Use of E-Portfolios in Recruitment & Selection - Literature review Example

Human Resources Planning: Use of ePortfolios in Recruitment & Selection Student’s Name: Name of Institution: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: E-portfolios make up a significant educational innovation, which promotes the development of qualifications by an individual in a systematic and self-controlled manner in learning. In other words, a student can plan relevant qualifications comprehensively, successively develop them and document them based on a meaningful pool of electronic items. In recent years, the use of e-portfolios has not only become widespread, but also increased (Strohmeier 2010). As a result of this, e-portfolios are increasingly seen as suitable tools for recruiting and selecting employees by employers (Lyons 2008; Ward & Moser, 2008), especially at at a time when the requirements used in the identification of qualified candidates are also increasing (Anderson et al. 2004). This paper evaluates the scope of e-portfolio as a tool for recruiting and selecting employees, i.e. related issues, including legal and ethical implications. Even as the use of e-porfolios for recruitment becomes an increasingly prominent consideration, there are still certain issues related to it that pose a challenge to those seeking work and potential employers as well. For instance, some argue on the length of application credentials when e-porfolios are used. In other words, while theorists would like to assume that “huge, overflowing e-portfolios” are an additional advantage for the applicant, this is not the case in the real world. Basically, potential employers require “succinct descriptions and proof of competences”, and e-portfolios are too long and employers may find it hard and cumbersome to go through a hundred of them (Strohmeier 2010). However, such a problem could be solved if there was a comprehensive system to extract meaningful and relevant information from e-portfolios. Lack of such a system is part of the problem (Hevner et al 2004). There is also the question of authenticity (or credibility) of information included in the e-portfolio. As it were, e-portfolios are sort-of self-marketing. The question then is to how far a person is willing to go to have his/her e-portfolio look attractive, e.g. plagiarism of information. This problem is further helped by the fact that the e-portfolio systems owned by employers lack a a feature for the authentication of information (Sweat-Guy & Buzetto-More, 2007). What these cases bring to question is the efficiency and effectiveness of e-portfolios as tools for recruitment. These bring to the fore the aspect of legal and ethical issues. How e-portfolio has been used in education is different from the new e-profiles that recruiters have developed. For example, a certain Australian company that has in recent years gained a strong presence and prominence in Australia play the clearing house for a remarkable 95 percent of recruiters in the Australia, and providing the profiles of nearly 3 million potential recruitees. This model has serious flaws worthy of legal and ethical considerations, e.g. it imposes unnecessary costs to recruiters, reduces learners’ control and power over their data, and does not assure the integrity of data. This brings to the fore two major ethical/legal issues: data protection and intellectual property rights (Jones, 2009 ). The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998) outlines the responsibilities and govern the operations of those who gather and process personal information as well as the rights of all parties subject to that information. The Intellectual Property Law aims to protect the works of human creativity as well as the rights of those who create and/or own these works. Copyright is the main area of the Intellectual Property Law (Sweat-Guy & Buzetto-More, 2007; Hallam & Creagh, 2010). The ethical and legal question in relation to e-portfolio, as well as the general aspect of recruitment through social media, surrounds all these issues. Jones (2009) notes that for eRecruitment to be efficient, it is a requirement that data be shared between Human resource Management (HRM) and the ICT systems in education. This interoperability between systems in employment and education causes problems regarding the learners’ rights to control their personal data held by either a potetial employer of some third party. Also, it is likely that an eRecruiter may cling to the rights over one’s profile for life. For instance, an individual may delete his/her profile with a particular eRecruiter. However, when they try to sign up with a new recruiter that has a contract with a recruitment clearing house, the new recruiter may be required by the terms of the contract to copy all its profiles to that clearing house. In this regard, a recruitment house may therefore win perfect knowledge on the market. Again, in this situation, one cannot be said to have any meaningful control over his/her personal data. The innovative eRecruitment practices by the Australian company, for instance, also exploit network effects. Although individuals may feel like they have control over their data, these systems operate in a basically closed system. This is in itself suspect. To say the system is closed means that data is entered on web forms, or simply scraped from other sources including paper documents. According to Jones (2009), this leads to poor quality of data because the context is mostly likely to be lost. As a result, it is difficult to make accurate examination and evaluation of data. In other words, the integrity of the data is spoilt. But besides specific problems and challenges for e-portfolio users, the system also presents the problem of bias against certain people, which is actually a general limitation associated with the use of social media (e-portfolio being an example) for recruitment. Bethlehem (2010) and Carl (2003) both express the argument that prominent use of e-portfolio for recruitment would, at present, sideline the people who may not have access to such services. The social media being the key tool for reaching the mass in the global world today, some ethnic groups (in Africa, for instance) would lose out on that global platform. Regardless of the limitations attached to e-portfolio as a tool of recruitment, it is obvious that this ambition can only grow more prominent rather than die, especially in an increasingly globalized world in which the internet provides the key pool for resources. However, as this issue is debated upon, another important factor for consideration surrounds the extent to which it can be used, i.e. the fields in which it can be appropriately applicable. Strohmeier (2010) argues for the usage of e-portfolio-based recruitment to be restricted based on situational settings which are in line with e-portfolio characteristics. Bibliography Anderson, N, Van Dam, F, Lievens, K, & Ryan, AM 2004, “Future perspectives on employee selection: Key directions and future research”, Applied Psychology: An International Review, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 487-501. Bethlehem, J 2010, ‘Selection bias in web surveys’, International Statistical Review, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 161-188 Carl, AC 2003, ‘Locating research informants in a multi-ethnic community: ethnic identities, social networks and recruitment methods’, Ethnicity and health, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 41-61. Hallam, G & Creagh, T 2010, ‘ePortfolio use by university students in Australia: A review of the Australian ePortfolio Project’, Higher Education Research & Development, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 179-293 Hevner, AR, March, ST, Park, J & Ram, S 2004, ‘Design science in information systems research’, MIS Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 75-105 Jones, PR 2009. ‘ePortfolio and eRecruitment’, International Journal of Learning Social Contexts, vol. 2, pp. 124-138. http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/spill//journal/IJLSC_Dec_2009_eportfolio.pdf?q=centres/spil/journal/IJLSC_Dec_2009_eportfolio.pdf (accessed 27 July, 2012) Lyons, P J 2008, “Student portfolio websites: Valuable communication aids to future employers”, Review of Business, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 33-43 Strohmeier, S 2010, ‘Electronic portfolios in recruiting? A conceptual analysis of usage’, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 268-280 Sweat-Guy, R & Buzzetto-More, NA 2007, “A comparative analysis of common e-portfolio features and available platforms”, Issues in Informing Sciences and Information Technology Education, vol. 4, pp. 327-342. Ward, C & Moser, C 2008. ‘E-Portfolios as a hiring tool: do employers really care?’, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 13-14 Read More