Recruitment
- Meaning of recruitment
- Purpose of recruitment
- Sources of candidates for recruitment
- Methods of employee recruitment
- Challenges of recruitment
- Emerging issues and trends in employee recruitment
7.0 THEORY OF RECRUITMENT PROCESS
LEARNIND OBJECTIVES
By the end of this topic, the trainee should be able to;
– explain the meaning of recruitment
– explain the components of a recruitment policy
– discuss the sources of candidates for recruitment
– discuss the recruitment process
– discuss the emerging issues and trends in recruitment
Theory of recruitment process describes the process of recruiting. This is especially important in today’s workplace due to the increasing competition for talent in today’s job market. Recruitment is the process of identifying that the organization needs to employ someone up to the point at which application forms for the post have arrived at the organization. Selection then consists of the processes involved in choosing from applicants a suitable candidate to fill a post. Training consists of a range of processes involved in making sure that job holders have the right skills, knowledge and attitudes required to help the organization to achieve its objectives.
7.1 Meaning of Recruitment
According to Edwin B. Flippo, “Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization”. Recruitment is the activity that links the employers and the job seekers. A few definitions of recruitment are:
• A process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected.
• It is the process to discover sources of manpower to meet the requirement of staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective selection of an efficient working force.
Recruitment of candidates is the function preceding the selection, which helps create a pool of prospective employees for the organization so that the management can select the right candidate for the right job from this pool. The main objective of the recruitment process is to expedite the selection process. Recruitment is a continuous process wherethe firm attempts to develop a pool of qualified applicants for the future human resources needs even though specific vacancies do not exist. Usually, the recruitment process starts when a manger initiates an employee requisition for a specific vacancy or an anticipated vacancy. Recruitment needs are of three types: planned i.e. the needs arising from changes in organization and retirement policy, anticipated needs which are those movements in personnel that an organization can predict studying trends in internal and external environment and unexpected which include resignation, deaths, accidents, illness give rise to unexpected needs.
Factors affecting recruitment policy
An organizations recruitment factor highly depends on;
• Organizational objectives and image
• Personnel policies of the organization and its competitors.
• Government policies on reservations.
• Preferred sources of recruitment.
• Need of the organization.
• Recruitment costs and implications.
Importance of recruitment
Recruitment is an essential process in that it;
• Attract and encourage more and more candidates to apply in the organization.
• Create a talent pool of candidates to enable the selection of best candidates for the organization.
• Determine present and future requirements of the organization in conjunction with its personnel planning and job analysis activities.
• Links the employers with the employees.
• Increase the pool of job candidates at minimum cost.
• Help increase the success rate of selection process decreasing number of visibly under qualified or overqualified job applicants.
• Help reduce the probability that job applicants once recruited and selected will leave the organization only after a short period of time.
• Ensures the organizations legal and social obligations regarding the composition of its workforce.
• Is the first step in identifying and preparing potential job applicants who will be appropriate candidates
• Increase organization and individual effectiveness of various recruiting techniques and sources for all types of job applicants.
7.2 Components of the Recruitment Policy
A good recruitment policy should include;
• The general recruitment policies and terms of the organization
• Recruitment services of consultants where applicable
• Recruitment of temporary
• Unique recruitment situations
• The selection process
• The job descriptions
• The terms and conditions of the employment
A recruitment policy of an organisation should be such that:
• It should focus on recruiting the best potential people.
• Ensures that every applicant and employee is treated equally with dignity and respect.
• Based on an unbiased policy.
• Aids and encourages employees in realizing their full potential.
• Transparent, task oriented and merit based selection.
• Weightage during selection given to factors that suit organization needs.
• Optimization of manpower at the time of selection process.
• Defines the competent authority to approve each selection.
• Abides relevant public policy and legislation on hiring and employment relationship.
• Integrates employee needs with the organizational needs.
7.3 Sources of Candidates
External and internal sources
Recruiting individuals to fill particular posts within a business can be done either internally recruitment within the firm, or externally recruiting people from outside. The advantages of internal recruitment are that: Considerable savings can be made. Individuals with inside knowledge of how a business operates will need shorter periods of training and time for ‘fitting in’, The organization is unlikely to be greatly ‘disrupted’ someone who is used to working with others in the organisation, Internal promotion acts as an incentive to all staff to work harder within the organisation and from the firm’s point of view, the strengths and weaknesses of an insider will have been assessed hence the employee is placed in the right job based on his skills and abilities. These sources are also economical in terms of time and money and there is always a risk attached to employing an outsider who may only be a success ‘on paper’.
The disadvantages of recruiting from within are that: inbreeding which limits the employers an opportunity to exercise wider choice selecting within the person who has been promoted must be replaced, an insider may be less likely to make the essential criticisms required to get the company working more effectively and Promotion of one person in a company may upset someone else and It also reduces creativity and innovativeness as internal candidates may continue performing the same way they have done over a long time.
External recruitment is advantageous in that it makes it possible to draw upon a wider range of talent, and provides the opportunity to bring new experience and ideas in to the business. Disadvantages are that it is more costly and the company may end up with someone who proves to be less effective in practice than they did on paper and in the interview situation.
There are a number of stages, which can be used to define and set out the nature of particular jobs for recruitment purposes: Job analysis is the process of examining jobs in order to identify the key requirements of each job. A number of important questions need to be explored:
• the title of the job
• to whom the employee is responsible
• for whom the employee is responsible
• a simple description of the role and duties of the employee within the organisation.
Job analysis is used in order to: Choose employees either from the ranks of your existing staff or from the recruitment of new staff, Set out the training requirements of a particular job, Provide information which will help in decision making about the type of equipment and materials to be employed with the job, Identify and profile the experiences of employees in their work tasks (information which can be used as evidence for staff development and promotion), Identify areas of risk and danger at work and Help in setting rates of pay for job tasks. Job analysis can be carried out direct observation of employees at work, finding out information from interviewing job holders, or referring to documents such as training manuals. Information can be gleaned directly from the person carrying out a task and/or from their supervisory staff. Some large organizations specifically employ ‘job analysts’. In most companies, however, job analysis is expected to be part of the general skills of a training or personnel officer.
Internal sources
This is where an organization gets or fills a position recruiting from the current employees of the company. It may occur in the following ways;
a) Transfers
This is moving an employee from one place or position to another. It is used as a source of recruitment to meet personnel requirements and may be done as a new recruitment because of shortage of personnel. It may be done for reasons such as the fact that a transfer from one place to another does not necessarily affect the duties or pay of an employee and it does not affect the number of employees working in the company. Transfer of employee may be done on the following basis;
• The need for rotation of employee from one department to another or one branch to another
• Medical grounds
• Promotion or demotion of employee
• To provide more exposure to employee for the sake of their training and development
• To rectify a faulty placement
• Disciplinary cases
The advantages of transfers include; increasing productivity and effectiveness of an organization, it improves skills of an employee, results to greater satisfaction and motivation to an employee and it leads to development of an employee for future promotions. The disadvantages are that it leads to dissatisfaction especially when done unfairly, the company incurs extra costs when transferring an employee from one place to another and it may lead to decreased productivity and effectiveness especially when an employee is demoted.
A good transfer policy have the following characteristics; a clearly defined responsibility for recommending and approving transfers, should consider accurate job descriptions of the job an employee is being transferred to, should ensure that transfers are only done when necessary e.g. due to surplus or shortages. The transfer policy should also consider how thee transfer will affect seniority of the person transferred and whether it will result to any changes in remuneration.
b) Promotion
Promotion means appointing a person to a position of greater responsibility. It is a way of meeting organizations personnel demand without increasing the number of employees. Promotion may be based on; seniority or merit. Seniority promotion is due to the time an employee have worked in an organization while merit is based on qualification, experience and performance regardless of the number of years one have worked in an organization.
The advantages of seniority based promotions are; it is simple to operate. It creates a feeling of discipline and respect for senior personnel, gives senior personnel satisfaction through recognition and enables workers to know their future job prospects. On the other hand, the disadvantages are; it doesn’t recognize merit and competence, it fails to motivate competent employee and competent employee who are holding junior positions and are not promoted may leave the organization for better prospects i.e. it may increase labour turnover.
The advantages of merit based promotions are; it recognizes and rewards competence and merit, motivates competent employees to put more efforts and enables organisation to retain competent
employees as well as leads to increased productivity. It disadvantages are; difficulties in developing systems to determine competence in an objective manner, leads to frustrations among seniors employee and workers are not certain who might be picked for promotion.
The characteristics of a good promotion policy are; promotions should be widely publicized and strictly followed, employees should be rotated from one job to another so that they can add their knowledge and experience, employees should be helped to increase their knowledge and skills through on the job training, holiday classes, seminars and conferences. In addition, promotions should be recommended managers and employees should be given a right to complain against any cases of unfair promotions and all promotions must be done with employees consent.
c) Current employees / referral
This a kind of internal recruitment in which a current employee’s recommend their friends or relatives when there is a vacancy. They usually recommend people they know but this method may encourage favoritism and nepotism. It may also deny workers who are capable a chance to be recruited if they do not have contacts in the organization. An organization may also fill the vacancy from its current temporary employee who has the right knowledge and skills for the job in question.
External sources
This is where employee is recruited outside the organization. It may be done through
a) Advertisement
This is where the organization advertises to the public that they have a vacancy. Vacancies that require less skill may be listed on notice boards at a convenience place while those that require higher skills may be advertised in national or international newspapers or magazines. Since advertisements attract many people who are competent, sometimes the company may not disclose its name and candidates may be required to post their applications through a given address.
An effective advertisement should include;
• Duties and responsibilities
• Contact address
• Title of vacancy
• Qualifications
• Salary
• Experience required
• Closing date of the application
• Name of the organization
• Conform to legal requirements
• Relationship between the job and others in the organization
• Should be able to attract sufficient number of applicants
• Brief details about various characteristics of the job
• Other characteristics the applicant should possess e.g. interpersonal skills, results oriented, high integrity etc.
b) Educational institutions
Some employers recruit candidates from institutions such as universities and colleges. Through this method, they are able to get employees at a lower cost since the candidates are readily available.
c) Human resource consultants
Organizations usually use this method when they don’t have the time or resources to manage your employee recruiting internally. This will involve engaging a recruitment consultancy firm who receives their requests; advertise for the job on behalf of their client without disclosing the client’s name. They then receive the applications and screen, interview and select applicants and give recommendations to their client. In most cases they give more than one candidate to the client. The clients benefits recruiting the best candidate for the job. There are two types of recruiting firms, Contingency firms, sometimes called headhunters, which try and place a candidate with the client and are only paid if they are successful. Retained search firms which are contracted with and are paid regardless of the results. Retained search firms are mostly used for executive positions.
d) Professional bodies
These are organizations composed of members of a given profession e.g. Kenya medical practitioners association. They usually maintain a data of their members and can provide the information to prospective employers on request. These are suitable for jobs requiring highly skilled professionals like doctors, engineers etc.
e) Public bodies / agencies
These are government bodies set up to provide information about vacancies to candidates and assisting the organization to find suitable candidates. Job seekers normally register and give their details to bodies like the Ministry of labour. This method applies mostly to lower levels jobs.
f) Headhunting
This is done for highly skilled professionals and senior executives. Organizations usually request professional organizations to look for the best candidate for an executive position. A company may go for certain experienced and qualified employee working for another organization producing similar goods or services. This is the most effective way for recruiting in executive positions and for newly established organizations or for those expanding. The executives are usually enticed with an attractive salary and other benefits.
h) Internet
The technology revolution has changed communication worldwide. Many companies are using internet as a source of recruitment advertising their vacancies through their websites or other recruitment sites and applicants send their applications through email. This method saves costs to both the prospective employee and employer
i) Job Fairs
Job fairs can be a very economical source of candidates that can be part of your employee recruiting strategy. To use this method, it is important to look for job fairs that specialize in your industry or the types of individuals required or participle in local job fairs if the company recruiting is searching for local talent. Information about job fairs can be got from area chamber of commerce, the state employment development department and scanning local newspaper for advertisements of upcoming job fairs.
7.4 Recruitment Process
A Recruitment Process is an organization-specific model of how the sourcing of new employees is undertaken. Typically the ownership of the recruitment process resides within the Human Resources function, although again this may differ depending on the specific organizational structure. A recruitment process can be broken down into respective parts. Whilst the naming and exact process steps are unique to an organization, a typical recruiting process may commence with the identification of a vacancy, then the preparation of a job description, database sourcing, role marketing, response management, short-listing, interviews, reference checking, and selection.
In situations where multiple new jobs are created and recruited for the first time, a job analysis and/or in some cases a task analysis might be undertaken to document the actual and intended requirements of the job. From these the relevant information is captured in such documents as job descriptions and job specifications. Often a company will already have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed. Where already drawn up, these documents need to be reviewed or updated to reflect present day requirements. Prior to initiating the recruitment stages a person specification should be finalized to provide the recruiters commissioned with the requirements and objectives of the project.
The next step after job analysis is Sourcing. This is the use of one or more strategies to attract or identify candidates to fill job vacancies. It may involve internal and/or external advertising, using appropriate media, such as local or national newspapers, specialist recruitment media, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, or in a variety of ways via the internet. Alternatively, employers may use recruitment consultancies or agencies to find otherwise scarce candidates who may be content in their current positions and are not actively looking to move companies. This initial research for so-called passive candidates, also called name generation, results in getting contact information of potential candidates who can then be contacted discreetly to be screened and approached.
Suitability for a job is typically assessed in a process called screening looking for relevant skills, knowledge, aptitude, qualifications and educational or job related experience. These can be determined via: screening résumés (also known as CVs); applications. In many countries, employers are legally mandated to ensure their screening and selection processes meet equal opportunity and ethical standards.
7.5 Emerging issues and Trends in recruitment
The recruiting industry is growing and evolving. Much of the structure of recruiting firms now mirrors the “look and feel” of a firm in 1975. They have added PC’s, job boards, LinkedIn, etc., yet most still use the same tired structure and processes as the industry used decades ago.
On the other hand, some recruiters have gone one-hundred-eighty degrees the other way attempting to do all their business via email, job boards, and LinkedIn without really trying to build deep personal relationships with their clients and candidates.
One the main trends in recruitment is the use of technology. Recruiters are using modern technologies such as e-mails, websites, Skype etc. to recruit candidates. Outsourcing recruitment services has also significantly gone up because most organizations are trying to be strategically dealing with their co-functions/ objectives. Another emerging issue is that the generation Yare just entering the work force in largest quantities and these are mostly in their twenties and have different perspectives about the jobs. With majority being this generation, there are fewer generation X (30 years and above) in the job market resulting to shortages in of candidates in mid-management.
Technology for managing the recruitment process which is referred to as a tracking system is widely in use nowadays. The tracking systems are sites are linked to the careers section of a company website. When perusing the Internet, many job seekers prefer to learn more about the company first, before performing a job search through the careers section. An applicant tracking system is configured according to the employer needs. The simplest kinds merely collect basic information about the applicant and permit the applicant to cut and paste or upload a resume. More sophisticated systems match the resume qualifications to specific jobs in the database and suggest matches for which the applicant may want to consider. The recruiter can then access the applicant information, based on keyword searches and qualifications to determine which applicants would possibly qualify as candidates.
7.6 Review questions
1. What is recruitment?
2. Outline the importance of recruitment in an organization
3. Explain five factors that influence recruitment policy in an organization
4. Discuss the external and internal sources of recruitments candidates in an organization
5. Discuss the impact of technology on recruitment