The Employee Resourcing Process

Based on Human Resource Management (4th Edition) by Alan Price - published by Cengage

This part of Human Resource Management addresses one of the core areas of human resource practice: recruitment and selection. These areas of employee resourcing are extensively covered in critical academic literature and prescriptive ('how to') books for people involved in hiring or being hired. Our discussion attempts to strike a balance between these two approaches, allowing you to gain an understanding of the wide range of practical techniques in use as well as an appreciation of some of the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the methodology and underlying theory.

We address some key issues, including:

• Why are some recruitment channels more popular than others?
• What are the most cost-effective recruitment and selection methods?
• How is candidate information collected?
• What use is made of that information?
• Are interviews an effective method of determining the 'best' candidates?
• How prevalent are more sophisticated or non-traditional selection techniques such as psychometric tests, biodata and assessment centres?
• How valid are these selection techniques?

Recruitment and selecition are core areas of human resource management but are frequently discussed in a prescriptive manner. They are not simply techniques for filling jobs - they are also levers for organizational change, sustaining employee commitment and achieving high performance. In free market countries, the personnel profession has adopted a 'best practice' model which fits the prevailing business ideology. This model prescribes a quest for the 'right (best) person for the job'. The 'best-person' or psychometric model has achieved the status of orthodoxy in free market countries. But different models of resourcing have been developed with a greater concern for personality and attitude than presumed ability. Recruits may be sought who will 'fit in' with the culture of the corporation; who will be content to build a career within the organization; who will absorb the goals of the organization.

Recruitment and selection allow management to determine and gradually modify the behavioural characteristics and competences of the workforce. The fashion for teamworking, for example, has focused on people with a preference for working with others as opposed to the individualist 'stars' preferred by recruiters in the 1980's. Attention has switched from rigid lists of skills and abilities to broader-based competences. In general - as we noted in the previous section - there is greater regard for personal flexibility and adaptability - a reorientation from present to future stability.

• Recruitment
• Researching candidates
• Employee Selection
• Psychometric tests
• Interviewing
• Other Selection Methods