Recruitment

Recruitment
is the process of generating a pool of capable people to apply or employment to an organization.

Selection
is the process by which managers and others use specific instruments to choose from a pool of applicants a person or persons most likely to succeed in the job(s), given management goals and legal requirements.

Human Resource Planning How many employees needed? When will employees be needed? What specific KSAs needed? Diversity goals to be met? Organizational Responsibilities Recruiting presence and image HR staff and operating managers Training of recruiters Strategic Recruiting Decisions Organizational-based vs. Outsourcing Regular vs. flexible staffing EJO/diversity considerations Recruiting source choices Recruiting Methods Internal Methods Internet/Web-based External methods

Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and selection are vital to the formation of a positive psychological contract, which provides the basis of organizational commitment and motivation. The attraction and retention of employees is part of the evolving employment relationship, based on a mutual and reciprocal understanding of expectations. There are wide variations in recruitment and selection practices, reflecting an organizations strategy and its philosophy towards the management of people. Progressive HR practices are crucial to a positive psychological contract this includes attention to effective recruitment and selection practices.

Recruitment and Selection

Various recruitment and selection practices are bound by the law of the land. In general there are three forms of discrimination that are against the law: Direct Indirect Victimization

The Legal Context

Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (amended 1986) Race Relations Act 1976 (amended 2000) Equal Pay Act 1970 (amended 1983 to include work of equal value) Disability Discrimination Act 1996 Directives from the EU such as the 1998 Data Protection Act

Key Legal Provisions in the UK

A key role for HR is to align performance within roles with the strategy, so recruiting for the right people for a role depends on how it is defined in terms relating to performance to achieve the strategy. Criterion-related behaviours or standards of performance are referred to as competencies. Competencies can be used to provide the behaviours needed at work to achieve the business strategy, and enable organizations to form a model of the kinds of employee it wishes to attract through recruitment.

Recruitment and Attraction

The main approaches to attracting applicants can be summarized as follows:
Walk-ins Employee referrals Advertising Websites Professional associations Educational associations Professional agencies E-recruitment (general recruitment agents/ companies own sites) Word-of-mouth

Recruitment and Attraction

An organization will take account of a number of factors when forming its recruitment plans and choice of media. These might include: Cost Time taken to recruit and select Labour market focus, for example: skills, profession or occupation Mobility of labour geographic and occupational Legislation on sex discrimination, race discrimination and disability

Personnel specifications versus competencies

Personnel specifications may contain stereotypes

of the ideal person and so organizations may be reinforcing the stereotype in their recruitment practices. The use of competencies allows organizations to free themselves from traditional stereotypes in order to attract applicants from a variety of sources.

Recruitment & Selection

Competencies appear to be more objective, have a varietyof uses in attracting applicants and allow an organization touse more reliable and valid selection techniques.

Recruitment and Attraction

Organizations have become increasingly aware of making good selection decisions, since it involves a number of costs: The cost of the selection process itself, including the use of various selection instruments The future costs of inducting and training new staff The cost of labour turnover if the selected staff are not retained

Selection: Costs
Underlying the process of selection and the choice of techniques are two key principles: 1. Individual differences: Attracting a wide choice of applicants will be of little use unless there is a way of measuring how people differ, i.e. intelligence, attitudes, social skills, psychological and physical characteristics, experience etc. 2. Prediction: A recognition of the way in which people differ must be extended to a prediction of performance in the workplace.

Selection: Principles Reliability and Validity Issues

Reliability refers to the extent to which a selection technique achieves consistency in what it is measuring over repeated use. Validity refers to the extent to which a selection technique actually measures what it sets out to measure.

Selection
Information elicited interviews have a specific focus, i.e. facts, subjective information, underlying attitudes. Structure ranging from the completely structured to the unstructured. A compromise between the two enables the interviewer to maintain control yet allowing the interviewee free expression. Order and involvement the need to obtain different kinds of information may mean the involvement of more than one interviewer. Applicants may be interviewed serially or in a panel.

Selection Interviews Selection

Personality research has lent support to the use of sophisticated selection techniques such as psychometric tests that have a good record of reliability and validity. Ability tests: these focus on mental abilities (verbal/numerical) and physical skills testing. Right/wrong answers allow applicants to be placed in ranked order. Inventories: self-report questionnaires indicating traits, intelligence, values, interests, attitudes and preferences. No right/wrong answers but a range of choices between possible answers.

Psychometric Testing
On-line testing, or e-assessment, is also used for selection and other HR purposes. Benefits: Online testing enables organizations to test at any time and anywhere in the world. It enables the quick processing of applicants. Drawback: Loss of control over the administration of the tests anyone can be called on to help

E-assessment
Assessment centres are designed to yield information that can be used to make decisions concerning suitability for a job. They provide a fuller picture by combining a range of techniques. General methods used include group discussions, role plays and simulations, interviews and tests. Candidates attending an assessment centre will be observed by assessors who should be trained to judge candidates performance against criteria contained within the competency framework.

Applicants have expectations about how the organization will treat them. Recruitment and selection represent an opportunity to clarify these. Realistic job previews (RJPs) provide a means of achieving this. RJPs can take the form of case studies, shadowing, job sampling and videos this enables the expectations of applicants to become more realistic. RJPs: lower initial expectations, cause some applicants to deselect themselves, increase levels of organization commitment, job satisfaction, performance and job survival.

Internal vs. External Recruiting

Internal recruiting (+)
Rewards employee Low cost Fast The recruit is well known

External recruiting (+)

Brings new ideas Buy talent Reduced training EEO goals

Internal recruiting (-)

Inbreeding Increased training Political problems

External recruiting (-)

Mistakes in hiring Increases recruitment costs Longer time to fill

Evaluating Recruiting
Analyzing costs / benefits of methods Yield ratios
The number of qualified applicants generated divided by the total number generated Can compute yield ratios for different types of applicants, each recruiting method, and at each stage of the selection process

Recruiters
Number of applications processed, number of successful hires

Recruiting Methods
Internal
Closed vs. open system Job postings Job bidding Skills inventory Nominations

External
Targeted recruitment Employee referrals Advertisements
Newspaper, radio, TV

College Placement Search firms Job fairs

Realistic Job Previews

Portrays a realistic picture of the job
Positives and negatives Videotape, on-site visit, presentation, description

Helps applicants select-out prior to starting Makes applicants who accept more committed to their choice Helps new employees adjust Reduces turnover in the first few months