Recruitment and Selection

Graphics courtesy of The Wall Street JournalOpens in new window Recruitment and selection is an important operation in HRMOpens in new window, designed to maximize employee strength in order to meet the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. It is a process of sourcing, screening, short listing, and selecting the right candidates for the required vacant positions.

Internal and External Recruitment

Qualified applicants for jobs may be recruited from inside or outside the organization.

As noted earlier, recruitment is what organizations do to develop a pool of qualified candidates for open positions. There are three fundamental stages of recruitment:

1. Identify and generate applicants.
2. Maintain applicant interests and participation as they continue through the assessment process. During recruitment, the organization is trying both to assess and to attract the best job applicants.
3. Influence job choice so that desired applicants are willing to accept offers made to them.

Regardless of the stages, organizations traditionally have used two main types of recruiting, internal and external, which are not supplemented by recruiting over the Internet.

Internal Recruitment

Most vacant positions in organizations are filled through internal recruitment. When recruiting is internal, organizations turn to existing employees to fill open positions. Employees recruited internally are either seeking lateral moves (job changes that entail no major changes in responsibility or authority levels) or promotions.

The first thing to note about internal recruitment is that organizational culture becomes more important, whereas employer brand and reputation become less important. At the same time, there are key advantages to recruiting internally.

• One, there is less transition time moving into new jobs. Current employees are already familiar with an employer’s products, people, operating procedures, the organization’s goalsOpens in new window, structureOpens in new window, cultureOpens in new window, rules, and norms.
• Two, there is a greater likelihood of filling a position successfully and particularly because leaders, for example, already know the candidates—they have considerable information about their skills, abilities, and actual behavior on the job. In contrast to external candidates, an employer has considerably more information about internal candidates (e.g., past performance, temperament, work ethic).

• Three, filling a higher-level position internally is generally cheaper than filling it from outside.
• Four, assuming that those promoted from within are seen as deserving, there is a positive impact on the morale and motivation levels of other employees.
  
  
  Those who are not seeking promotion or who may not already be ready for one can see that promotion is a possibility in the future; or a lateral move can alleviate boredom once a job has been fully mastered and can be a useful way to learn new skills.
• Finally, internal recruiting is normally less time-consuming and expensive than external recruiting.

Internal recruiting typically consists of one or more of the following approaches:

• internal job posting;
• nomination by leader;
• knowledge,
• skills, and abilities database; and
• succession planning.

1.     Job posting

Job posting places information about job vacancies and qualifications on bulletin boards, in newsletters, and on the organization’s intranet. Many employers use internal job postings to encourage employees to manage their own careers by identifying internal promotional opportunities and responding to those openings for which they have skills and interest.

2.     Nominations

Some organizations have a more closed approach to internal recruitment and may ask leaders to nominate high-performing individuals as candidates for internal roles.

This tends to be an informal system, yet it may be highly effective in smaller organizations in which individuals are familiar with the work of employees in other departments. However, this approach may appear or in fact involve favoritism or unlawful discrimination. The consequences of either of these may offset any benefits the employer may gain by promoting from within.

3.     Knowledge, skills, and abilities database

Human resource information systems are commonly used to track various personnel-related issues. These may include a database of employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs).

New hires can create a KSA profile that details their background, experiences, and career goals and update the profile periodically, usually in conjunction with a performance review or career development discussion. This database can be used by HRM to identify individuals for potential promotion or transfer.

4.     Succession planning

Organizations can use succession planning strategies not only to identify the potential talent in the organization, but also to establish developmental plans to help prepare individuals for promotional roles.

Given the advantages of internal recruiting, why do organizations rely on external recruiting as much as they do?

The answer lies in the disadvantages of internal recruiting—among them, a limited pool of candidates and a tendency among those candidates to be set in the organization’s ways.

Often the organization simply does not have suitable internal candidates. Sometimes even when suitable internal applicants are available, organizations may rely on external recruiting to find the very best candidate or to help bring new ideas and approaches into their organization. When organizations are in trouble and performing poorly, external recruiting is often relied on to bring in talent with a fresh perspective.

External Recruitment

A key aspect to external recruitment is to identify the most effective external recruitment sources.

Types of external recruitment include: external services such as search firms, employment agencies, on demand recruiting services, alumni employees, job postings on career websites, such as IndeedOpens in new window or MonsterOpens in new window; job fairs in the community; career fairs at colleges; open houses for students and career counselors at high schools and onsite at the organization; recruitment meetings with groups in the local community; advertising in local newspapers, and military transition services.

In addition, some organizations find cultivating an employee pipeline to keep up with anticipated talent demands is useful. Another option is to consider non-U.S. citizens for hard-to-fill positions. This might include offshoring or visa sponsorship issues. Each of these sources have potential benefits and drawbacks that should be considered as part of an organization’s recruitment strategy.

The Pros and Cons

External recruitment has both advantages and disadvantages for organizations. Advantages include:

These advantages have to be weighed against the disadvantages, including the relatively high cost of external recruitment. Employees recruited externally lack knowledge about the inner workings of the organization and may need to receive more L&DOpens in new window than those recruited internally.

Finally, when employees are recruited externally, there is always uncertainty concerning whether they will actually be good performers. Nonetheless, organizations can take steps to reduce some of the uncertainty surrounding external recruitment with methods such as tests, temporary jobs, and internships.

1.     Targeting Passive or Active Candidates

Before deciding which recruiting method to use, organizations should first determine whether the ideal candidates are passive or active job seekers. Those who are unemployed or unhappy in their current employment are generally active job seekers, and those who are satisfied and successfully working at another place of business are generally passive job seekers.

Most employers, because they are looking for candidates who have a positive record of employment and are satisfied in their work, target passive job seekers. However, many of the traditional recruitment strategies target active job seekers. For example, posting open positions on an employer’s careers website and commercial job boards assumes that interested job seekers are looking for these messages, thus making this strategy appealing to active and not passive job seekers.

Employers must develop strategies that will interest passive job seekers in the employment opportunities they offer. Usually, more assertive strategies will reach passive job seekers, such as direct sourcing (directly approaching potential candidates, often at their places of employment) via telephone and social media, such as LinkedIn.

2.    Job Postings/Vacancy Announcements

It is important to understand that the job descriptionOpens in new window is not always an effective job posting/vacancy announcement. For the job posting/vacancy announcement to serve as a magnet to attract the right candidates to the job, it should include information about what a prospective candidate may get from the job rather than just the job duties and requirements.

Great job postings can be used in communicating the “WIIFM” (“What’s in it for me?”) message and should include why candidates should be interested in the job; detail what’s great about the organization, such as career paths, benefits, etc.; and provide candidates a realistic idea of the type of work they will be doing. It should not be a long list of candidate requirements. A good job posting should compel the right candidates to apply.

3.    Managing Employer Brand and Image

The organization’s reputation as an employer will affect its ability to attract top candidates. When employees are satisfied with the organization, they are likely to tell their friends and contacts about their employer, whether there is a referral program or bonus. Word of mouthOpens in new window and online communications about the organization can either help or hinder formal recruitment strategies.

Employers can also manage their employment image by regulating not only the frequency of recruitment messages (especially within any one recruitment medium) but also the wording used. For example, “We’re Hiring” messages can be more effective than “Help Wanted.”

Being a good community citizen is another way to enhance the employment brand. Employers can sponsor community events and provide opportunities for employees to donate their work time in community projects.

4.    Managing the “Candidate Experience”

The organization’s brand is also impacted by the way candidates in the hiring process are treated—whether they get the job they apply for or not.

How a candidate is treated from the earliest stages of submitting their resume/application through the in-person interviews to the offer/decline process are all considered part of the candidate experience. Employers must develop policies and practices that set guidelines on these elements including:

• Resume/application submission: Is this an easy process that does not require providing too much data? Can candidates easily navigate an employer’s online or offline application process, including via mobile devices? Can candidates easily find the careers page on the employer’s main website—in one or two clicks?

• Candidate communication: Are candidates provided timely and authentic communication on whether their application has been accepted, the status of interviews and answers to questions they may have about where they are in the process?
• Interviewer interactions: Are candidates interviewed by HRM and hiring leaders who are prepared for the interviews, have reviewed the resume/application in advance, are respectful of candidate responses and questions, and show consideration for the candidate’s time?
• Candidate logistics: Are candidates provided clear instructions regarding the logistics for their visits to an employer site, including being provided a schedule of interviews and interviewers in advance; receiving information on how to drive/travel to the employer site and reimbursement procedures for expenses (if applicable); and provided with appropriate meal/restroom breaks, and so forth?

Employers can positively affect their employer brand by making their candidate experience a consistent and standardized process that respects the candidate and makes the process simple and even pleasant.

Candidates have significant ability to affect external perceptions about an organization simply by telling people about how good/bad their experiences were when going through an interview process. Today, due to online employer review sites such as glassdoor.com or kununu.com, candidates have even more power to communicate to many people about their experiences during the interview process.

Regardless of which approach—or combination of approaches—an organization adopts, it should craft a policy that is fair and equitable to internal applicants, that sets expectations for employees applying for a position, and that is implemented consistently and communicated openly throughout the organization.