Recruiting Employees for the Post of an Environmental Engineer - Essay Example

Employee Selection Method for Civil/Environmental Engineer Maunsell AECOM of XXXX XXXX XXXX Number: XXXX Number of Words: 1065 A lot of care is required while recruiting employees for the post of a Civil / Environmental Engineer. The job requires a lot of technical as well as theoretical knowledge. The job involves a lot of scientific data collection, plan improvements, strategic reviewing and also computer based modelling and designing. The job basically involves infrastructure development and natural resources management. This is a very challenging job and the job holders would require having certain minimum basic qualifications. According to one of the oldest plans developed by Rodger in 1952, the person specifications can be categorized under seven main heads. Below is a person specification chart made for the job of a Civil /Environmental Engineer. Person Specifications: The person specifications is categorised under seven main heads, following the Seven Point Plan which was developed by Rodger in 1952 (Newell, 2006). These points highlight the personal qualities of the desired job holder, and some of the following are mandatory. Physical Make-up: The job of a Civil / Environmental Engineer does not require the candidate to be extremely fit however it does require the candidate to be fit enough to be able to make field trips to check the progress and development of projects. [This does not discriminate among the people in any way and is legal under the Equal Employment Opportunities] Attainments: A Bachelor’s of Engineering is a must. Candidates with work experience in water and waste water can also apply. General intelligence: Candidates require having a sound general knowledge. With good written and oral skills. Special Aptitude: Candidates require being highly analytical, motivated, innovative, open minded with good leadership skills and ability to interact with clients as well as with co-workers to ensure the job is completed on time without any errors. Interests: Candidates require having a general interest in natural resource management with a keen interest in the new developments in the field and a drive to learn newer technologies and think out of the box. Disposition: It is essential that candidates are trust worthy, hard working, sociable and dependable. Also it is essential that candidates are not conventional thinkers and are adaptable to every situation. Circumstances: The company requires candidates who can join immediately. Also the candidate must be ready to work a few extra hours on some days to ensure the work is completed well within timeframes. Apart from the Seven Point Plan another plan was also developed by Munro Fraser in 1978 which categorised employee specifications into five main heads namely: a) impact on others, b) acquired knowledge or qualifications, c) innate abilities, d) motivation and e) emotional adjustment. The above mentioned methods are widely followed by many companies till date. Both these methods can prove to be very useful to prepare a structured interview approach. Both the methods however focus on the behaviours rather than personal characteristics (IRS, 003b), thus making them neither socially nor politically neutral (Watson, 1994). To cover this new method of competency based approach was introduced. Firms using this method basically define a series of effective individual behaviours to promote better organisation performance (Boam and Sparrow, 1992, Dale and Iles, 1992). The best approach to recruiting the right people for the job is a combination of both the above mentioned Seven Point Plan as well as the competency approach. The next section focuses on the selection procedure for the post of Civil / Environment Engineer. Selection Process: Once the employers have advertised the job description and have received the applications from the prospective applicants, the next step for the employer is to decide the selection process to be used to choose the right applicant with the best skills and ability to fit into the company and adapt and accept the company’s culture and contribute to the company’s growth. While choosing a selection method the employers need to ensure the method is reliable, useful and valid. There are numerous different methods that can be used to select employees for a job however the most commonly and oldest method remains the interview. This is used alone or even in combination with additional methods (Shackleton and Newett, 1991). In the case of choosing the most appropriate candidate for the post of Civil / Environment Engineer the following steps will be used and are the most effective. Pre Selection Methods: The first step of selection is normally where the company filters out from the received applications and CV’s. Most of the people are selected out of this process. The employer will need to use the CV’s which contains the applicants work history and past experiences. It is assumed that a persons future behaviour can be predicted using his past experiences. This information is traditionally used in a subjective manner (Wingrove et al, 1984). This will help the employers at Maunsell filter the applications based on the experience, qualifications and other skills. These needs to be the first step to ensure the right candidates are selected for the next step which is interviews. Interviews: This forms the second step for the selection process. Interviews involve the employees and employers in a face to face meeting, where the employer can get a better understanding of the employees experience and the leadership qualities. The employers can use situational interviews which involve giving the employees with a hypothetical situation and asking for what the employee might do in the situation. This is very useful since it is assumed that intentions are good predictors of the behaviours (Latham et al., 1980). The responses are then graded by experts on a basis of one to five, one being poor and five being excellent. Apart from the hypothetical scenarios employers can ask questions based on the previous experience of the employees as well as what the employees can contribute to the company. Psychological testing: This is one of the most important selection steps and is getting very famous among almost every company in UK. These tests are created to test the prospective employee’s general intellect, skills, analytical skills etc. This gives a clearer image of the employee’s abilities. These are the main steps that Maunsell would require to conduct as employers to ensure the right candidates are chosen for the position. A detailed question and answer session at the interview is the ideal way to select the candidate for the position of Civil / Environment Engineer at Maunsell. References Boam, R., and Sparrow, P., 1992, ‘Designing and Achieving Competency: A Competency based approach to Managing People and Organisation’, London: McGraw Hill Dale, M., and Iles, P., 1992, ‘Assessing Management Skills: A guide to compentencies and Evaluation Techniques’, London, Kogan Page IRS (Industrial Relations Services), 2003b: ‘Sharpening up recruitment and selection with competencies’, IRS Employment Review, 782, August, 42-9 Latham, G., Saari, L., Pursell, E., and Campion, M., 1980, ‘The situation interview’, Journal of Applied Psycology, 64(4), 422-42 Shackleton, V.J., and Newett, S., 1991, ‘Management Selection: A comparative study of methods used in top British and French companies’, Journal of occupational Psycology, 64, 23-36 Watson, T., 1994, ‘Recruitment and selection in K. Sisson (ed), Personnel Management: A Comprehensive Guide to theory and practice in Britain’, Oxford; Basil Blackwell Wingrove, J., Glendinning, R., and Herriot, P., 1984, ‘Graduate pre selection: A research note’, Journal of Occupational Psycology, 57, 169-71 Read More