Managing Others: The Organisational Essentials: Your guide to getting it right

Planning the recruitment process

Recruitment is the process of attracting, assessing, selecting and employing people to carry out the work activities required by a company or an organisation. This checklist focuses on planning and undertaking the initial stages of the process. This involves assessing whether there is a need for additional or replacement staff, identifying the tasks to be carried out, specifying the kind of person needed, finding a pool of suitable candidates and drawing up a shortlist.

Effective recruitment processes are crucial to ensure that an organisation has the people it needs to implement its strategy and meet its objectives. Recruitment can be expensive, but so too is the appointment of an employee who is inadequately qualified, fails to perform well or leaves the organisation before he or she has been able to make a significant contribution. The time and effort invested in planning the process of recruitment with care will help to ensure that the right person will come into the job, reducing future labour turnover and increasing competitive advantage.

Action checklist

1 Review staff requirements

Take a broad view of your staffing needs and consider whether you really have a vacancy. If an employee is leaving, review the workload and decide whether a full-time permanent replacement is needed or whether an alternative option would be more appropriate. For example, would a part-time or temporary worker be sufficient? Should the work be restructured or outsourced? What would the staffing implications of this be?

2 Consult with those involved

Take any organisational policies and procedures into account. Authorisation for a replacement or a new appointment may be needed from senior management. Consult with your personnel or HR department if you have one, as they will have expertise in this area. Ask yourself which other departments may have an interest in the appointment – it may be possible to make it a joint effort. Where possible, talk to the previous holder of the post. Discuss the job with the relevant supervisor, and especially with the people the new employee will be working with.

3 Specify the sort of person you are looking for

List the duties, responsibilities and relationships involved in the job and define the level of authority the job holder will have. If you are filling a post that has been vacated, consider whether the job should be carried out in the same way or whether there are changes that you wish to make. Decide what qualifications and skills are required, what type and length of experience are needed and which personal attributes will be important. This will enable you to draw up an up-to-date job description and person specification. State how soon the person is expected to be competent in the job and what training you are prepared to give, and set a target start date.

4 Research the labour market

Review the job description and person specification and ask yourself whether you are likely to find what you are looking for in one person. If so, undertake some research to gauge the pay and benefits package you need to offer. Salary surveys are usually expensive, but are often summarised in the press at the time of publication. Monitoring job advertisements and networking with employers in your area and sector can also give you an idea of current pay rates. You should also consider whether you will be able to find suitable candidates locally or need to look further afield.

5 Comply with legal requirements

In most countries recruitment activities are covered by legislation designed to exclude discrimination and unfair treatment. In the UK, for example, the Equality Act 2010 is designed to provide a simple and consistent framework to prevent discrimination on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership or pregnancy and maternity. Legislation covering matters such as data protection, immigration and asylum, and the protection of children and vulnerable adults may also be relevant. Always keep yourself up-to-date with the latest legislative developments to ensure that you follow good practice and don’t infringe regulations.

6 Plan how to find and attract candidates

Start by seeking potential internal candidates and considering whether there are suitable employees who could be promoted or reassigned. It is important to advertise internally as a courtesy to employees, as some people may be interested in applying, or may have friends or relatives who would be able to apply for the position.

After this:

check your records of any previous applicants, unsolicited or otherwise, and draw on any appropriate contacts; for example, training organisations may be useful, whether you are looking for apprentices or MBAs

decide whether to use the services of a recruitment agency to identify and shortlist candidates for you, weighing the costs incurred against the time and expertise at your disposal

consider the use of e-recruitment sites or agencies. Many jobseekers use online jobsites, and most organisations use online recruitment approaches to some extent, sometimes together with traditional approaches via agencies or by advertising in suitable publications.

7 Decide where to advertise

If you decide to advertise independently rather than use an agency, think about the options and decide which ones will be most likely to reach the kind of candidates you have in mind:

local job centre

local or national press

specialist publications, such as the magazines of professional bodies or trade associations

Internet recruitment sites and mailing lists.

Research the costs involved and decide what you can afford.

8 Write the advertisement

Decide whether you and/or other colleagues have the skills and knowledge required to draw up an advertisement. If your organisation has an HR or personnel department they will probably take on this task, but do ensure that you are involved throughout the process. In the case of a senior post, or if you are recruiting in large numbers, you may wish to hire an advertising agency to draft and place the advert. Use of a box number for responses will deter some applicants, so it is preferable to name your organisation in the advert, unless you have particular reasons for secrecy. Ensure that the job advert provides the following details clearly and succinctly:

duties and responsibilities of the job

qualifications and experience required

personal qualities sought

location

some indication of the salary range

the form of reply you require – a CV and covering letter, or completion of an application form

deadline for the submission of applications

whether further information is available and in what form.

It is important to ensure that the advertisement complies with relevant legislation. Bear in mind, too, that it will be on public display and ensure that it presents a positive picture of your organisation which will attract candidates.

If you are using an application form, check that it requests all the details you will need to help you assess the candidates. It can also be helpful to ask a colleague to complete the form from the perspective of a candidate to ensure that it is clear. Prepare an information pack to send out to those requesting further information.

9 Draw up a shortlist

Decide how many people you wish to interview, probably five or six at the most. Ask other colleagues, including a supervisor or manager, to help you sift through the applications and take their opinions into account. Be as objective as you can, matching the candidates against the requirements you have defined. Look out for any unexplained gaps in employment, and assess the quality of presentation and how well the replies are tailored to the specific job.

10 Reply to candidates

Contact those you do not wish to interview as quickly as possible. Treat them courteously, thanking them for their interest in your organisation and the position. You may wish to keep a few candidates in reserve, in case none of those on the shortlist proves suitable. Contact the candidates on the shortlist to check that they are still interested in the job and arrange a date and time for interview. Make sure that you provide directions so that candidates can find you, and be clear about whether you are prepared to meet travel expenses.

11 Next steps

Consider how you will organise the next steps in the recruitment process:

carrying out the interviews, selecting the most suitable candidate and making the job offer

organising the induction of the new recruit.

As a manager you should avoid:

assuming there is a vacancy before reviewing the current situation carefully

skimping on the preparation of an appropriate job description and person specification

overlooking suitable internal candidates

ignoring relevant legislation.

Preparing and using job descriptions

A job description is a structured and factual statement of a job function and objectives. It should also set the boundaries of the job holder’s authority. The job title, department, location, a short summary of the job and key responsibilities and reporting lines are also included.

Job descriptions are still widely used, despite criticism that they are too specific and inflexible to work effectively in flatter and rapidly changing organisations. Job descriptions should be structured, however, to allow sufficient scope and flexibility to accommodate colleagues’ work, needs and priorities, though not to the extent that job content becomes vague and ambiguous. Bear in mind that an organisation’s work gets done through workplace relationships. How jobs are designed to fit together and how job holders work interactively matter more than spelling out the details of individual job roles. For this reason, there is a trend towards using more generic and less detailed job descriptions, which use short accountability statements focused on outcomes or key result area (KRA) statements relating to the performance measures applied to the role.

Apart from giving the job holder and immediate line manager a clear overall view of the post, job descriptions are used by HR departments to support selection and recruitment processes. Job descriptions enable recruiters to clarify the skills, experience and competencies required in a job against those of job applicants. They also give a useful basis for performance appraisal, job evaluation and job grading, and can help to identify the duplication or absence of particular functions or activities across the organisation.

Job descriptions give an overview of the purpose of a job, what it contributes to the organisation’s aims and objectives, how it fits into the overall structure and, perhaps most importantly, the key tasks, responsibilities and reporting lines.

Guidance is offered here for those wishing to write a job description or update an existing one.

Action checklist

1 Inform staff of the reasons for reviewing and amending job descriptions

When existing job descriptions are reviewed, it is important to keep staff fully informed. An explanation should be given of the reasons for the review, with an assurance that job holders will be fully involved. Objectives of a job description review might be to:

identify interdepartmental working links

update existing job descriptions

help with job evaluation or job grading

give everyone a clear understanding of how the company is organised.

2 Assign responsibility

Traditionally job descriptions are prepared by the HR department and agreed with line managers and job holders. However, many organisations are devolving this responsibility to line managers, with guidance from the HR department, which checks for consistency and overlaps. The following questions should be considered:

Are all key functions and activities listed in order of priority?

Does each job holder have a clear reporting line?

Is there a balance between numbers of staff and managers?

Are there too many reporting levels?

Are there any overlaps within departments or across the organisation?

Are all jobs grouped logically or are some scattered?

Are there any gaps or omissions in key functions?

3 Gather information

The person responsible for compiling the job description should consider:

what management and the business want from the job

what the job holder thinks he or she is doing and what they are actually doing

what others, whose work interacts with the job holder’s, think the job holder is doing and ought to be doing.

This information could be obtained from informal interviews, workgroups, or café-style meetings. It is possible to use questionnaires, but the results tend to be ambiguous, and the time required to analyse the completed questionnaires can exceed the interviewing time.

4 Put the job description together

The job description should contain the following information:

Basic information

Job title – this should be brief, descriptive and clear. Remember that other employees will consider the status of those with the same kind of job title to be equal.

Reporting relationships – give the job title of the person to whom the job holder reports, and job title(s) and numbers of staff reporting to the job holder.

Location – give the location of the job, the organisation name and the department. If travel is involved this should be stated.

Major functional relationships – where appropriate, an organisation chart will show how a job fits into the organisation and its relationship with other jobs.

Principal purpose or objective of the job

This should be a short statement describing why the job exists. For example, for a sales manager it could be simply ‘ensuring that agreed sales targets are achieved’.

Key tasks/key result area statements

Key tasks and responsibilities or key result area (KRA) statements are those that make a substantial contribution towards the objectives of both the job and the organisation. These form the main part of the job and ideally there should be no more than five or six key tasks. Some basic jobs may have only one or two main activities, such as shelf-stacking and working on the checkout tills in a supermarket, though most may have several elements, such as bringing in new business, managing existing customers, managing staff, liaising with suppliers, and so on. Secondary duties and responsibilities should also be listed.

The description of each task should comprise three main components:

a ‘doing’ verb to highlight the main activity, such as to develop, to design, to implement or to advise

the object of that activity, such as stock levels, existing suppliers or a new computer system

the central purpose of the activity, such as to reduce costs, improve efficiency or generate new income.

An example of a KRA statement incorporating these three components might be: ‘To advise on the selection and implementation of a new computer system designed to forge closer links with key account customers.’

Although a job description will include outcomes, such as ‘expand the existing customer base’, actual target levels are not part of the job description. Targets are usually agreed separately on a regular basis – annually or half-yearly, for example – and may be incorporated into performance systems or reviews.

The key tasks or KRAs are usually listed in order of importance, or by other agreed criteria, such as chronological sequence, frequency of activity, or tasks related to a particular activity.

5 Update and review

It is wise to update job descriptions regularly, as they can quickly get out of date and cease to reflect current practice, or there may be significant changes to the job, role, or department priorities.

The job description should be examined:

at least once a year, when the job holder is appraised

when a job falls vacant, to ensure that the description still meets the requirements

after a new job holder has been in post a few months, to take account of any significant changes in the job holder’s duties.

As a manager you should avoid:

restricting employee initiative through job descriptions that are too rigid

forgetting to involve the job holder in a review of the job description

failing to let staff know why job descriptions are being amended or updated

letting job descriptions get out of date.

Steps in successful selection interviewing

Recruitment and selection interviews assess (or partly assess, in conjunction with other methods) an individual’s suitability for a job either inside or outside their current organisation.

Job interviews are still the most popular recruitment tool, despite increasing interest in other techniques. Selecting new employees through well-designed interviewing processes will help you avoid recruiting errors and give candidates more information on your organisation. By asking the right questions in the right way in an interview you can ensure that you recruit people who will work well at your organisation, rather than those who are adept at telling you what you want to hear in interviews.

The three principal interview models are:

biographical interviews, which explore the candidate’s experiences

structured behavioural description interviews (BDI), which seek information on how applicants behaved in past, critical incidents

structured, situational interviews, which are based on a job analysis, with job-related questions on reactions in hypothetical situations.

The use of one technique is often preferred, but different models can be useful in different situations, and a mix of different approaches can be used if necessary. This checklist is designed to help interviewers plan, prepare and conduct interviews, whichever approach is used.

Action checklist

1 Narrow the search

Interviewing takes place at a fairly late stage in the recruitment process, and follows the drawing up of a job description, the listing of the behaviours or competencies required, the placing of advertisements and the shortlisting of candidates. The information collected from these processes will form the basis of the criteria against which candidates will be assessed.

2 Prepare for the interview

Careful planning and preparation are essential to obtain maximum benefit from the interviewing process. Some organisations prefer particular styles of interviewing, so check on policies and ensure that you adhere to them, following any necessary practices and completing the required paperwork.

Style. Interviews can take many forms, such as one-to-one, sequential one-to-one, or panel. All these can be complemented by tests, presentations, group discussions and social events. Once the format has been decided upon, it is advisable to brief everyone involved, including reception staff and employees in the department where the