RECRUITMENT &

SELECTION
What is recruitment?

 Process of Attracting the best

Qualified individuals to apply for a
given Job.
 Three main stages in recruitment
1) Identify and define the requirements. job
descriptions, job specifications
(2) Attract potential employees
(3) Select and employ the appropriate people
from the job applicants
Recruitment & Selection is a
continuous process
 Staff departures (e.g. retirements,
sackings, resignations)
 Changes in business requirements
(e.g. new products, markets,
expanded operations)
 Changes in business location (a
relocation often triggers the need for
substantial recruitment)
 Promotions
Factors describing recruitment process

 Characteristics of the job

 Characteristics of applicants
 Recruiting Policies
 Characteristics of the recruiter
Characteristics of the Job

 Pay
 Challenge
 Jobsecurity
 Chance for promotion
 Geography
 Benefits (how much do you know?)
Applicant Characteristics

 Applicantsmay decide whether to take a

job based on:
 Non-compensatory factors (got to have this
in a job) minimum salary, location
 Compensatory characteristics (would like to
have this)
Recruiting policies

The employer’s view (we just did the

applicant’s view)
 Recruiting sources:
 Do you recruit from inside or outside
company?
Recruiter characteristics

 Warmth
 Informativeness (how much do they tell
you about job?)
 Studies show applicants find recruiter
less credible when from HR department
Methods

 Internal Recruitment
 This refers to the filling of job vacancies from
within the business - where existing
employees are selected rather than
employing someone from outside.
 A business might decide that it already has

the right people with the right skills to do the

job, particularly if its training and
development programme has been effective.
How is it done?

 Internal vacancies are usually advertised

within the business via a variety of media:
 Staff notice boards
 Intranets
 In-house magazines / newsletters (for
example, E-map, a major publishing
business) have a weekly staff magazine
devoted solely to advertising jobs within
the organization!
 Staff meetings
Advantages of internal recruitment

 Gives existing employees greater opportunity to

advance their careers in the business
 May help to retain staff who might otherwise leave
 Requires a short induction training period
 Employer should know more about the internal
candidate's abilities (= a reduced risk of selecting
an inappropriate candidate)
 Usually quicker and less expensive than recruiting
from outside
Disadvantages of internal recruitment

 Limits the number of potential applicants

for a job
 External candidates might be better suited /
qualified for the job
 Another vacancy will be created that has to
be filled
 Existing staff may feel they have the
automatic right to be promoted, whether or
not they are competent & Business
resistant to change
External Recruitment
 This refers to the filling of job vacancies
from outside the business (contrast with
internal recruitment). Most businesses
engage in external recruitment fairly
frequently, particularly those that are
growing strongly, or that operate in
industries with high staff turnover
 There are several ways of looking for staff
outside the business
Employment / recruitment
agencies
 These businesses specialize in recruitment and
selection. They often specialize in recruitment for
specific sectors (e.g., finance, travel, secretarial).
They usually provide a shortlist of candidates
based on the people registered with the agency.
They also supply temporary or interim employees.

 The main advantages with using an agency are the

specialist skills they bring and the speed with
which they normally provide candidates. They also
reduce the administrative burden of recruitment.
The cost is the high agency fees charged - often
up to 30% of the first year wages of anyone
employed.
Headhunters / Recruitment
Consultancies
 "Upmarket" recruitment agents who
provide a more specialised approach to the
recruitment of key employees and/or senior
management. They tend to "approach"
individuals with a good reputation rather
than rely on long lists of registered
applicants - often using privileged industry
contacts to draw up a short list. The cost of
using a headhunter or recruitment
consultant is high.
 Job centres
 Government run agency - good for identifying
local candidates for relatively straightforward
jobs. The job centre service is free to
employers and is most useful for advertising
semi-skilled, clerical and manual jobs.
 Government Funded Training Schemes
 Theadvantage of these schemes is that
government funding lowers the cost of
employment. However, relatively few
employment requirements are covered by
these schemes.
 Advertising

 Probably the most common method. Advertising

allows the employer to reach a wider audience.
The choice of advertising media (e.g. national
newspaper, internet, specialist magazine etc)
depends on the requirement for the advert to
reach a particular audience and, crucially, the
advertising budget.
Advertisement characteristics

 Accurate - describes the job and its requirements

accurately
 Short - not too long-winded; covers just the important
ground
 Honest - does not make claims about the job or the
business that will later prove false to applicants
 Positive - gives the potential applicant a positive feel
about joining the business
 Relevant - provides details that prospective applicants
need to know at the application stage (e.g. is shift-
working required; are there any qualifications required)
 Choice of medium - What kind of advertising
medium should be chosen? The following factors
are relevant:
 Type of job: senior management jobs merit adverts in the
national newspapers and/or specialist management magazines
(e.g. the Economist, Business Week). Many semi-skilled jobs
need only be advertised locally to attract sufficient good quality
candidates
 Cost of advertising: National newspapers and television cost
significantly more than local newspapers etc
 Readership and circulation: how many relevant people does the
medium reach? How frequently (e.g. weekly, monthly, annually!.
Is the target audience actually only a small fraction of the total
readership or Viewer ship?
 Frequency: how often does the business want to advertise the
post?
Advantages of external recruitment

 Theseare mainly the opposite of the

disadvantages of internal recruitment. The
main one being that a wider audience can be
reached which increases the chance that the
business will be able to recruit the skills it
needs.
Revolutionary method
 ‘Friends program’
 Prospective employee clicked on the Friends
program icon on the company’s website
 they had to fill in a form

 explained about the work and the company’s

culture
 Internal referral program, Amazing People
 refer their friends and relatives for a job
Results

 Through Friends Programme

Attract:100/150 per week & 500,00 in a
month.
 Hiring cycle comes down to 45 days
(65days).
 Cost down to 40%
 Result in more qualified people
 Low attrition rate
Recruitment policies
 EEO- equal employment opportunity makes it
sure for equal probability of selection in terms
of gender, race and caste
 Reservations – while recruiting people all the
reservations mentioned in the constitution
needs to be taken into account
 Contingency employment – to what post and
in what strength one can hire temporary
employee
 Encouragement for disabled persons
Internet recruitment

 Advancement in technology has caused

recruitment and selection process to be
more fast and easier.
 E- mails have replaced ordinary post
 Electronic CVs has speeded the process by
optical character recognition (OCR)
 Online recruitment sites include job sites,
agency sites and different media sites.
Common Selection Process

Multiple hurdle model: Compensatory model: a very

eliminating some candidates high score on one type of
Vs. assessment can make up for a
at each stage of the selection
process low score on another. All
candidates go through all
selection procedures
Selection Steps

1)Link to organization strategy and

objectives.
2) Job analysis --> job description --> job
specification.
3) Recruiting.
4) Choose selection tool/method.
5) Select from applicant pool.
6) Evaluate.
Selection Methods

 Application forms
 Interviews
 Assessment center
 Psychometric test
 Peer assessments-
Interviews

 Most common method

 Not always most valid method- depends on
form of interview
Types of interviews:
 Structured (much higher validity than
unstructured) (questions oriented to past
experience, and hypothetical questions)
 Unstructured
 Panel/ Team
Problems with interviews

 Biases on part of interviewer

 Halo effect
 Primacy effect (first impressions)
Psychometric test
Personality:
 Projective Technique: TAT
 16Pf Test.
Interest Inventory:
 Thurston Inventory
Motivation:
 Achievement Test
 Need for Affiliation
 Need For Power
Honesty:
 Polygraph
 Graphology
Assessment center

 The focus is on behavior

 Includes role-plays and group exercises
 Interviews and tests will be used in addition to
exercises
 Performance is measured in several dimensions
in terms of the competencies
 Several participants are assessed together in
order to allow interaction
 Several assessors and observers are used in
order to increase the objectivity
Application forms

 Computer screening of application forms

 Used by many large firms (Microsoft,
IBM) to save time
 Used for large numbers of applicants
 Biodata- education, other information
about accomplishments (did you build a
model airplane that flew?—this predicted
success of pilot trainees)
 Peer assessments

 important if teamwork involved

Reference Checks
 It is necessary to confirm the nature of the
previous, period of time in employment, the
reason for leaving, attendance record etc.
 But Allowance should made for prejudice and a
check should made.
 Some firms fear liability in defamation suits for
giving references
 Importance of training referees to know difference
between facts and generalizations
 Credit checks- contain biographical data which
can be checked against applicant info
 If rejected due to credit check, applicant must be
told under Fair Credit Reporting Act
Considerations When
Choosing a Selection Method

 Strategic goals of organization

 Utility (benefits less costs)

 Legal defensibility

 Reliability and validity

Placement
 Decision about placement can be made in the
selection process itself based on interest,
expertise and individual ability
 Separate techniques ( interviews,
psychometric tests etc) can be used for
placing people
 Generally after initial training, individuals are
placed in their respective fields based on their
performance in the training