Recruitment

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

Contents

Objectives

The purpose of this section is to:

• Discuss the meaning and significance of recruitment in its organizational context
• Provide a typology of recruitment strategies
• Critically review preliminary information-gathering techniques
• Discuss the merits of references and biodata

Potential candidates may come from an internal trawl of the organization, or from the external job market. Internal recruitment marketing can take place by word of mouth, staff notices, newsletters, blogs, webcasts, or social networking through media such as Twitter and Facebook.

• Organizations with a strong culture are likely to seek malleable new employees at school-leaving or graduate levels. More senior jobs are filled from the internal job market.
• Organizations looking for the 'right' (best fit for the job) person however may rule out internal applicants because they do not match the personnel specification prepared for the job.

Informal recruiting

Cultural factors are important in determining the orientation between internal and external job markets. They also influence the nature of recruitment. People may appear to have found their job or career by chance, but this apparent serendipity obscures non-random factors such as personal relationships, social networks and cultural background (McDonald, 2010). (...)

Formal recruiting

Equal opportunity demands equal access. This can only be achieved through public and open recruitment. (...) The likelihood of attracting 'suitable' applicants depends on the detail and specificity of the recruitment advertisement or literature. Key factors such as salary, job title, career and travel opportunities obviously influence response rates.  But remember that employers do not want to be swamped with large numbers of applications from unsuitable people. This section of Human Resource Management goes into further detail such as: quality of agency recruiters, comparison of different media channels, cultural variation in recruitment practice.

Web-based Recruitment

The internet has become the dominant recruitment medium in recent years. It has become normal for jobseekers to scan employment sites on the web for opportunities; so much so that many organizations block access to job sites from their workstations to prevent employees from job hunting during working hours.

Most large organizations, and many smaller ones, make extensive use of corporate websites in their recruitment programmes. Typically, general career information is presented in an engaging manner to promote the employer brand and gain interest from prospective applicants. It has become common for the early stages of the selection process to be made accessible online, allowing résumés and CVs to be uploaded, application forms to be completed and preselection tests to be conducted.

Targeting

Competition for the 'best' graduates requires employers to have a clear idea of what they mean by 'best'. Recruitment needs to send a strong, distinctive message to these people.

Employee Resourcing   >  Employee Selection