Recruitment as a Process - Assignment Example

? Recruitment Recruitment Introduction Recruitment is a process that entails finding, screening, choosing and hiring the best-suited candidates for job vacancies available in an organization. Fundamentally, the process is conducted on candidates outside the organization but, at strategic levels, the management may involve people already employed in the organization (Alrichs 2000, p. 11). When the process involves current employees, it may also be referred to as internal recruitment or employee offering. The process of recruitment is made up of progressive stages that move from analyzing what is required in a job; development of the characteristics of the potential candidates; publication of the vacancy; establishing a match between potential candidates and the job requirements to be met; managing the procedures of application and selection; and finally appointing the successful applicants (Schultz 2010, p. 38). These stages give recruitment the outlook of the tool that finds the right person for the right job that goes beyond an activity for the human resource team to involve line managers as well. This paper will discuss recruitment in terms of the different ways and methods it is conducted, the wrong and right ways is usually done, and what the individuals conducting it should act. Recruitment methods that are available to organizations can be categorized broadly into two: internal and external recruitment, which can then be broken down into smaller methods (Alrichs 2000, p. 14). Internal recruitment aims at personnel already on the recruiting organization’s payroll and is a significant source of recruitment as it offers opportunities for the utilization and growth of the current human resource. The organization’s management may approach internal recruitment from the aspect of either promotions or transfers. Promotions involve upgrading existing employees by upward shifts in responsibilities, status, facilities and remuneration (Maloney 2008, p. 114). On the other hand, transfers provide an alternative procedure to promotions, whereby employees are moved from their present work locations to new ones, and not necessarily on upward or downward shifts in their positions. Rather, transfers are simply an interchange of responsibilities, duties, departments or geographical locations. Transfers are the best way to generate qualified personnel from departments that are either over-staffed or redundant. Under the internal recruitment, two methods are available, which are employee referrals and job postings. Employee referrals do not recruit internal employees, but all potential candidates are nominations by current employees, mostly supervisors. The effectiveness of employee referrals is seen in how organizations can capture critically skilled employees known to their general workers. Job postings are open and equal-opportunity invitations to employees in an organization to submit applications for arising vacancies. The announcements are made via lists and bulletins accessible by all employees. Generally, internal recruitment methods are characterized by the advantage of being quicker and cheaper than most external methods. Internal recruitment also targets personnel the management already knows and can quickly evaluate their capabilities from their performances even without looking at their portfolios. Further, such targeted candidates are already familiar with the operations of the organization and are suitable for filling higher vacancies in the organizational hierarchy because they can psychologically motivate former peers to perform better. However, internal recruitment, with the exception of employee referrals, limits the chances of bringing in new talent because of its nature of restricting the number of applicants. This shuts out the introduction of external business ideas and may draw bitterness from candidates dropped by the selection process (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 186). Ultimately, internal recruitment will create another vacancy that will need to be filled. Some of the advantages of internal recruitment are natural to the methods. After appointing the successful applicants, operations do not need to be reinvented; neither do the orientation processes of the persons new to the positions have to be as detailed as would have been the case with an external employee. Training formalities are considerably cut. Before they even assume their new positions, the employees already have an insight of what happens and who does what. Further, they have the advantage of knowing what the people in their line of reporting, both above and below, are capable of doing, making them ready-made team members (Ashby & Arthur 2001, p. 71). Ultimately, their assimilation into their new positions as well as the system are cheaper and faster as compared to people who come from outside. Internal recruitment makes the operations for the human resource department more manageable and speedy, hence efficient. This is because it often takes longer to find new external employees, more resources in monetary and time aspects to train and might not motivate existing employees to compete for promotions that may take place in internal recruitment (Ashby & Arthur 2001, p. 79). External recruiting is the type that conducts searches for candidates relying on applicants outside the organization. It may be done by use of tools such as trade announcements and publications, newspaper and magazine advertisements, headhunting, searching data bases on job sites, the internet and websites and postings on job boards (Schultz 2010, p. 46). External recruitment may also involve third parties such as private and commercial agencies, college placement officers, government job services and executive search firms. The government pays for job centers, which are responsible for assisting in the acquisition of training or jobs by the unemployed. Such centers also provide services for organizations that need to publish vacancies and are generally free. The most common and effective type of external recruitment is advertisement. Found in various forms such as recruitment fairs, notice boards and newspapers, they include information related to advertised title, job location, description, remuneration and way of application. On their part, recruitment agencies provide employers seeking to recruit new employees with details of suitably qualified candidates from their databases (Ashby & Arthur 2001, p. 74). Private agencies provide their services for a fee and in particular areas of specialization such as teaching, banking and nursing. Although they are the most expensive, they are professionals who can search the market on behalf of employers for specific qualifications that they may not have in their databases. This significantly reduces the risk of ending up with a mismatch in the appointment. Another efficient way of external recruitment is the use of professional networks. Such networks, though not in the business of offering recruitment services include former colleagues, people that have participated in common professional interests, alumni networks and business associations. The greatest advantages of professional networks is that they provide referrals of higher a quality as compared to general applications provided by public forums, and often at no cost. People belonging to the same network can only give references of people they have worked with or for, or those they are sure will not disappoint as employees (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 197). Unlike the internal methods, external recruitment brings on board ideas that are often completely fresh in the form of incoming new employees. Such employees either have no previous exposure to an organization’s corporate culture or even if they have an idea, they are not overexposed to it (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 191). Depending on their position in the hierarchy, they can transform the way business is conducted to the benefit of the entire organization. Outside prospects that are always associated with the external methods have a great potential to yield new perspectives. Such candidates may bring with them methodologies and information from their previous employers which may integrate with the potential employer’s best practices. So long as acquiring an employee from a competitor is done in good faith and does not involve the so called malicious “poaching”, it is healthy for business (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 204). Such acquisitions from competitors must be open without any underlying malicious incentives. Looked at in another way, larger organizations may experience problems from their internal job pools arising from the diversity mix. This can result into equal employment opportunity problems at the workplace, which is also federally governed aspect. However, external recruitment methods have the capacity to create a rebalance within the organizational structure. This will create stability among teams, since most of them will not change when a new employee comes from outside. The categories and subcategories of recruitment all present challenges to employers and, therefore, have the right and wrong ways of being conducted. The first step to the right way of recruiting is by not waiting till the need to recruit arises. Studies have shown that being on the lookout at all times for potential signs of desirable characteristics and developing a reserve of information on such persons is a good start (Ashby & Arthur 2001, p. 69). However, when it comes to actual recruitment, the recruiting organization must address both state and ethical concerns. It is the responsibility of the organization to provide an equitable selection process that respects privacy of candidates and does not exert undue pressure on them. Undue pressure may be viewed in the sense of unrealistic timing demands, personnel conducting the recruitment and the way the recruitment is conducted, with indications of excessive stimulus. The exercise should be designed to eliminate unbiased presentation. The information provided should be as balanced, accurate and complete as possible and without confusing emphases that make the offering excessively appealing. In that sense, the recruiting entity will be practicing due diligence, which calls for the assessment of applicants in the perspective of they fit into the organization’s ethical values and cultures (Ashby & Arthur 2001, p. 88). This is an important aspect because it forms the organization’s starting point in its endeavor to establish ethical cultures with the objective of having a common understanding of the diverse behaviors deemed to be acceptable. By exercising due diligence at the recruitment stage, the organization can ensure that they select applicants who will most likely maintain and reinforce the examples of values already set. Such correct ways will also guarantee the applicants who will eventually be appointed will not make counteractive decisions once employed that will undermine the reputation and programs they find in place. Recruitments must be guided by ethics that encompass day-to-day activities that are in conformity with corporate values established over time. Such values must be mirrored in recruitment through integrity, business policies, goals and strategies (Maloney 2008, p. 113). The entire recruiting team should be a representation of their organization and build the trust of the applicants by showing honesty, respect and responsibility. Applicants must be drawn from all groups of the community and all information they provide should be treated with utmost confidentiality. Prudent employers will have a clear understanding of provisions and scope of both employee and employer statutory rights. This will be by analyzing ways in which the legislation and laws of employment affect the rights and responsibilities applicants. The right way to conduct recruitment must involve asking appropriate questions that are relevant to the position to be filled. For example, it would be appropriate to ask an interviewee if they can work at least one Sunday every month or can make overnight travels once every two weeks (Maloney 2008, p. 121). Such questions are more ethical and welcome as compared to those that probe an individual’s privacy, such as what they do every first Sunday of the month. Generally, discriminatory question are not the right aspect to include in a recruitment drive. The organization conducting the recruitment should focus on establishing what skills and experiences the interviewees can bring to the vacant position. Apart from what is indicated from the portfolios, they should also try and get the interviewees’ own account of previous training and experiences related to the sought position. If the recruitment must include probing questions, they must be the right ones such as what the potential employees liked most or least about their previous employments. The wrong ways to conduct recruitment are often characterized by selection bias (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 189). An example is stereotyping, which is exhibited by recruiting officials that associate certain attributes with certain groups. For instance, an immigrant worker might be thought to have better workplace ethics than local workers, creating a tendency of the organization hiring only immigrants. This is detrimental because it may lock out local workers with excellent ethics. Selection bias can also be exhibited by the ability of first impressions to ignore or distort additional and significant information on potential employees by influencing the assessment process. For example, an interviewee may wrongly impress a recruiting officer by manner of dressing, hence positively or negatively influencing the remainder of the session (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 192). The wrong way of recruiting also projects the values, feelings and motives of the official conducting it to interviewees. For example, an interviewer who is known to associate recruitment with a certain way of dressing may project it to a candidate he has an appointment with. However, when the candidate turns up dressed differently, it may add prejudice to the appointment decision. This means persons conducting recruitment must be open-minded and treat all applicants equally. The final decision should only come after the correct procedures. Another wrong way to conduct recruitment, of which most teams conducting the exercise are not aware of, is failing to prepare the candidates. It the interviewer’s responsibility to assist candidates who fail to ask questions about the organization. Some candidates can overlook the significance of asking such questions out of anxiety or fear of appearing naive. The interviewers should prepare their candidates so that sufficient time will be spent helpful issues. The candidates should be given a prior overview of the organization, position details and titles of the team conducting the exercise. This will open them up to give the best feedback to questions. Conclusion It has been shown that recruitment can be both internal and external, and the purpose of the exercise is to identify the candidates with the most suitable qualifications to fill a vacancy or a new position to be created. An organization’s management may aim at promoting or transferring its own existing employees or use external sources to get new employees. External methods involve the systematic search of new employees outside the organization, offering a wider pool of potential candidates (Herman & Joyce 2001, p. 208). In-house staff, headhunters, advertisements and also temporary employment agencies may be used for external methods. On the other hand, internal methods use email flashes, fliers and intranet posts to notify employees of positions they can apply for, either on promotional or horizontal basis. When appropriate and effective methods are used, an organization will attract the best applicants. Like most organizational functions the management faces, recruitment poses its own challenges. The recruiting team may choose shortcuts and employ the wrong and unethical means, which may end up incurring more costs for the organization because of hiring unsuited qualifications. Such unsuited persons will imply repeat recruitments that translate into further administrative costs. The ethical and right ways demand inoffensive atmospheres, personnel and questions. No recruitment exercise should be conducted under duress. The interviewers must not look for their own qualities in interviewees, neither should the exercise be biased nor prejudiced (Schultz 2010, p. 53). Rather, what they should focus on must reflect core values such as unity, integrity and quality. These are the values that establish structure on which operations ride in any reputable organization. The recruitment team should seek to bring up issues with applicants that encompass such values, since they serve more than one purpose. First of all, they send a message of the culture to be expected at the organization to the potential employees and business is conducted. Then, through an evaluation of their reactions, the recruiting team can read the first indications of whether they are dealing with the right candidate for their organization (Schultz 2010, p. 66). However, it is also imperative that the recruiting team understands that they must employ the right techniques and questions if they are to get credible reactions that will help them understand if their potential employees understand the intended values. References Alrichs, S 2000, Competing for talent: Key recruitment and selection strategies for becoming an employer of choice, Davies-Black, California. Ashby, F, & Arthur, R 2001, Embracing excellence: Become an employer of choice to attract and keep the best talent, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Herman, R, & Joyce, L, 2001, How to become an employer of choice, Oakhill Press, Virginia. Maloney, T 2008, Employee recruitment and selection: How to hire ht right people, Cornel University, New York. Schultz, D 2010, Psychology and work today, Prentice, New York. Read More