Analysis of Effectiveness of a Recruitment Process in an Organization

ANALYSIS OF EFFECTIVENESS OF A RECRUITMENT PROCESS IN AN ORGANISATION

CONTENT

1. Introduction 3

2. The recruitment process 3

3. Recruitment strategy 5

4. Posting vacansies 5

5. Recruiting from internal sources 6

6. Recruiting from external sources 7

7. On-line application / recruiting on the internet 9

8. College recruitment 11

9. Job fairs 12

10. Conclusion 13

11. References 14

INTRODUCTION

This article gives introductory guidance. It provides advice to help improve the effectiveness and fairness of your recruitment process and documents the stages of the recruitment and selection processes. It also comments on the use of external recruitment services.

Having the right person, in the right place, at the right time, is crucial to the performance of the organisation. Recruitment is a critical activity, not just for the HR team but also for line managers who are increasingly involved in the selection process. According to Jeff Kaye, president and chief operating officer of Kaye/Bassman, an international management recruiting company, "The demand for talent has never been higher, and the supply has never been lower" (Egger, 1999).

THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Recruitment is described as „the set of activities and processes used to legally obtain a sufficient number of qualified people at the right time and place so that the people and the organisation can select each other in their own best short and long term interests"(Schuler, Randall S.; 1987).

Succesful recruitment involves the several processes of:

1. development of a policy on recruitment and retention and the systems that give life to the policy;

2. needs assessment to determine the current and future human resource requirements of the organisation. If the activity is to be effective, the human resource requirements for each job category and functional division/unit of the organisation must be assessed and a priority assigned;

3. identification, within and outside the organisation, of the potential human resource pool and the likely competition for the knowledge and skills resident within it;

4. job analysis and job evaluation to identify the individual aspects of each job and calculate its relative worth;

5. assessment of qualifications profiles, drawn from job descriptions that identify responsibilities and required skills, abilities, knowledge and experience;

6. determination of the organisation's ability to pay salaries and benefits within a defined period;

7. identification and documentation of the actual process of recruitment and selection to ensure equity and adherence to equal opportunity and other laws.

Documenting the organisation's policy on recruitment, the criteria to be utilised, and all the steps in the recruiting process is as necessary in the seemingly informal setting of in house selection as it is when selection is made from external sources. Of special importance is documentation that is in conformity with Freedom of Information legislation (where such legislation exists), such as:

o criteria and procedures for the initial screening of applicants;

o criteria for generating long and short lists;

o criteria and procedures for the selection of interview panels;

o interview questions;

o interview scores and panellists' comments;

o results of tests (where administered);

o results of reference checks.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGY

Recruitment may be conducted internally through the promotion and transfer of existing personnel or through referrals, by current staff members, of friends and family members. Where internal recruitment is the chosen method of filling vacancies, job openings can be advertised by job posting, that is, a strategy of placing notices on manual and electronic bulletin boards, in company newsletters and through office memoranda. Referrals are usually word-of-mouth advertisements that are a low-cost-per-hire way of recruiting. Internal recruitment does not always produce the number or quality of personnel needed; in such an instance, the organisation needs to recruit from external sources, either by encouraging walk-in applicants; advertising vacancies in newspapers, magazines and journals, and the visual and/or audio media; using employment agencies to "head hunt"; advertising on-line via the Internet; or through job fairs and the use of college recruitment.

POSTING VACANCIES

As written earlier, job posting refers to the practice of publicising an open job to employees and listing its attributes, such as criteria of knowledge, qualification, skill and experience. The purpose of this is to bring to the attention of all interested persons (inside or out of the organisation) the jobs that are to be filled.

Before posting vacancies, management needs to decide whether:

o it intends to retain the job in its present form and with its present title, salaty and status;

o selected attributes of the job, for example, skill or experience, will change;

o there are sufficient qualified, potential applicants serving in other positions within the organisation who may be potential candidates for that job;

o the organisations stands to benefit more, in the long-term, from recruiting applicants from external sources.

Also necessary is the availability of a functional human resource information system that supports recruitment. An effective, [ideally] computerised system would:

o ensure that no candidates are lost but, instead, move through the process and are kept informed of their status;

o ensure that good candidates whose applications