HMV's Selection Process of Marketing Director - Case Study Example

HMV Case Study Affiliation Job Generally, the Marketing Director is to be responsible for the administration and management of coordinating, developing and implementing marketing strategies for HMV that will ensure profitable returns. This role calls for management and development of marketing and sales activities such as advertising, press releases, record signing and profitable gigs. Marketing director will manage all branding, promotion and advertisement efforts thus should be able to determine the appropriate marketing channels that best suite HMV. The role calls for an individual with previous experience in handling sale of similar products as HMV. Policy and strategy implementation teams will be managed by the role to ensure corporation and coordination in the internal structure. The role will partake in: Planning, development and implementation of marketing strategies to enhance the Sales of HMV. Enhancement of HMVs image through positive promotional tactics. Promoting market share growth. Responsibility to account for internal marketing team. Development and implementation of integrated marketing and communication plans aligned with HMVs goals. Collaborating with Digital Communications team to enhance sales, marketing and branding of digital material. Organizing and managing the marketing budget as per the set range. Enhance consumer loyalty. Collaborating with team member to enhance sales through advertisements, branding, loyalty programs and social media. Enhancing expansion of HMVs music stores across the UK. Directing the resolution of complex organizational and operational problems within the company. Person Specifications The required individual should be experienced in marketing, technology utilization, and social media, adopt adaptive thinking, and be innovative, persistent, poses effective oral and written communication skills. The person should be able to distinguish between what is working in the organization in terms of type of music selling and the type of music in demand to ensure increase in sales. Must have worked in same position in a similar company that dwells on sale of music. The person should have at least 6-12 years’ experience in marketing and advertisement post (Previous Marketing Director Position Preferred) Job Advert HMV is offering an outstanding opportunity for an experienced marketing director. HMV is calling on all applicants for the position of marketing director. The role of the Marketing Director is as follows: Planning, development and implementation of Marketing strategies to enhance the Sales of HMV Enhancement of HMVs image through positive promotional tactics Promoting market share growth Responsibility to account for internal marketing team Development and implementation of integrated marketing and communication plans aligned with HMVs goals Collaborating with Digital Communications team to enhance sales, marketing and branding of digital material. Organizing and managing the marketing budget as per the set range. Enhance consumer loyalty Innovation on new marketing techniques Collaborating with team member to enhance sales through advertisements, branding, loyalty programs and social media. Enhancing expansion of HMVs music stores across the UK. Directing the resolution of complex organizational and operational problems within the company. All applicants must meet the minimum requirements. Requirements: Minimum of 6-12 years’ experience directly related to marketing, product marketing, and advertising and project management. Experience in telecommunications environment, marketing and sales channels via remote technologies. Prior experience in organizing promotional events. In the selection process, I would recommend that the applicant submit their applications online through HMV’s website thus reducing the overall recruitment cost, as HMV is current regaining its profit margins. According to Smethurst (2003) the recruitment cost can be reduced by up to 85% and it saves time for the company since applications are auto-sorted thus the most qualified are identified quickly. The application process via the HMV website would involve a questionnaire to ensure that biasness and is reduced while maintaining efficiency. It also offers a first line of elimination where the elimination of the less viable candidates is carried out based on the qualification, experience and choice of answers. This reduces the problem of excessive applications thus failing to identify all qualified candidates. HMV may then call back the most qualified individuals for interviews. HMVs selection process should involve a selection interview as it the most commonly used tool. Although it is regarded as a poor method in regard to its reliability and validity, Farnham (2010) propose the use of two different interviews i.e. situational and behavioral interview. In this setting HMV, asks a series of questions to asses how the applicant copes with certain situations and judging the responses according to their standard i.e. ranking the responses according to what they require in a Marketing Director. By so doing they ensure that reliability and validity of the candidates during the interview is maintained. The second interview techniques calls for asking a series of questions but requiring candidates to give responses based on past experiences and how they handled such situations in their previous jobs. In both interviews the company should use both open and closed questions so that the candidate can justify his choices. For example, A question such as ‘what do you think can be done to increase sales through marketing?’ is open and give the candidate an opportunity to explain his thoughts on the best approach he thinks will work. On the other hand, follow up questions such as ‘Why do you think that will work?’, ‘why not choose this method instead?’ etc. are closed and will give the company an opportunity to assess the capability of the individual in risk assessment and decision-making. Although selection interview is used, HMV should not rely on just one selection tool in the process, other techniques should be used to ensure that the candidate selected is fully qualified and able to uplift the company by professional marketing. In the selection process, candidates should be identified based on their qualities and achievement in previous job positions and ranging them to the companys requirements. In HMV’s case the e-recruitment and interview processes are not sufficient enough to verify the viability of a candidate in restoring the company’s image. Other methods should be used to identify the best suitable candidate. Although the interview process is able to identify the qualities and achievement of the candidate, the ability to assess and deal with situations should be tested. This ensures that the candidate has attributes such as decision-making skills, self-motivation, cognitive ability, presentation skills and teamwork. For example, viable candidates can be given a team from the marketing department and given a case study/ challenge thus assessing the capability of the candidate in handling real life situations and assessing their leadership and managerial skills. By giving the candidate a real life situation to handle, HMV is able to assess the psychometric ability of the candidate. In this case, the mental ability, numerical power and verbal reasoning of the candidate is assessed thus proving whether the candidate is able to cope with the requirement of the position. This is critical since HMV is trying to regain its reputation thus the Marketing Director will have to bear consistent stress and requirements from the company as the director and top level management team will be actively participating to ensure that the company starts regaining its reputation in the shortest time possible. People skills should also be assessed in the simulation. As the simulation takes part the company can easily filter out individuals who poses people skill through assessing how they relate with the given team and judging how the candidate will deal with other employees in the company. This ensures that the company hires a person that is able to avoid conflict in the organizations therefore saving the company time that would other wise be spent in resolving internal disputes. After the assessment and short-listing of candidates from the simulation (Group exercise), the shortlisted candidates should be assessed in terms of their verbal and written commination skills. This can be done by either asking the candidate to present the findings and strategies that they developed in the group exercise to the board explaining how and why the techniques implemented in the exercise are bound to work. It expounds how they intend on making it work and/or asking the candidates to write a detailed report indicating the why their method worked as if giving directions and advice to another company that he is not part of the implementation team. In HMV’s case, the recommended approach for the interviews and overall assessment is the use of an assessment center in one of the locations that the company has closed shop due to poor sales. This will give the company an opportunity to assess the practicality of the strategies suggested in the group exercises thus providing a realistic preview of a potential candidate while still improving the progress of the company is picking up business, as the store would be reopened in the event. This technique is crucial is HMV’s case as it will save on funds and turn over from the reopening of the store which is crucial given its financial position. In conclusion, the assessment of such a vital position in a company that is trying to regain its reputation is crucial and hence the recruitment process should be enhance and designed to emulate the experience of working in the company therefore the company is on a safer side since it does not risk hiring an unqualified individual who will not improve the standings of the company. It also ensures that the candidate who successfully completes the recruitment is prepared for what the company requires from him. Reference Breaugh, J. (2009). Employee selection at the beginning of the 21st century. Human Resource Management Review, 19(3), 167-168. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.03.009 Caligiuri, P., Tarique, I., & Jacobs, R. (2009). Selection for international assignments. Human Resource Management Review, 19(3), 251-262. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.02.001 DelCampo, R. (2011). Human resource management demystified. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Dessler, G. (2013). Human resource management. Boston: Prentice Hall. Dias, L. (2011). Human Resource Management 1.0 | Flat World Education. Flat World Knowledge. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/2807?e=portolesedias_1.0-ch05_s01 Faculty Recruitment and Selection. (2015). Higher Education Abstracts, 50(1), 23-23. doi:10.1111/hea.12037_22 Farnham, D. (2010). Chapter 1:Human Resource Management and Its external Contexts (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://www.cipd.co.uk/nr/rdonlyres/37f2a224-796a-45ef-b199-754a1d67a7d3/0/9781843982593_sc.pdf Farnham, D. (2010). Chapter 5: Recruitment and Selection (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://www.cipd.co.uk/nr/rdonlyres/194f086a-6ee1-451c-b72a-d3c7cfecc435/0/9781843982531_sc.pdf Foot, M., & Hook, C. (2005). Introducing human resource management. Essex, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Hr.ucr.edu,. (2015). Human Resources: Recruitment & Selection Hiring Process. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://hr.ucr.edu/recruitment/guidelines/process.html Hrcouncil.ca,. (2015). Selection & Hiring | Getting the Right People | HR Toolkit | hrcouncil.ca. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/right-people-selection.cfm Human Resource Management,. (2010). Selection Method. Retrieved 18 May 2015, from http://www.hrwale.com/recruitment/selection-method/ MacLane, C., & Walmsley, P. (2010). Reducing counterproductive work behavior through employee selection. Human Resource Management Review, 20(1), 62-72. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.05.001 McDaniel, M. (2009). Gerrymandering in personnel selection: A review of practice. Human Resource Management Review, 19(3), 263-270. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.03.004 Smethurst, D. (2003). Why cosmetic demand will never be satisfied. Journal Of Cosmetic Dermatology, 2(3-4), 186-189. doi:10.1111/j.1473-2130.2004.00063.x Thornton, G., & Gibbons, A. (2009). Validity of assessment centers for personnel selection. 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