Employee Recruitment and Selection

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

Armstrong,M.(2006)A hand book of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE.10^th ed.London,KOGAN PAGE.

  Barrow, S. and Mosley, R. (2005). The Employer Brand:Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work. 1st ed. West Sussex: John Willey & Sons Ltd.

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2018) Recruitment:an introduction[online]. London:CIDP.Available at <https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/recruitment/factsheet>.[Accessed on 25^th December 2018].  

 Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) (2019) Recruitment Employers:learn how to safely recruit within the law[online].London:CIDP.Available at

 < https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/emp-law/recruitment >.[Accessed on 6^th January 2019].

Decenzo, D. A. R., Robbins, S. P and Verhulst, S.L. (2010) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management. 10^th ed.United States of America,John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Dessler,G.(2017)Human     Resource       Management.15^thed.United States of America,PEARSON.

  Newell-Brown, J. and Swain, A. (2009). THE PROFESSIONAL RECRUITER'S HANDBOOK:delivering excellence in recruitment practice. 1st ed. London: KOOGAN PAGE.

O’Meara,B and Petzall,S.(2013)The Handbook of STRATEGIC RECRUITMENT and SELECTION A Systems Approach.Bingley,Emerald.

Redman, T. and Wilkinson, A. (2006). CONTEMPORARY HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:Text and Cases. 2nd ed. Essex: Pearson.

Smith, J. (2015)Building the Bridge Between Recruitment and Selection-TMHRA Nuts and Bolts.Google[online.]Available at

<https://tmhranutsandbolts.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Josh-Smith-Recruitment-and-Selection-2.pdf >. [Accessed on 9^th December 2018]. 

Sparrow, P. (2007) ‘Globalisation of HR at function level: Four UK-based case studies of the international recruitment and selection process’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 845–67.

Storey, J.,Wright,P.M and Ulrich,D.(2008) The Routledge Companion to Strategic Human Resource Management.United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis e-Library[online]. Available at < https://www.pdfdrive.com/ >.

[Accessed on 25^th December 2018].

Torrington, D., Hall, L. and Taylor, S. (2005). Human Resource Management. 6th ed. Essex: Pearson.

Torrington, D., Hall, L., Taylor, S. and Atkinson, C. (2014). Human Resource Management. 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Whitford, F., Hanna, M., Gerber, C., Wade, M. and Blessing, A. (2005). The Hiring Process-Recruiting,Interviewing and Selecting the Best Employees. United States of America, PURDUE University.