Recruitment & selection c 1 & 2 16-09-2010

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RECRUITMENT & SELECTION

By Air Cdre ( R ) Anwar Saeed

Difference between Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization

Selection involves the series of steps by which the candidates are screened for choosing the most suitable persons for vacant posts.

• The basic purpose of Recruitments is to create a talent pool of candidates to enable the selection of best candidates for the organization, by attracting more and more employees to apply in the organization.

• Recruitment is a positive process i.e. encouraging more and more employees to apply.

• Recruitment is concerned with tapping the sources of human resources

• There is no contract of recruitment established in recruitment

• The basic purpose of selection process is to choose the right candidate to fill the various positions in the organization.

• Selection is a negative process as it involves rejection of the unsuitable candidates.

• Selection is concerned with selecting the most suitable candidate through various interviews and tests.

• Selection results in a contract of service between the employer and the selected employee.

Difference between Recruitment and Selection

THE SELECTION PROCESSTHE SELECTION PROCESS



• Selection is to match people to work• ‘Work’ is more than the range of tasks and activities

undertaken; it includes the physical, economic, and social environment in which the activities take place.

• The key elements in selection are:o A clear and precise specificationo Effective use of multiple techniqueso Elimination of redundant processeso Measurement o Evaluation and continuous improvement.

THE SELECTION PROCESSTHE SELECTION PROCESSSelection process Flow Chart

Analyze Role

Develop competencies/person specification

Identify Labour Market

Attract Candidates

Screen Applications

Assess (interview, tests, assessment centers etc)

Decision

Take/check references

Short-list

Choice

reject

reject

Offer Induction

Monitor/review


The specification embraces a profile of the role and of the ideal person to fill that role. Since selection is about matching people to roles, it is important that both sides of the equation are clearly specified. Poor selectors overlook the necessity of clear role information. Good selectors understand that one of the best judges of a candidate’s suitability for a role is the candidate; helping candidates to gain a clear assessment of the role will provide important benefits.Person specification headings• Knowledge – what the individual need to know to carry out the role.•Skills and abilities – what the individual has to be able to do to carry out the role.•Behavioral competencies – the types of behavior required for successful performance of the role. These should be role specific, ideally based on an analysis of employees who are carrying out their roles effectively. The behaviors should also be linked to the core values and competency framework of the organization to help in ensuring that candidates will fit and support the organization’s culture. As reported by Purcell et al (2003), companies such as Selfridges take great care to develop specifications that define the behaviors required and to use selection techniques that provide for cultural fit between the individual and the organization.•Qualifications and training – the professional, technical or academic qualifications required or the training that the candidate should have undertaken.•Experience – the types of achievement and activities that would be likely to predict success.•Specific demands - anything that the role holder will be expected to achieve in specified areas, eg develop new markets or products, improve sales, productivity or levels of customer services, introduce new systems or processes.•Special requirements – travelling, unsocial hours, mobility, etc.

Person Specification


• The term ‘competencies’ is used to describe all the work-related personal attributes, knowledge, experience, skills and values that a person draws on to perform their work well.

• In many HR applications, such as training or performance management, the competencies are described in terms of behaviors and patterns of work, and the focus is on those competencies which differentiate between effective and superior performance.

• For selection purposes a slightly broader approach needs to be taken, for a number of reasons.• First, it is not appropriate to focus only on the competencies which differentiate superior from

effective performance.• Second, providing descriptions of the competencies in terms of everyday work behaviors is of

only limited value. It is highly likely that candidates will be external to the organization, and/or in a different area of work.

• Third, there are great practical constraints which may render it difficult to get examples of the candidates displaying the competencies in everyday work behavior.

Competencies

• The initial part of the selection process is concerned with ‘selling’ the role.• The process of attracting people to apply for the role requires achievement of a balance. • There need to be sufficient candidates to afford and opportunity to choose, but the quality of

candidates needs to be good enough to make such decisions meaningful.

Attracting


• The response process is usually based on application forms or curricula vitae. • The use of application forms adds and additional stage to the overall process because the initial contact from the candidates has to be followed with a response

in sending out the forms. • There is, however, the opportunity to send the other information described above and, on occasions, it may therefore be ultimately more cost effective than

dealing with direct applications. • The use of an application form means a standardized response against which a great number of candidates can be assessed.

Response

• Providing selectors with a clear idea of the competencies to focus on when screening the application form, together with example of good or poor evidence, will significantly improve the quality and consistency of the selection process.

• A similar principle can be applied to the screening of curricula vitae, although the varied nature of each candidate’s CV makes the task more difficult and time-consuming.

Screening

Interviewing suffers from a number of problems.1. It is difficult for the interviewer to sustain attention throughout the interview, with interviewers sometimes

able to remember only the opening and closing stages of the interview.2. Judgment of interviews can sometimes be clouded by prejudices or influenced unduly by stereotyping the

candidate with, for example, others in his or her organization, or by ‘mirroring’ in which the interviewer looks more favourably on candidates matching the interviewer’s own profile.

3. Perhaps the most common failing of interviews is the lack of preparation on the part of the interviewer.

Interviewing


• Psychological testsPsychological tests use systematic and standardized procedures to measure differences in individual characteristics such as intelligence and personality. They enable selectors to gain a greater understanding of candidates to help in predicting the extent to which they will be successful in a job. Psychological tests are measuring instruments, which is why they are often referred to as psychometric tests. ‘Psychometric’ literally means mental measurement. For selection purposes, the main types of tests are those used for measuring intelligence and ability and those concerned with assessing personality characteristics.•Intelligence tests•Ability tests•Personality testsThe ‘big five’ personality characteristics• Extraversion/introversion – gregarious, outgoing, assertive, talkative and active (extraversion); or

reserved, inward-looking, diffident, quiet, restrained (introversion)• Emotional stability – resilient, independent, confident, relaxed; or apprehensive, dependent, under-

confident, tense,• Agreeableness – courteous, cooperative, likeable, tolerant; or rude, uncooperative, hostile,

intolerant.• Conscientiousness – hard-working, persevering, careful, reliable; or lazy, dilettante, careless,

expedient.• Openness to experience – curious, imaginative, willingness to learn, broad-minded; or blinkered,

unimaginative, complacent, narrow-minded.

Testing


• The key elements in establishing work simulations are to develop exercises which are realistic, are capable of being observed and evaluated, which encourage true rather than artificial behavior from candidates, and are cost effective.

Exercises

• Assessors are brought together for debriefing and provide their evaluation of candidates based on overall performance through all the assessment elements.

• The main characteristics of assessment centers are :• Exercises are used to capture and simulate the key dimensions of the job. These may

include one-to-one role-plays and group exercises; it is assumed that performance in these simulations predicts behavior on the job;

• Candidates are interviewed and tested;• Performance is measured in several dimensions in terms of the competencies required to

achieve the target level of performance in a particular job or at a particular level in the organization;

• Several candidates or participants are assessed together to allow interaction and to make the experience more open and participative;

• Several trained assessors or observers are used to increase the objectivity of assessments.

Assessment Centres


• Terms and conditions to be provided within two months of taking up employment. The information on candidates needs to be checked for authenticity.

• This may include documentary checks on qualifications, licenses, etc, statutory check on work eligibility, specialist checks on health and credit or criminal records, and taking up references.

• Offers of employment may be conditional or unconditional. • Conditional offers are sometimes based on pre-conditions. Such as receipt of

satisfactory references or achievement of an academic qualification. • Some offers are post-conditional, for example they may be subject to

satisfactory completion of probationary period. • Offers nee to be clear and explicit, and although there are no legal

requirement for a written contract of employment, there is a legal requirement for a statement of main

Check and Offers

LABOUR MARKETSLABOUR MARKETS



The classic economic theories divide labour markets:• Internal Labour Market

Internal Labour market is classically defined as the market with a single organization, as opposed to the general labour market covering all forms of employment.

• The External MarketThe external market was concerned with all those who were either in employment or available for employment and it is this group that is featured in all statistical information on labour markets, whether produced by government bodies or others.

Types of Market

Social

Economic

Sociological terms to describe labour markets have been primary and secondary labour markets.

•The Primary MarketThe primary market relates to those in full-time long-term employment.

•The Secondary MarketThe secondary market relates to those in casual, part-time, or temporary work which impact on this perspective.


A third way of looking at labour markets is on a geographical basis. Traditionally we have been concerned with the difference between local and national markets since some labour is constrained for economic or other reasons to the locality, while ‘career’ jobs have tended to operate on a national market. Thus, lower-paid manual or clerical positions would tend to be resourced from the local labour markets while professional, technical or managerial roles are more likely to be resourced from the national labour market.

Types of Market

Geographic


• Labour shortages in the 1980s which accompanied growth of organizations have turned to a labour surplus following universal trends to downsizing.

• Skills shortage prevail in spite of labour surplus and government intervention (such as Training and Enterprise Councils and National Vocational Qualifications) and such skills shortage are deteriorating in each reported year.

• The age composition of the labour market is changing in line with demographic changes so that there are fewer young people and a greater number of older people in the population generally.

• The gender composition of the employment market is changing so that male employment is declining and any growth in employment is in female employment.

• There is a sectoral shift from manufacturing industry, in which employment is steadily declining, to the leisure and retail sectors where there is growth in employment.

Labour Market Changes


• Employment centres, such as careers service or job centres or unemployment offices.

• Agencies, sometimes for temporary positions, sometimes for permanent positions and sometime as an out-sourced operation in which the agency acts as a provider of services rather than a broker for labour.

• Consultants to undertake search and selection, particularly when searching for high level or more specialized positions where there may be a need to tap into an industry market.

• Advertising through various media, whether on a local, national or international basis and whether on a general or specialized focus.

Accessing Markets

Recruitment & selection c 1 & 2 16-09-2010

Business

role specific

role holder

selection purposes

selection results

selection techniques

candidates suitability

talentpool of candidates

patterns of work