Recruitment

By Somya CSE

Introduction

Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting a qualified person for a job. All companies in any industry can benefit from contingency or retain professional recruiters or outsourcing the process to recruitment agencies.

The recruitment industry exists basically in four forms:

1). Employment agencies deal with clerical, trades, temporary and temporary to hire employment opportunities.

2). Recruitment websites and job search engines used to gather as many candidates as possible by advertising a position over a wide geographic area. Although thought to be a cost effective alternative, a human resource department or department manager will spend time outside their normal duties reading and screening resumes. A professional recruiter has the ability to read and screen resumes, talk to potential candidates and deliver a selective group in a timely manner.

3). "headhunters" for executive and professional positions. These firms are either contingency or retained. Although advertising is used to keep a flow of candidates these firms rely on networking as their main source of candidates.

4). Niche agencies specialize in a particular industrial area of staffing.

Some organizations prefer to utilize employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment instead of recruiting firms. The difference, a recruiting firm is always looking for talent whereas an internal department is focused on filling a single opening. The advantage associated with utilizing a third-party recruiting firm is their ability to know where to find a qualified candidate. Talent Management is a key component to the services a professional recruiting firm can provide.

The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by networking, advertising or other methods. Utilizing professional interviewing techniques to understand the candidate’s skills but motivations to make a move, screening potential candidates using testing (skills or personality) is also a popular part of the process. The process is meant to not only evaluate the candidate but also evaluate how the candidate will fit into the organization. The recruiter will meet with the hiring manager to obtain specific position and type information before beginning the process. After the recruiter understands the type of person the company needs, they begin the process of informing their network of the opportunity. Recruiters play an important role by preparing the candidate and company for the interview, providing feedback to both parties and handling salary/benefits negotiations.

Process

Job analysis

The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search. Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description ensures the recruitment process effort starts off on a proper track for success.

Sourcing

Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs; and 2) recruitment research, which is the proactive identification of passive candidates who are happy in their current positions and are not actively looking to move companies. This initial research for so-called passive candidates, also called name generation, results in a contact information of potential candidates who can then be contacted discreetly to be screened and approached on behalf of an executive search firm or corporate client (see below).

Screening and selection

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through résumés, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for software knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological tests or employment testing. Other resume screening criteria may include length of service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.

Lateral hiring

Lateral hiring" refers to a form of recruiting; the term is used with two different, almost opposite meanings. In one meaning, the hiring organization targets employees of another, similar organization, possibly luring them with a better salary and the promise of better career opportunities. An example is the recruiting of a partner of a law firm by another law firm. The new lateral hire then has specific applicable expertise and can make a running start in the new job. In some professional branches such lateral hiring was traditionally frowned upon, but the practice has become increasingly more common. An employee's contract may have a non-compete clause preventing such lateral hiring.

In another meaning, a lateral hire is a newly hired employee who has no prior specific applicable expertise for the new job, and for whom this job move is a radical change of career. An example is the recruiting of a university professor to become chairman of theboard of a company.

Onboarding

"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization. A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. Onboarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.

Relevance in today’s life

Benefits

RPO providers claim the method has lower costs because the economies of scale enables them to offer recruitment processes at lower cost while economies of scope allow them to operate as high-quality specialists. Those economies of scale and scope arise from a larger staff of recruiters, databases of candidate resumes, and investment in recruitment tools and networks. RPO solutions are also claimed to change fixed investment costs into variable costs that flex with fluctuation in recruitment activity. Companies may pay by transaction rather than by staff member, thus avoiding under-utilization or forcing costly layoffs of recruitment staff when activity is low.

They also claim higher quality, because the commercial relationship between an RPO provider and a client is likely to be based on specific performance targets. With remuneration dependent on the attainment of such targets, an RPO provider will concentrate their resources in the most effective way - at times to the exclusion of non-core activity. Traditional internal recruitment teams are less likely to have such clearly defined performance targets.

Risks

RPO can only succeed together with a well-defined corporate staffing strategy. A company must manage its RPO activities, providing initial direction and continued monitoring to assure good results. An RPO solution may not work if the company's existing recruitment processes are performing poorly, or if the service provider lacks the necessary recruitment processes or procedures to work with the client. In these situations, it is better for the company to undergo a recruitment optimisation programme.

Cost and quality can be issues, The cost of engaging an RPO provider may be more than with internal recruiting staff, as the outside provider is likely to have higher business overhead. Poorly implemented RPO could reduce the effectiveness of recruitment, if the provider does not understand the business situation. Service providers may fail to provide the quality or volume of staff required , especially in industry sectors where there are staff shortages. RPO providers do not necessarily act as custodians of their clients'employer brand in the way that a strongly aligned retained search firm or internal recruiting resource would. Many RPO organisations perform their staffing functions and service offsite or offshore, disconnecting the provider from the client company's growth and recruiting strategy, and some of the momentum and energy associated with the rapid upscaling of a workforce through recruitment may dissipate. Additionally, placing all recruitment in the hands of a single outside provider may discourage the competition that would arise if multiple recruitment providers were used.

Conclusion

According to Behling and others, an individuals decision to join a firm may depend on any of the three factors viz. objective factor, subjective factor and critical contact.

Objective Factor Theory.

It assumes that the applicants are rational. The choice, therefore, is exercised after an objective assessment of the tangible benefits of the job. The factors helping him choose may be the salary, other benefits, location, opportunities for career advancement etc.

Subjective Factor Theory

The decision making is dominated by social and psychological factors. The status of the job, reputation of the organization and other similar factors plays an important role.

Critical Contact Theory

The critical factors observed by the candidate during his interaction with the organization plays a vital role in decision making. Recruiter being in touch with the candidate, promptness of response and similar factors are important. This theory is more valid with the experienced professionals. The importance of fairness and feedback to applicants, especially in e-recruitment, is stressed in current research.