Analysis of a Vacant Position: HR Recruitment and Selection Planning - Essay Example

Analysis of a Vacant Position: HR Recruitment and Selection Planning Table of Contents Analysis of a Vacant Position: HR Recruitment and Selection Planning 1 Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 4 1.Recruitment strategy 5 1.1.Selection criteria 5 1.1.1.Networking & marketing 6 1.1.2.Product development skills 7 1.1.3.Client servicing 7 1.1.4.Administration and research 8 1.1.5.Educational qualification & other requirements 8 1.2.Recruitment process 8 2.Selection strategy 10 2.1.Proven skill sets and abilities 11 2.2.Practical knowledge 11 2.3.Final selection decision 12 Conclusion 12 Reference 13 Appendix 1: Job Description 14 Appendix II: Tests 17 Executive Summary The report focuses on a vacant position within a company and the procedure required to be taken to hire the right candidate for the post. The Department of Education and Training (DET) is going to hire a Business Development Officer in temporary position (For more information see Appendix I) for its Gold Coast Institute of TAFE. Being a HR practitioner, the project requires me to create recruitment as well as selection strategies that need to be undertaken to hire the right candidate for the post. The Department of Education and Training (DET) provides quality education and training services to the people living in Queensland. The Gold Coast Institute of TAFE provides vocational training and education in the region. DTE aids in promoting innovation and leadership by promoting its people to develop various key skills. It believes in diversity and encouraging employees to balance their life and work commitments. The company provides various flexible work alternatives and learning opportunities as well for its employees. In order to select the right candidate, DTE conducts a stringent selection process which includes short listing the candidates, interviewing them and conducting reference checks. The entire process is conducted by various panels, with each panel consisting of two or more members. The first and the foremost process is the short listing of the candidates matching with the profile advertised. The short listing criteria generally consist of assessing the written application sent by the candidates. Thereafter, an intrinsic interview process is undertaken, which often includes telephonic rounds as well. As per the requirement of the position advertised, the organisation may also undertake various other selection procedures. The candidate might be asked to provide evidences of previous work or undergo various tests as well. The selection panel may decide to conduct referee checks during the selection process. The selection procedure adopted by DTE is consolidated in nature and tests the candidates for their knowledge, skills, abilities as well as subject matter expertise. The decision of the organisation to have customised selection process as per the profile helps in selecting the candidate as per the requirement for that particular position. However, it is also tough to understand the difference in the requirements for the HR professionals as some positions are technical in nature and therefore, it might be difficult to ask customised questions during the HR round to find the right candidate. Thus, in such cases, it becomes easy if standarised questions are asked to shortlist the candidates for the technical round. 1. Recruitment strategy 1.1. Selection criteria The first step towards selecting the right incumbent for the post is to screen the resume of the applicants and match them with the position advertised for. The skills and abilities of the candidates that match with those required for the profile should be shortlisted for the next round. However, it is not easy to make this short listing decision and the HR professional should be fully aware of the position advertised for and the skill sets required for fulfilling the post (Cook 2009). In case of the vacant position under analysis, I would adopt the below mentioned selection criteria: 1.1.1. Networking & marketing The candidate needs to proactively and actively communicate not just within his or her division but also across other teams as well in order to identify various business opportunities, requirements for customer service as well as training needs in the teams. Therefore, the candidates would be shortlisted on the basis of their ability to showcase networking skills and identifying opportunities within the organisation. This can be evaluated by asking questions about past projects involving networking and cross-selling (Wills 2005). The position requires the candidate to have good amount of knowledge about the product so that strategies could be drawn with the planning team to explore the market for the products. The HR practitioner needs to ask pertinent questions about the past marketing efforts taken by the candidate to understand whether the candidate is being able to undertake innovative marketing ideas and collaborative decisions (Wei 2006). The candidate should have good knowledge about education products and create sales pitches around such products. Thus, the candidate who demonstrates good knowledge about education products and has proven track record for achieving sales targets in the past organisations should be selected for further selection rounds (Wei 2006). 1.1.2. Product development skills The candidate should be able to not only identify new business opportunities but should be able to negotiate and secure them as well. Thus, the candidates who have in the past demonstrated successful record for getting new businesses should be selected (Wright & Kehoe 2008). The candidate should also have been able to create newer products as per the market requirements. As a marketing professional is aware of the market requirements, he or she should be able to translate the same into newer product ideas as well (Ramlall 2006). 1.1.3. Client servicing The post requires the candidate to build strong rapport with the clients, together with maintaining good business relationships as well as managing the account effectively. Therefore, the candidates would be selected on the basis of their strong communication skills and their past customer handling abilities. The candidate should also be able to showcase crisis management skills as well, which would help the candidate in tackling crisis situation with the client (Ismail & Long 2009). The HR should probe and find out whether the candidate in the past had handled tough clients or not and how the candidate had tackled tricky client situations. 1.1.4. Administration and research The candidate should be able to showcase strong abilities to write and present business cases, proposals, tenders and client communications. Further, the candidate needs to have knowledge about various legal terms and documents and how to formulate them post negotiations. The HR may ask the candidates to submit some sample proposals or business cases to access the abilities (Garavan 2007). 1.1.5. Educational qualification & other requirements The candidate may have Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and a minimum of 5 years of experience in business development or sales position. 1.2. Recruitment process DTE focuses on a customised recruitment process to find out the right candidate for the position. Therefore, for this post as well, the HR needs to adopt its recruitment process as per the requirement of the position and follow a different hiring process, which is explained below: Accessing the resume: As the candidate is to be recruited in a professional position, it is important to find out about his or her past work experience. In order to recruit a marketing professional, it is very essential to understand that experience plays a very important role for a marketing person (Still 2006). In order to understand how much the person is experienced and have handled different situations, one need to carefully access the resume of the candidate and find out about the past marketing instances mentioned in the resume. Further, a resume provides the basic skills sets and other qualifications about the candidate, which helps in screening the candidates (Still 2006). Undertaking interviews: Interview is considered as the most essential part of the hiring process as it helps in establishing the decision to hire a candidate or not (Fyock 2008). An interview process may be structured or unstructured, depending on the requirement. In case of a structured interview, the questions asked are standard in nature, whereas in case of unstructured interview, the questions are dependent on the profile of the candidate (Cook 2009). In this case, a marketing person needs to be hired and it is important for the person to be experienced and skilled in his field. Therefore, an unstructured interview is the best suited process for this profile as the interviewer would be able to question about the various past projects the candidate had undertaken and ask leading questions based on the responses given by the candidate. Testing presentation skills: Marketing professional needs to have top-class presentation skills in order to impress the clients to buy the products (Rosenberg 2007). Therefore, it is essential to test the presentation skills of the candidates by asking them to create sales pitch presentation and convince the panel to buy the product. Accessing problem solving & crisis management abilities: The professional also needs to demonstrate good client handling skills, which includes managing crisis situations as well as solving client issues (Still 2006). In order to test these abilities of the candidates, the panel may provide case studies to solve to the candidates and rate them as per the solutions provided by the candidates. 2. Selection strategy The hiring process might be a rigorous one, but the selection process is the most difficult step towards completing the entire recruitment procedure (Garavan 2007). It is very crucial to hire only the most suitable candidate for the position as any wrong decision may create issues in the future for the team. Further, after recruiting a candidate, it would not be an easy process to retrench the employee. Therefore, it is important to make the right decision and hire the right candidate for the vacant position. Some of the strategies that the HR may adopt in this case are discussed below: 2.1. Proven skill sets and abilities The candidate should be only selected if he or she is able to demonstrate all the skill sets and abilities required for the profile (Wei 2006). For instance in this case, the candidate should have excellent marketing and networking abilities. He or she should be able to demonstrate good client servicing, problem solving, decision-making and crisis management skills. He or she should have product development and new business development abilities as well. The candidate needs to have a well-established network of clients and vendors, which can be explored in the future. Further, the candidate should have very good communication skills, negotiation skills, persuasive nature and a strong personality. The client would also be selected on the basis of his content knowledge about the domain. 2.2. Practical knowledge The candidate needs to not only have strong knowledge about the subject but should be able to present this knowledge to the client as well. A marketing professional is required to have strong presentation skills, business writing abilities, formulating various business tools such as business proposals and tenders. The candidate should have successfully solved the business case problems presented by the panel and provided satisfactory solution to the issues (For more information see Appendix II). 2.3. Final selection decision After considering all the above mentioned criteria and ranking the candidates, the panel as well as all the other people who were involved in the recruitment process should sit together to understand everybody’s viewpoints and opinions about the candidates. The panel may decide to re-evaluate the top five candidates and ask them to come for a final round of interview before taking the decision. This would help in narrowing down the numbers to top three candidates and thereafter deciding about the right candidate for the position. It is also important to include the higher management in such a decision-making process to understand their perspective about the candidates. The final decision should be made after carefully considering all the aspects about the shortlisted candidates as once an offer is given, it would be very difficult to retract the offer (Fyock 2008). Conclusion The report provided a thorough step-by-step approach that needs to be taken to recruit a right candidate. In this instance, selection and recruitment strategies were drawn to hire a Business Development Officer in temporary position for the Department of Education and Training (DET). It was found that for hiring a person in a new business development position requires analysing the core skill sets of the candidates such as marketing and networking abilities, good client servicing, problem solving, decision-making and crisis management skills. The candidates would be tested on various parameters to find out about their skill sets and matching them as per the requirements of the position. The key selection parameters are also discussed in detail in this report, which provides a tangible process to select the right candidate for the profile. Reference Cook, M 2009, Personnel Selection: Adding Value Through People, Wiley, Chichester, England. Fyock, C. 2008, “The truth about hiring the best”, FT Press. Garavan, T. N. 2007, “A Strategic perspective on human resource development”, Advances in Developing Human Resources, 9 (1), 11-30. Ismail, W. K. W. & Long, C. S. 2009, “Analyzing the strategic contributions of HR professionals: A framework for developing future leaders”, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 1(1), 116-135. Ramlall, S. J. 2006, “Strategic HR management creates value at target”, Journal of Organizational Excellence, Spring: 57-62. Rosenberg, D. 2007, “A Manager'S Guide To Hiring The Best Person For Every Job”, Wiley-India. Still, D. J. 2006, “High Impact Hiring: How to Interview and Select Outstanding Employees”, Mgmt Development Systems. Wei, L. 2006, “Strategic human resource management: Determinants of fit”, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 14 (2), 49-60. Wills, G. B. 2005, Cognitive interviewing: A tool for improving questionnaire design, Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage Publications Wright, P. M. & Kehoe, R. R. 2008, “Human resource practices and organizational commitment: A deeper examination”, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 46 (1), 6-20. Appendix 1: Job Description Role Description Business Development Officer Multiple specialist sales positions available: Health and Community Services Business Tourism/Hospitality and Hairdressing/Beauty General Education and Creative Industries Job Ad Reference SER20406/10 Job Evaluation No. 10912 TRIM No. 10/216360 Work Unit Gold Coast Institute of TAFE TAFE Queensland and DET Regional Operations Location Gold Coast Ashmore Campus Classification AO5 Qld Public Service Award 2003 36 ¼ hour week Job Type Temporary, Full-time for a period of 12 months, unless otherwise determined – Section 122 Contract Salary Range $68 688 - $74 657 per annum Plus superannuation contributions of up to 12.75% of your annual salary. Contact Officer Johnston Contact Telephone (09) 3411 6663 Closing Date Tuesday, 21 September 2010 Your opportunity As the Business Development Officer you will: Responsible for the expansion of the institute’s local, state and nationwide training in a specialist industry sector/s. Work closely with our education division managers and training delivery teams to identify and develop market opportunities for revenue, contribute to the development of sales plans, research, qualify and converts sales leads into commercial business. Foster strong client and industry relationships to maintain or increase existing revenue streams. The Business Development Officer reports to the Manager, Domestic Sales Operations within the portfolio of the Director, Domestic Business and work closely with domestic sales, marketing, customer service and the institute’s educational delivery teams. Appendix II: Tests Presentation skill test: The candidates would be asked to prepare a sales pitch presentation about certain education products. The presentation could be prepared at home within a couple of days’ time. The candidate would be asked to come prepared with the presentation and deliver it in front of the panel, who would judge the candidate on the basis of his presentation skills, query-handling skills and ability to convince the panel to buy the product. Business writing skills: Along with good communication skills, the candidate should also demonstrate good writing skills as well. The candidate would be asked to prepare a business proposal, a tender document and a client-communication email during the written examination stage of the recruitment process. The candidates would be given around three hours of time to complete the test. Case study: In order to understand the problem solving and crisis management skills of the candidate, the panel would ask the candidates to solve some given case studies. Read More