Developments in Graduate Recruitment and Selection - Essay Example

? Critical review of developments in graduate recruitment and selection BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Critical review of developments in graduate recruitment and selection Introduction Companies are looking for top talent to fill their job positions, thus they are turning toward recent graduates for a fresh perspective on business and modern organizational knowledge related to management, finance, and many other important job descriptions. Graduates are equipped with contemporary organizational theory provided by their college or university, thus they provide an excellent labour pool for talent procurement and career development by bringing new ideas and concepts to the organization. In order to locate top talent, new developments for recruitment and selection include the use of psychometric testing instruments, websites and social media, preliminary training in Boot Camp format, and the usage of recruitment fairs to provide knowledge exchange and be interactive with graduate job seekers. These developments have many advantages and several disadvantages which will be discussed through critical review. Recruitment and selection of graduates A government-sponsored initiative referred to as the Graduate Talent Pool is a live website that hosts over 2,000 jobs for graduates that are sponsored by businesses in multiple industries. The website also offers information and guidance to graduate job seekers backed by government support and sponsorship for over 10,000 graduate internships (Jensen 2009). Graduates sign up for usage of the Graduate Talent Pool website, thus registering their names and demographic/educational information for head-hunters looking for top graduate talent. Using websites such as this that are backed by government give these businesses more credibility and visibility in key markets. As well, the advantages of using web-based recruitment tools is that it provides opportunities for data mining as a quantitative tool for market research on graduate trends, values and skill-sets. When students sign up for registry to apply to these jobs or internships, their demographic information is placed in a database where information can be extracted by the organisation. Personal and educational data can be correlated with business needs and objectives to determine what percentage of the graduate labour pool maintains the skills required to fit business needs, thus developing better future recruitment tests and promotional tools to gain more visibility in the job market. Companies are also using the Internet to recruit candidates using the social media platform to be much more interactive with graduates, thus performing some of the selection tools first-hand through blogging or direct online discussion with recruiters. Some law firms, as one example, are using websites like BraveNewTalent, an online talent marketer that invites graduates to engage directly with employers in an online community (Recruiter 2010). Once a graduate has entered the online community, they build their personalized profile and then have multiple opportunities to browse job listing and connect to their desired potential employer. BraveNewTalent and many websites like this that use Talent Words, a Google feature to guide interested job seekers to employers, assists in linking the graduate job-seeker to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube to communicate with business leadership or review their real-time data about needs and business values (Recruiter). Social media is becoming a mainstream lifestyle tool for society as well as business. “Collectively, these social technologies have enabled a revolution in user-generated content, global community and the publishing of consumer opinion” (Smith 2009, p.559). Because social media is being used as a platform for job opportunity promotion and to better create interpersonal and interactive relationships with graduate job-seekers, it changes the scope of relationship between graduate and recruiter. An additional benefit of this methodology for recruitment is that it reduces the costs of selection by screening out candidates that would likely not fit the corporate profile based on their blogging entries, uploaded applicant videos, or other communications provided. The advantages of being able to use video-sharing for applicant communications is that the candidate can stand out from other graduate competitors through personal salesmanship. The ability, also, for companies to extract data about the candidate from electronic databases make for quality human resources research and general market data required by businesses. It is a low-cost method of recruitment and selection that eases these burdens from HR professionals and also gives the business a much larger talent pool to select from rather than through traditional newspaper advertisements that only target a local community. The development of training Boot Camps is growing in popularity for selection as it provides preliminary data about graduate competence prior to making them a potential liability risk to the business post-employment. Boot Camp is designed to take 30 pre-screened applicants and put them through 48 hours of test-taking, learning challenges, leadership and problem-solving exercises (Benzecry 2011). Accenture is one company that applauds this method of recruitment and selection as it screens out the lowest-performing applicants based against a testing template of business-generated criteria. Boot Camp was promoted at campuses in 2010 and the programme received 1,000 applications for every 30 places that this type of training event was held (Benzecry). Boot Camp or other preliminary training that provides real-time information about graduate competencies in scenarios that might occur during the business gives recruiters much more knowledge about the long-term predictive competency of graduate applicants. By acting as consultants and mentors in this type of programme, it is also advantageous to graduate job seekers who might feel they do not fit well with the corporate values or strategies of a particular business and thus seek other employment that is more fulfilling. In today’s business world, high turnover rates due to unsatisfied employees is a real cost and labour-related concern, and Boot Camp provides opportunities for mutual exchanges and knowledge-sharing to occur as a risk mitigation factor to save the company from turnover issues. Recruitment fairs are also new recruitment strategies to gain more qualified applicants (Heine 2010). Recruitment fairs can be promoted at local universities and colleges to give the organization more brand presence and also to ensure they have a larger talent pool to select from. By attending these fairs, business leaders are able to interact socially and professionally with graduate candidates and set-up interviews with who they feel are the most qualified and best-fit for their organizational cultures. Online recruitment fairs are also being hosted by companies operating in the virtual environment such as totaljobs.com that allows recruiters to talk directly with candidates in the virtual meeting environment (PR Newswire Europe 2010). The virtual environment allows for videoconferencing or discussion through live-action blogging and email systems so that recruiters can screen applicants using the online interview as a selection tool. By not coordinating in-house screening of graduate applicants, the organization saves money and labour expenditures that would normally be incurred during the interview process to ensure that once a face-to-face meeting is set up they have selected the proper fit for their organizational role. For selection purposes, businesses are turning more and more toward psychometric testing as a means to identify the most competent and best-fit graduates for their potential job role placement. Psychometric testing is a method to identify which candidates have certain predictive negative behaviours prior to setting up a final interview. A recent survey 90 different employers identified that 58 percent of them had introduced psychometric testing or were currently using it in the selection process (Williams 2009). What are the advantages of psychometric testing? It is a more in-depth psychological analysis of recruited graduate behaviours related to deviancy, obedience, professionalism, social abilities, cognitive functioning, assertiveness, confidence, and many other subjective personality-related factors. When properly constructed, they can also measure factors such as social sensitivity, willingness to accept change, or general caring aptitudes (Aaron Wallace 2008). Some organizations refer their graduate candidates selected to websites where PIP psychometric testing occurs, a pre-interview guide that measures key personality traits prior to establishing a face-to-face interview (Aaron Wallace). Psychometric testing, when developing under the supervision of well-established benchmark practices or other psychologist expertise, maintains the ability to scan for any counter-productive behaviours that might disrupt goal-attainment at the organization. Counter-productivity includes passive-aggressive behaviours, general obstructive behaviours socially, or generalized integrity and ethical make-up (Barrett 2001). A well-designed psychometric test for selection puts candidates in the role of manager in real-life ethical situations that might occur in the organization to measure their response or solution to the scenario. Willingness to comply with supervision can also be measured as well as their general learning capabilities and preferred learning styles. The benefits of psychometric testing as a new development in graduate selection tend to speak for themselves as it provides in-depth knowledge about prophetic attitudes or values that might manifest themselves post-employment. They are generally low-cost tools that represent a one-time development fee and can be utilized by many different employees during different periods of intensive selection activities. However, there are those who might argue against psychometric testing as a valid testing scenario based on concepts of limited diversity as a competitive advantage or their general ethical structure to dig so deeply into the employee consciousness. Based upon the literature describing the development of psychometric testing, it would be a quality recommendation to ensure that it is backed by competent psychological expertise or benchmarked against psychometrics with proven reliability. If developed by non-experts with adequate education of psychology and organizational theory, it is likely they will provide a poor template for selection that might overlook qualified candidates that could bring significant benefit to the organisation. Ninety eight percent of businesses rely on interviews as an effective selection procedure, with an additional 44 percent relying on numeracy and literacy tests (NLC 2011). These are more traditional selection tools, however the more contemporary and innovative methods already identified, such as social media recruiting and psychometrics, provide more in-depth knowledge of what actually drives attitude and predictable behaviours. Interviews are typically structured closed-ended with a set of corporately-set criteria for the interviewer, thus not leaving much room for creativity. Numeracy and literacy tests provide solid data about predictive performance, however much of these credentials are already backed by their record of academic performance at the college or university and thus could be considered redundant and sometimes expensive to manage and upgrade. This is why businesses looking to reduce costs and also establish more modern selection and recruitment tools should turn toward the new developing trends in social media, psychometrics, and preliminary Boot Camp-style training to determine which candidates would be the best fit in the organizational culture. By putting graduate recruits through real-world scenarios that might occur in the organization post-employment, they can gain a better picture of how the potential employee might fit in the corporate culture. Conclusion There were many advantages and disadvantages described for the current methods developing in graduate recruitment and selection, with each involving leadership and involvement from the organization looking to hire graduates. Social media provides a platform for cost-effective recruitment along with the opportunity to discuss organizational issues with the graduate prior to offering a position or scheduling an interview. It does not waste the graduate’s time if the organization is not what they are necessarily looking for and also allows for pre-screening to occur; as well as a much larger talent pool to choose from. Whether an organization decides to stay true to more traditional tools such as interviews and numeracy or literacy tests or be more contemporary is up to their budget and HR labour capacities. However, if the business wishes to be more in-line with modern recruitment and retention activities, they should benchmark these low-cost and effective tools in social media, psychometrics, recruitment fairs, and Boot Camp programmes. These new methods fit with graduate needs for convenience and to screen the potential employer in a way that has not been available to job-seekers before without having to schedule a formal interview. These new tools for recruitment and selection, despite any potential disadvantages, look to be win-win scenarios for the organization and the graduate job-seeker in terms of cost, time investment, and ensuring the best proper fit for the culture and job role. References Aaron Wallis. 2008 [internet] Psychometric Tools, Aaron Wallis Skills Testing [accessed October 25, 2011 at http://www.psychometrictools.co.uk/pip_profiling.php] Barrett, P. 2001 [internet] Pre-employment integrity testing: current methods, problems and solutions, University of Liverpool Dept of Clinical Psychology [accessed October 25, 2011 at http://www.pbarrett.net/presentations/integrity_doc.pdf] Benzecry, O. 2011, Top graduates were not affected by the recession, Financial Times, April 14, p.3. Heine, F. 2010, Sullivan targets UK students with graduate scheme launch, Legal Week, 12(38), p.5. Jensen, K. 2009, [internet] Graduate market trends, National Council for Work Experience [accessed October 24, 2011 at http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/assets/assets/documents/gmt_autumn_09.pdf] PR Newswire Europe. 2010, There’s still time to register for Gradu8 – The online graduate recruitment and careers fair, November 5. Recruiter. 2010, Law firms go social in bid to attract top talent, Centaur Communications, October 13, p.8. Smith, T. 2009, The social media revolution, International Journal of Market Research, 51(4), p.559. Williams, N. 2009, [internet] Psychometric testing increasingly used in pre-employment screening [accessed October 25, 2011 at http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/10/08/52478/psychometric-testing-increasingly-used-in-pre-employment-screening.html] Read More