2009).
Employer Branding is
a concept in recruitment which is in simple terms describes a symbol of an
identity and promise of delivery of functional benefits( such as high remuneration
,excellent working environment and cutting edge technology) and emotional
benefits (such as values driven from total work experience , satisfaction from
the work performed ,recognition from colleagues/society and belief of the quality ,purpose and
value of the
organization work for) which lures
quality and skilled applicants to apply for existing/potential vacancies of an
organization (Barrow and Mosley, 2005).
Redman and
Wilkinson (2006) recognizes four main selection methods. They are;
1.
Structured Interviews
– One of the most commonly used selection methods. Same sorts of questions
mainly based on behavioral (hypothetical situation and ask how the candidate
would react to it) and situational (how the candidate has reacted to an actual
situation experienced) perspectives are asked from all the candidates and they
are assessed based on same dimensions.
2.
Biographical
Measures-Using past behavior of a person as the basis to predict future
behavior to select the right candidate.
3.
Psychometric
Tests-Deals in two type of tests used for selection. Cognitive Tests which
examine general intelligence and Personality Tests which examine the
personality traits of a candidate (since personality differs from one person to
another initially there was low validity for this type of tests which were
later changed due to emergence of models such as “Big 5” personality traits
namely openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and
neuroticism).
4.
Assessment or
Development Centres-This method uses variety of exercises over a given period
of time to assess (by a group of assessors who rate the candidates)
competencies of candidates in a small group which are relevant to perform a
particular job in an organization. Exercises might include: a group
decision-making exercise, a presentation, a role play, an in-basket test,
psychometric tests and interviews. Increased usage of this method is seen
especially among large organizations due to relatively high level of predictive
validity and fair and thorough by candidates.
Recruitment and Selection in Practice in different Organizations
Sparrow (2007) had studied recruitment approaches of four UK based
organizations and following are the findings:
·
South East
London Strategic Health Authority (SHA) - When SHA wanted to recruit specialist skill
shortage areas (such as doctors and nurses) they ran global advertising using
web-based media giving a value proposition to the prospective clients. They
were mindful of not to damage (due to drain of skills) the countries where the
recruitments were made. SHA adopted following strategies for this.
§ Establishment of
policies targeting specific skills and countries and use of communication
channels in agreement with service providers.
§ Adopted passive
recruitment strategies to negate the effects of growing number of international
employees in the domestic labour market in UK.
§ Lastly,
longer-term strategies ensured the continued attractiveness of the SHA as an employer
in overseas markets.
·
BBC World Service - BBC used its employer
brand as the main strategy to attract journalists/producers. Vacancies were
advertised in their commercial web site which had been communicated via
brochures and the process was handled by an external service provider.
·
Barclaycard
International – When Barclaycard wanted to drive its internationalization
strategy, they used their multi-cultural work force. Vacancies were
advertised on intranets and
international HR business partner was appointed to negotiate preferred
supplier arrangements with headhunters and other institutions. An employee value
proposition and employment brand were also developed across countries to
attract candidates.
·
Save the Children – To fill their
vacancies spanning over six geographical regions, Save the Children used four
main strategies.
§ Used regional HR
managers to identify and collate data bases of local candidates using local
communication channels.
§ Used recruitment
advertising with a global protocol to identify sources.
§ Entered into
collaborative arrangements with other agencies and charities to source
candidates.
§ Used brand image
heavily through advertising to lure candidates.
My Own Experience
I work for a
leading private sector commercial bank in Sri Lanka.It adopts both Internal and
external recruitment methods to fill vacancies.
Internal
recruitment are done on posting job vacancies in Intra-Net calling for
applications.
External recruitment are done on publishing advertisements through printed media and
bank’s web site. Special emphasis is given for the “employer branding” to
attract candidates.
The selection
methods mainly include written aptitude tests and structured interviews.
Conclusion
Often the words
recruitment and selection are used interchangeably. However, these are two
different set of activities which are part of best HR practices and vital for
the performance of the organization. Over a time, we have seen change of recruitment
methods however the traditional methods are still in use in conjunction with
new methods such as E-recruitment. The selection is a two-way process where
both the employer and employee make selection decisions. Although poorly done,
it is very important to frequently review and validate the effectiveness of
recruitment and selection methods to get the maximum benefits to an
organization from the process(Torrington et al., 2014).
List of References
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Chartered Institute
of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2019) Recruitment
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