The Best Recruitment for Choosing an IT Manager - Essay Example

The Best Recruitment for Choosing an IT Manager The role of an IT manager in Go Virtual Medical Ltd.(GVM) is a highly technical job in which a candidate needs to know the basic integrities that are required to execute the job responsibilities properly. The company’s core business is dependent on IT, so it is evident that the company needs to recruit a person who is competent and well versed with the technologies that is needed to conduct the daily IT operations. Before deciding upon the recruitment and selection strategy for choosing an IT manager, it is absolutely necessary to conduct a thorough job analysis. This will help the concerned HR manager to have an in-depth knowledge about the job technicalities and the exact job requirements. With the help of this job description, the company would be able to outline the job specifications and trace out the most suitable candidate for the job. The company needs to chalk out the various responsibilities that the concerned person would have to execute on a daily basis thereby understanding exactly the necessary knowledge and the skill base that an ideal candidate should possess. As pointed out, the IT manager must have a sound knowledge about the latest ‘information and communication technology’ which is the most necessary and essential criteria for a candidate to be eligible for the position of an IT manager. The candidate must have a thorough knowledge about the technicalities that are essential in an environment where advanced IT processes such as ‘Integrated Stimulator’ form the chief operating system. The candidate must also have knowledge about medical science as this company provides a virtual network by which it offers a complete learning package, integrating the four important components which are anatomy, text, simulation and video. So, without having a thorough understanding of the various processes in medical science, it is not possible for a candidate to work in this framework. He should also have a thorough knowledge of the various medical tools that are being used today in the medical field. It is suggested that the company should look out for an experienced candidate who has been working in such a similar IT environment and is also quite familiar with the medical practices. The advertisement posted should be specific about the exact job specifications desired from a candidate. The language and the technique of writing the advertisement should have been more formal. This would have conveyed the urgency and the seriousness of the employer to find out the potential candidate for the position concerned. There is no need of unnecessarily stretching the advertisement and making it look cumbersome. A potential candidate might lose interest while reading the advertisement, if the person is in a hurry or is working at a higher managerial position in another company. This person may be looking for a prospective change in job and can be one of the desirable candidates for the position of IT manager. To attract the right candidate, which is the main objective of a proper recruitment strategy, it is absolutely necessary to post a precise, well written formal advertisement. It should be remembered that choosing a proper medium to communicate a job opening to a candidate is of utmost importance and secondly, the way the communication is ultimately done plays a determining role in the quality of the candidates being attracted by the used medium of recruitment. In the case of GVM, they chose the medium of advertisement as the most suitable medium of selecting the right candidate but it is not mentioned whether they used standard newspapers as the publishing medium or did they electronically place their advertisement. The medium chosen also plays a deciding role in choosing the right candidate. To understand the right medium of advertising, the company could conduct a survey or take the help of secondary sources such as various research organizations to find out the type of people subscribing to a specific newspaper. It may so happen, for example, that most of the IT people subscribe to a local newspaper which gives detailed information about the recent breakthroughs in the IT fields and talks about the reputed IT firms of the country. So, knowing this fact, the company can publish their advertisement in this paper. This would also minimize their time and help them in preserving energy wasted while short listing candidates thereby eliminating the people who do not have the required IT skill base and may come from a non-IT background. The company can also give an advertisement in the paper without disclosing its name, just by mentioning a certain post box where the candidates can drop their resumes. This will also reduce the number of non-eligible candidates applying for the specific job. The company should remember that they are on the look for an IT manager who needs to have a definite set of knowledge, skills and experience and this job vacancy cannot be filled by a lay man having no exposure to IT technologies. So, they need to properly and systematically adopt the recruitment strategy. The advertisement given by the company does not go into the exact job specifications required from a candidate. It should be remembered that IT people vary in their specific domain expertise and it is not so that every IT person had the knowledge of all the IT fields. So a well-defined and self explanatory job specification should form the most important part of the advertisement which is missing in the existing advertisement. In the given advertisement, only the location preference and the desired language knowledge is mentioned which does not convey any information about the exact requirement that is desired from a candidate. So, it may leave the candidates clueless and the people who are not eligible for this job may also drop in their applications. This would naturally make the work more tedious for the organization. In the advertisement the company should have not only mentioned that it wants to know the ‘3 best qualities’ possessed by the candidates, it should have been specific by wanting to know the three important qualities that the candidate feels he/she possesses which makes him/her the most suitable candidate for the job. The qualities that the candidate should point out must not be the soft skills possessed by an individual but should talk about the domain expertise possessed by them. As this job is a high-ended job, so utmost care should be taken while designing the advertisement as that would become the sole criteria based on which people would be motivated to apply for the job vacancy. To attract the right candidates, it is suggested that the company uses electronic media and publishes its advertisement online. The company can adopt an external method of recruitment if the need of the IT manager is not so urgent and the company has time to appoint the same. But if the need is urgent, then the company can choose some of the potential candidates who are working at a lower level within the company by conducting a systematic performance appraisal. By imparting systematic training to these candidates the company would be able to upgrade the skill and knowledge base of these candidates and can promote them to acquire higher position when the need arises. If candidates are internally recruited, then it not only increases the morale of the employees but also boosts their confidence levels. They come to realize the fact that if they meet targets and perform to the desired standards outlined by the organization, they will be internally promoted. Moreover, this breeds employee loyalty. Moreover, the organization will not have to waste time in conducting a suitable induction program. In addition to this the time taken by candidates to get aligned to a new job environment will not be required. But if the company feels that it does not have such employees who can be trained and subsequently promoted as an IT manager, it has to opt for the method of recruiting an employee externally. This would help the company to attract and then induct an employee who would bring with him/her more expertise in the required domain. It would help the company to get a candidate who may have a lot of innovative ideas and hands on knowledge in this domain of IT which would in turn help the company to steer its growth momentum in the industry. It should always be remembered that human resources are responsible for the overall performance and growth of the company. Hence, adoption of suitable recruitment strategy forms one of the most fundamental steps in building a strong organization. If this strategy is not designed meticulously, then it may lead to some irrecoverable damages that have to be suffered by the company on the long term. After the successful completion of the recruitment process, the company should strategically adopt a suitable technique of choosing the best candidate. The selection process can start with a preliminary interview, then with the filling of an application form which can be followed with a selection test. An interview would be conducted after these procedures to judge the theoretical as well as the technical base of the candidate. The selection process should mainly be framed with the objective to understand whether the candidate has the necessary knowledge and skill base to execute the responsibilities of an IT manager smoothly. The selection process should be developed to analyze the knowledge base of the candidate. His/her decision making skills and the promptness to make policy changes can be judged with the help of various simulation exercises and role playing tools. The candidates qualifying through the selection tests are then interviewed. The interview should be taken by a person who is well aware of the requirements of the job and also has a profound knowledge about the domain in which the candidate would work. The interviewer needs to have a detailed knowledge about the job description. The company can hand the responsibility to a senior person or can appoint an external person for carrying on with the interview process. The interview should be a structured panel interview. The company can arrange for a mixed panel of interviewers who can be medical practitioners as well as people proficient in IT technology and communication. The questions should be chosen in such a way that the interviewers can gain a thorough understanding of the knowledge base possessed by the candidates. Structured questions would help the interviewer to conduct a comparison between the different candidates and choose the best one. The interview can be a lengthy one but it should not be a stressed interview. Due attention should be given to the fact that an experienced person is called for an interview and this process should have a profound effect on the candidate. It may so happen that a candidate loses interest to join the organization as he/she resent the way the interview has been conducted. This may lead to a greater loss on the part of the organization as it may lose a deserving candidate. So, it is of absolute necessity to take appropriate measures in designing the selection strategy that would be adopted by the organization. So it is advisable that the company executes a well-planned selection strategy in choosing the best candidate for the job. The job of an IT manager is not just technical it is also of a strategist and a decision maker who would add to the growth of the organization on the whole. Selection and recruitment decide an organization’s future growth and so the company should adopt a fool-proof plan in order to eliminate the possibilities which may arise in case a wrong candidate is selected for the job. Acknowledging this fact, the company in question should design the recruitment and selection strategy accordingly. This would leave no room for making any crucial mistake while conducting these processes. The responsibilities that an IT manager needs to perform are wide and starts with mere analysis of daily performance of the system and networks to understanding the requisite strategies that the company needs to adopt in order to remain competitive in the market scenario. So, it is of utmost importance for the company to understand that the nature of work and responsibility that the IT manager performs would play a vital role in deciding the overall performance of the organization. So, the HR manager of the company must deploy the available resources effectively while designing a suitable selection strategy that would help the company to choose the best candidate out of the talent pool. Redundancies and unnecessary processes should be eliminated from the selection process. The objective should be to effectively manage time while conducting the selection process. It should be understood that recruitment and selections stages have certain cost which has to be borne by the company. If the right candidate is not chosen following these processes, then it not only would lead to financial loss but also would add to some non-recoverable loss which the company shall have to pay due to the induction of a less suitable candidate in the long term. So, it is suggested that Go Virtual Medical Ltd. adopts a suitable recruitment and selection strategy while choosing an IT manager. This would not only ensure its long term growth and higher profitability but the company might with the help of the candidate’s expertise be able to make some astonishing breakthroughs in the field of IT. Choosing the best candidate has always been a challenge for a company but if a company is able to meet this challenge it ensures its long-term growth and prosperity which cannot be underestimated. Critical Analysis of the Suggested Methods Comparing With the Current Research Trends It was suggested that the company should adopt an external method of recruitment and an internal process of selecting an IT manager but an external method of attracting a candidate may not be the best method in this case. This is because an external candidate would take time to get aligned with the organizational objectives. The external candidate would not be as loyal as an internal candidate, promoted to occupy a higher position in the company. Moreover, as the job of the IT manager needs knowledge about some specific technology, an internal candidate working at a lower position in the organization is at a more comfortable position to perform the role on being given suitable training. It may so happen that on recruiting an external candidate that person takes a long time in developing the required expertise to perform effectively which might hamper the total operation of the company. In the past, selection and recruitment were viewed as management initiatives but with the changing business scenario and job requirements becoming complex, there is more emphasis in understanding the ‘predictive validity of selection methods’ as pointed out by Meijer in 1998.With the help of this ‘predictive validity’, it is possible for organizations to estimate the rate of absenteeism and the type of errors that can be committed by an individual after being absorbed in the organization(Feathers T., 2000). This theory with the help of correlation analysis helps one to understand the suitability of a candidate for a particular job but even with this analysis it is difficult to accurately predict the future performance of a candidate. Moreover, ‘online recruiting’ has become one of the most widely used practices. Online recruiters can now have an access to even ‘passive’ candidates who are not applying for jobs but are working in some reputed IT firms (Cappelli P., 2001). With the help of this new technique, the recruiters can have access to job seekers who are presently seeking jobs, to the final batch of students who would add to the labor force within say a couple of months and the experienced people working in reputed forms. This would help the company to select the most suitable ones and then approach them accordingly. Recruitment is no longer viewed as a clerical job or a routine process with no challenge in it but a marketing process where jobs are being sold to the right customers. It has been pointed out by consultants that to induct a right candidate, online recruiting is one of the best processes. With the help of this process, the company can cut down its recruitment costs by a considerable extent. Shackleton & Newell in 1991 pointed that though the methods of selecting candidates consisted of conducting various personality and cognitive tests during the period of 1984-1999 but on the spot interview continues to remain the best method of assessing and selecting employees (Feathers T., 2000). Organizations are more willing to conduct unstructured interviews as this helps in gaining a lot of information about the candidate. Torrington in 1991 stressed on the importance of conducting job analysis before deciding upon the exact job specifications required for a specific job as it helps to attract suitable candidates especially in technical jobs like IT manager (Feathers T., 2000). Rynes & Connerley in 1993 suggested that a candidate’s attitudes and perception was greatly affected by the way the selection processes were carried out and the level of confidence possessed by them to perform a particular job responsibility (Feathers T., 2000). Researchers have suggested that an organization should understand that a selection is a two fold process and there is a need to adopt selection procedure according to a particular job. In the case of IT manager, it is suggested that an internal method of recruitment should be followed by an internal method of selection. This would be conducted by first selecting the candidates eligible for the job then followed by an unstructured interview to judge the capability of the person required to carry on higher responsibilities followed by reference check. Internal recruitment would help the company to easily select a candidate by deploying internal selection methods. This would also save much of the company’s time. 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