Fundamentals of Human

Resource Management

Chapter 5
Recruiting
 Introduction
• Recruiting
• Once an organization identifies its
human resource needs through
employment planning, it can begin the
process of recruiting potential
candidates for actual or anticipated
organizational vacancies.
 Introduction
• Recruiting brings together
those with jobs to fill and
those seeking jobs.
 Recruiting Goals
• To provide information that will attract a
significant pool of qualified candidates
and discourage unqualified ones from
applying.
 Effective Recruiting
• External factors affecting recruiting:
– Threatening undersupply of workers
– Lessening of the trend in outsourcing of jobs
– Increasingly fewer “qualified” candidates
• Internal factors affecting recruiting:
– The consistency of the firm’s recruitment efforts with
its strategic goals
– The available resources, types of jobs to be recruited
and choice of recruiting methods
– Non recruitment HR issues and policies
– Line and staff coordination and cooperation
 Effective Recruiting (cont’d)
• Advantages of centralizing recruitment
– Strengthens employment brand
– Ease in applying strategic principles
– Reduces duplication of HR activiites
– Reduces the cost of new HR technologies
– Builds teams of HR experts
– Provides for better measurement of HR
performance
– Allows for the sharing of applicant pools
 Measuring Recruiting
Effectiveness
• What to measure and how to measure
– How many qualified applicants were attracted
from each recruitment source?
• Assessing both the quantity and the quality of the
applicants produced by a source.
• High performance recruiting
– Applying best-practices management techniques
to recruiting.
• Using a benchmarks-oriented approach to analyzing
and measuring the effectiveness of recruiting efforts
such as employee referrals.
Factors that affect recruiting
efforts

– Organizational size
– Employment conditions in the area
– Working conditions, salary and benefits
offered
– Organizational growth or decline
Constraints on recruiting efforts
include:

– Organization image
– Job attractiveness
– Internal organizational policies
– Government influence, such as
discrimination laws
– Recruiting costs
 Recruiting Sources
• Sources should match the position to be
filled.
• The Internet is providing many new
opportunities to recruit and causing
companies to revisit past recruiting practices.
• Sources:
1. Internal Searches
2. Employee Referrals/Recommendations
3. External Searches
4. Alternatives
 Recruiting Sources
1.Internal search
• Organizations that promote
from within identify current
employees for job openings:
– by having individuals bid for
jobs
– by using their HR management
system
– by utilizing employee referrals
 Finding Internal Candidates
• Job posting
– Publicizing an open job to employees (often by literally
posting it on bulletin boards) and listing its attributes.
• Rehiring previous employees
– Advantages:
• They are known quantities.
• They know the firm and its culture.
– Disadvantages:
• They may have less-than positive attitudes.
• Rehiring may sent the wrong message to current employees
about how to get ahead.
 Finding Internal Candidates
(cont’d)
• Succession planning
– The process of ensuring a suitable supply of
successors for current and future senior or key
jobs.
• Succession planning steps:
– Identifying and analyzing key jobs.
– Creating and assessing candidates.
– Selecting those who will fill the key positions.
 Recruiting Sources
The internal search
• Advantages of promoting from within include
– good public relations
– morale building
– encouragement of ambitious employees and
members of protected groups
– availability of information on existing employee
performance
– cost-savings
– internal candidates’ knowledge of the organization
– the opportunity to develop mid- and top-level
managers
 Recruiting Sources
The internal search
• Disadvantages include:
– possible inferiority of internal candidates
– infighting and morale problems
– potential inbreeding
 Recruiting Sources
2. Employee referrals/recommendations
• Current employees can be asked to
recommend recruits.
• Advantages include:
– the employee’s motivation to make a good
recommendation
– the availability of accurate job information for the
recruit
– Employee referrals tend to be more acceptable
applicants, to be more likely to accept an offer and
to have a higher survival rate.
 Recruiting Sources
2. Employee referrals/ recommendations

•Disadvantages include:
– the possibility of friendship
being confused with job performance
– the potential for nepotism
– the potential for adverse impact
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Advertisements: Must decide type and
location of ad, depending on job; decide
whether to focus on job (job description) or on
applicant (job specification).
• Three factors influence the response rate:
– identification of the organization
– labor market conditions
– the degree to which specific requirements are
listed.
• Blind box ads don’t identify the organization.
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Employment agencies:
– Public or state employment services focus
on helping unemployed individuals with
lower skill levels to find jobs.
– Private employment agencies provide
more comprehensive services and are
perceived to offer positions and applicants
of a higher caliber.
• Fees may be paid by employer, employee or
both.
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Employment agencies:
• Management consulting, executive
search or headhunter firms specialize in
executive placement and hard-to-fill
positions.
– Charge employers up to 35% of the first
year salary
– Have nationwide contacts
– Do thorough investigations of candidates
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Schools, colleges, and
universities:
– May provide entry-level or
experienced workers through
their placement services.
– May also help companies
establish cooperative education
assignments and internships.
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Professional organizations:
– Publish rosters of vacancies
– Placement services at meetings
– Control the supply of prospective
applicants
• Professional organizations also include
labor unions.
 Recruiting Sources
3. External searches
• Unsolicited applicants (Walk-
ins): May provide a stockpile of
prospective applicants if there are
no current openings.
• Cyberspace Recruiting: Nearly
four out of five companies use the
Internet to recruit employees.
Commercial job-posting services
continue to grow.
 Recruiting Sources
4. Recruitment alternatives
• Temporary help services.
– Temporary employees help organizations meet
short-term fluctuations in HRM needs.
– Older workers can also provide high quality
temporary help.
• Employee leasing.
– Trained workers are employed by a leasing
company, which provides them to employers when
needed for a flat fee.
– Typically remain with an organization for longer
periods of time.
 Recruiting Sources
4. Recruitment alternatives
• Independent contractors
– Do specific work either on or off the
company’s premises.
– Costs of regular employees (i.e. taxes and
benefits costs) are not incurred.
 Exhibit 8-1
Advantages & Disadvantages of Internal &
External Recruiting

Copyright © 2005 South-Western. All rights reserved.

1–26
The Recruitment and Selection
Process
1. Decide what positions you’ll have to fill through
personnel planning and forecasting.
2. Build a pool of candidates for these jobs by recruiting
internal or external candidates.
3. Have candidates complete application forms and perhaps
undergo an initial screening interview.
4. Use selection techniques like tests, background
investigations, and physical exams to identify viable
candidates.
5. Decide who to make an offer to, by having the supervisor
and perhaps others on the team interview the candidates.
Steps in Recruitment and Selection Process

The recruitment and selection process is a series of hurdles aimed at

selecting the best candidate for the job.

Figure 5–1