HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and Selection

Acquiring Staff for the
Flexible Firm

Chris Jarvis 1
 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Sample Examination Question

A large business wants its HRM recruitment staff to specify the

quality of the recruitment service they will deliver to departments and
to establish service level agreements for recruitment.

a)How will you specify the quality of recruitment services.

b)What issues, procedures and practices will you research?
c)What problems will you encounter in specifying recruitment service
quality?
d)How can service quality be defined in terms of
 functions and activities to be carried out
 and
 the potential strategic contribution of recruitment to organisational
success and changing culture?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Descriptive-Functional View

• standardisation, risk reduction when filling vacancies

• maintaining and delivering a quality service?
• strategic, proactive?
• prescriptive - model best practice
• systematic analysis of requirements: organisational + job levels
• transaction processing system: - advertising, applications and
engagement - internal and external markets
• ethics and equal opps policies - large + small firms
• who does it?
• selection methods - reliability, validity and utility (cost effective)
• legal constraints and contracts of employment
• what could go wrong?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

“I'm from recruitment ....... Here’s what I can do for you”

Specifying the
Specifying the
• vacancy
• authorisation to recruit
Qualityof
Quality ofthese
these
• job/role analysis and specification Services
Services
• agree terms and conditions
• sourcing/attracting (target groups) in-house vs. external recruitment,
• design and administrate communications (boundary transactions)
• recommend and use recruitment methods/techniques
• process applications and responses
• organisation the "programme"
• selection: apply the methods (incidental techniques, questionable cohesion?)
• make the decisions and administer the offer
• finalise the contract
• receive/induct

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Normative view?

 How we recruit and select reflects organisational culture?

 Presentation of organisational FACE
 orientation to competitive forces
 hire and fire versus “we value our staff”
 the lean, flexible firm - out-sourcing and sub-contracting
 our “core staff” and our core competencies

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Descriptive-Behavioural

 Focus on
 actual recruitment experience/behaviour of personnel specialists
and line managers
 Behaviour in front of audiences - on-stage, back stage, off stage

 Critical Evaluative
 How does behaviour compare with textbook normative rhetoric?
 Are the techniques reliable, valid, cost effective?
 Is the process objective or prone to subjective bias?
 Why?
 Decision-making processes
 Psychometric-objective versus
 Subjective, social action process
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Vacancy Processing

 involves
 intra-organisational bargaining
 Job/role and competence analysis
 observation, interviews, knowledge of roles, skills, imperatives
 Title, reports to, tenure, compensation package, scope of
responsibilities and duties, authority, priorities, budget, staff team,
location, conditions, knowledge, skills, experience, values,
performance standards, problems/objectives, results/priorities, ideal
candidate profile.
 copy writing and internal/external advertising

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment assumptions

…based on a psychometric-objective model.

 define job requirements

 ascertain personal qualities – traits and competencies
 match job requirements to person's profile.

 Use techniques to
Routinise and objectivise the process
Reduce the risks
Maximise predictive power

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Job description - what use?

 how can the manager operate effectively if he/she does not

understand & cannot define the jobs of their staff?
 shared understanding about what the job is
 reliable, factual definition of scope of job and responsibilities??
 useful for organisational design and analysis of change?
 it helps to minimise conflicts???
 reference point for induction, performance assessment & grading
 a basis for the job advert & recruitment literature
 indicates competencies required - generic + job specific
Dull, boring
Over-bureaucratic
"Burn the lot of 'em"
Out-of-date
Written by??? Robert Townsend, "Up the Organisation"
Contractual?
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Job analysis products

 Job description
 Title, reporting relationships (up, down, sideways, external)
 job summary, responsibilities, duties, MbO/R: key result areas, scope
of authority. Position of “organisation chart”. Career/promotion path.
 working conditions
 Competencies specification
 levels, range of situations, performance indicators, knowledge/wisdom,
experience, skills (psycho-motor, technical, analytical, literary, spoken,
numeric, social and emotional), personal orientations and motivators.
 Personnel specification (person profile)
 characteristics of ideal candidate. Essentials - desireables -
disqualifiers
 Applicant profiles
 built up from evidence/data from forms, interviews, other tests,
references

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Job Analysis Orange: Label the Key Result Area segments

Now define the key KT1

tasks of KRA 5 KT5
KT2 KT3 KT4

KRA 4
KRA 2

KRA 3 KRA 5
KRA 1 • role demands
• choices, constraints
• ambiguities
• possible overload
• pressures/conflicts
• organisational change
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Personnel Specification: Rodger's 7 Point Plan

 physique, health and appearance

 height, build, hearing, eyesight, health, looks, grooming, voice, disability?
 attainments
 education/qualifications (school, HE), job training, experience & learning
 conceptual and reasoning ability
 knowledge-base, perception, intellectual & conceptual capacities, wisdom
 special aptitudes
 physical, verbal (speech/writing), technical, figures, art, music, social?
 interests
 intellectual, cultural, practical, physically active, international, aesthetic
 disposition
 acceptability, relationships, leadership/initiative, motivation and drive,
reliability, stability/adjustment, proactivity, influencing
 circumstances Essential?
 age, plans, domestic ties, mobility, domicile, other Desireable?
Disqualifier?
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Core Competencies (example from major software house)

 People relationships
 Customer relationships management
 Communication and persuasiveness
 Business and financial judgement We sell our
skills and
 Knowledge sharing/management abilities!
 Vision, change and accountability
 Drive, motivation, planning and organising
 Problem-solving and decision-making
 People management capabilities
 Role specific technical and specialist capabilities
 Professional standards and values
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Finding and attracting candidates

 Sources

internal: word of mouth, internal vacancy notifications, staff newsletters.
Staff analysis. Career planning
 external: where are the candidates located, in what type of job? Local,
national, overseas. Do they want to move? Schools, colleges, careers
centres, job shops, employment fairs.
 Agencies

recruitment consultants/agencies, head hunters,
 media: newspapers, journals, radio, WWW/Internet
 advertising
 advertising accounts, writing & designing the copy, targeting the
advert, proof reading, publishing deadlines, costs
 The emergence of on-line recruitment - suitable for all jobs?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Attract Candidates - Internal vs. external sources

 Nature of vacancy and open access?

 Internal
 known qualities, locals vs. cosmopolitans
 fluid internal market and contribution to culture, rewards/expectations
 staff database, career support planning - quicker/cheaper, incestuous?
 External - time consuming, uncertain, new blood, socialisation
 inexpensive, limited choice approaches?
 staff recommendation, on-spec applications, school-college links etc.
 expensive, wider access approaches
 head-hunters, general/specialist recruitment agencies, local/national press,
professional & trade journals
 poaching/fishing
 Come and live/work in our house - forming, fight/flight, norming & performing

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment Information System

 data in/out flows

 inquiries, application packs (out/in +CVs), requests for references,
security vetting, invitations for interview + joining instructions, offer
letters, rejections, contract documentation
 sources and sinks
 candidates, dept. managers, receptionist, security, referees, clients
 data capture/storage? Find/collate, candidates in progress. Printing
 volume, handling, copying & distribution, short-listing, briefing.
 use of IT - PC networks,word processing, databases, Intranet/Internet,
 Data Protection Act, Asylum & Immigration Act
 filtering & co-ordination of selection decision-makers?
 expenses, agency fees, costing the whole process

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection
Skeletons in cupboards: References & testimonials

 Obligation at law to provide a reference?

 Importance/value of references?
 Reciprocity, validation and reliability. Security
 Costs?
 Consequences for employee (job, mortgage, bank loan).
 Legal issues? Where could it go wrong?
 defamation (false statement & reputation), deceit (intention that
receiver will act on the reference)
 negligence - duty of reasonable care in compiling the reference,
accuracy (sue for damages/loss)
 Organisational policy on giving references?
 Right to see what is written about you?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Selection - Statutory rights and requirements

 discrimination in advertising,
selection methods (direct or • Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
indirect), TU. membership and 1974
activities, pregnant women • Sex Discrimination Act 1975
 in employment + failing to offer job • Race Relations Act 1976, 2000
 Remedy to EOC or CRE or ET, • Employment Rights Act 1996
 GOQs Sex: physiology,
decency/privacy, living in, single-
• Disability Discrim. Act 1997
• Asylum and Immigration Act
sex establishments, personal
services, working outside UK
(culture)
 GOQs Race: dramatic
performance, authenticity,
CRE/EOC Codes of Practice
for advertising and selection
(RRA and SDA)
restaurants, personal services

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Selection Tests

• reliability
 Application form
• validity
 Biodata analysis
• utility
 Interviews
• acceptability
 one-to-one, panel
 formal and informal settings
 References/security screening
 Ability tests
 paper-based, practical/trade, social
 Aptitude, intelligence and personality
 Group methods & assessment centres
 Work experience/short term contracts
 Medical
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

The Psychometric-Objective Model

Characterised by
 Eternal optimism
 Smoothly administered/programmable
 Measured, controlled, predictable, systematic search often using
psychometric techniques
 Match evidence of competences & stable qualities to job demands

Compare with "social process" approach

 Interplay between selection events

 Candidate & selector feelings/responses
 organisational negotiations and mutual adjustments
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Why an Interview?

 Exchange sufficient & necessary information to decide suitability

 Social and ritual aspects. Audition. Group/power vetting
 Candidate asserts abilities & presents experience.
 Communicate
& subjective
relevant information about job/organisation - objective

 Seduce candidate to become an organisational member

 Satisfy candidate - give fair opportunity
 Importance of not over-selling

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Interview Strategies

 Frank and friendly

 Problem-solving - “imaging yourself in the job...what would you do
if...?
 Behavioural event - critical experiences - what, why, how, options,
plans, outcomes
 Simulate stress. Put on the spot? Validity? Spurious appeal?
 Strengths and weaknesses of
 individual interviews
 sequential interviews
 panel interviews

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Reception

 Schedule for the day

 candidates, Cooks Tour, guides & interviewers, domestics & catering
 receiving applicants
 site security, car parks
 travel and subsistence arrangements
 waiting place

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

The GASP Interview

Interviewer Preparation

GAcquiring
reeting
SupplyingInformation
Parting Information

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP Interview - Greeting

 Move towards
 genuine welcome, positive regard
 Calm, neutral, with no interruptions
 Put at ease, build and maintain rapport
 seating voice, eye contact, warmth and body
posture.....NVC
 Preparation and “contract of interest and expectation”
 Opening conversation
 CHANGING GEAR - Moving smoothly into main
substance of the interview.

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP - Acquiring Information

 Listen more - talk less. Ratio % interviewer/interviewee.

 Objectivity vs. personal preference, stereotyping & early judgement
 Not adversarial. Halo, horns and doppleganger effects
 Taking notes (on application form or interview plan)
 Question strategy (preparation)
 Structured conversation
 open-ended questions, probe and link
 direct, leading, trick and taboo questions
 Emphasise biography and experience, explanation and analysis
 Mental agility and hypothetical questions
 Let interview flow but control it: - use space/time
 Non-verbal signals and skills.
 Cover key points (interview plan)
 Summarise periodically and conclude
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP - Acquiring Information - the Journey

 Recent and significant past jobs/projects

 contributions, events/phases, initiatives, products, achievements and
decisions. Evaluation of strengths and gaps
 Competence embedded in REAL experience
 knowledge/understanding, analytical skill, written/numeric, specialist
 attitudes and values, drives and motivation
 Interpersonal relations - the candidate as a person with others
 Education, training, learning and development
 Personal and domestic topics - relevance/irrelevant
 Applicant’s questions about
 the organisation and job - current + prospects
 the terms of employment

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP - The Good Interviewer

….at times
• well-prepared, sharp & in focus, specific & rational
• at other times intuitive, picking up nuances and rationalisations
• at others stepping back to see the whole interaction, fitting things
together and noting the time left and areas to cover....
• Interviewer "genuine regard for the other" helps to relax the
candidate
• clear perception
• allows productive silences & easy asking of questions.
• counteracts habituated boredom in interviews
• intuitive processes as well as the usual thinking, evaluating
ones.
• Legge - descriptive behavioural research interest

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP Interview: Supplying Information

 cutting it short (horns/halo, premature judgement)

 equal opportunity to all candidates
 intimation of success/rejection (verbals and non-verbals)?
 beware misunderstandings over contractual terms. No promises.
 Communicating a decision
 hints to attractive candidates (in a competitive situation)
 intra-organisational bargaining
 the decision in writing
 subject to references
 giving career advice to rejected candidates?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP Interview: Parting

 Signal closure - NVC plus statement

 requires as much skill as opening the interview
 clarify future steps - the remaining interview schedule
 verify
 dates - holidays and availabilities
 phone, post
 stand up, move, exchange parting courtesies

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

“Utilised properly; depending on its exact purpose, the

interview emerges as a valid reliable tool in candidate
assessment. Moreover its flexibility to act as a medium for
mutual preview or as a final stage forum for negotiation
between the parties, renders the interview more useful in
selection than narrowly focused definitions of validity and
reliability can convey”

Anderson and Shackleton, Successful Selection Interviewing,

Blackwell, 1993 pp 69

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

GASP Interview Issues

 premature decision
 Tentative, pre-determined views seldom altered at interview
 accept/reject within 3-4 min. Gather evidence to confirm first
impression
 Weak candidates make average candidates look good
 Unstructured interviews vs impression management and random
selection
 propositions
 interview practice does not improve performance
 training does
 dramatic performance may not reflect job. Interviewee actors.
 panel interviews - defer to most influential member. Poor
correlation of views when choice is confidential
 psychometric tests - weak evidence but belief and practice strong.
 psychometric-objective model vs. social process?
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Stereotyping

 What is it? What form does it take?

 How and why does it occur?
 Common stereotypes
 Positive and negative value?
 Problems of signs, signifiers, interpretation.
 Body language.
 Presentation of self - "Front" - stage and audience
 What dangers for fairness and equity?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Assessment Centre Methods

 Group work:
 Problem-solving in team situations, interpersonal skills, listening, thinking
on feet, influencing and coordinating. Realistic/unrealistic scenarios.
Organising/prioritising. Emotional resilience.
 Competence of observer-testers
 Presentations:
 verbal/non-verbal skills, use of media, presentation content. Analysis -
differentiation of higher/lower order issues, ability to construct a case.
Influencing and argument. Awareness of wider issues and implications.
 Work Demo or Simulation - news reader, drivers, brick-layers, chair
meetings, computer programming, counselling, typing/shorthand,
 Portfolio • reliability
 Psycho-tests • validity
• utility
• acceptability
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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Assessment Centre Programmes

 Programme (battery) of different tests

 Systematic job analysis: performance criteria, skills & behaviours
 Select valid, reliable, cost effective exercises
 Validate the exercises on a sample of subjects
 Train tester-assessors to observe and rate
 Feedback to candidates
 Evaluate the techniques and process outcomes
External & internal candidates?
Psychometric-objective model vs social process

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Assessment Centres - identifying promotion potential

 Superior assessments?
 High degree of validity?
 Recognising formal & informal qualities - not all job-related -
required for organisational success
 Post-assessment centre judgments coloured by knowledge of
individual's performance in the assessment centre
 Assessment centres define and construct potential > discover it.

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Competitive advantage and core competencies

 Skill, capability, competence as "keys" to competitive advantage

 Job demands arising from performance oriented organisational
change, TQM & IT initiatives
 Emphasis on managerial competences for performance
 Boyatzis (1982), Bethell-Fox (1992), MCI (1990)
 Communication, leadership, group and decision skills, project
management, entrepreneurship
 Outward-looking, market-focused, team-oriented
 Psychometric assessment techniques e.g. tests of cognitive
ability to identify potential

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Intelligence and Aptitude Testing

 verbal fluency & comprehension

 logical & numerical What is IQ?
 spatial & mechanical Tests for
 memory  clerical, apprentice & general staff
selection
GMAT
GMAT  health, fitness, mental agility
GraduateManagement
Graduate Management  verbal & numerical problems
AdmissionsTest
Admissions Test  IT skills
 honesty, neurosis, tolerance, ethics?

What employability tests would you use for airline cabin crew?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Personality Tests

 Cattell 16 PF

Myers-Briggs
 suspiciousness
 warmth
 intelligence  imagination
 emotional stability  shrewdness
(Type Indicator)
 dominance  insecurity
 impulsiveness  radicalism
 conformity
 self-sufficiency  Introvert Extrovert
 boldness
  Intuitive Sensing

self-discipline TYPES
sensitivity
 tension  Feeling Thinking
 Perceptive Judging

•• Testing
Testing industry
industry -- sales
sales ++ training
training the
the testers
testers
•• Administration?
Administration? interpretation?
interpretation?
•• Supplementary
Supplementary information
information for for decision-making?
decision-making?
•• Predictive
Predictive value?
value?

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

The Decision and Follow-up

 Job criteria & information on candidates

 Reaching a consensus, taking a risk?
 Zombie theory of recruitment
 Letters of
 hold
 rejection
 the offer (risks and uncertainties)
 Contract finalisation & documentation
 Commencement & induction plan
 Organisational communications & reassurances

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Evaluation of the Recruitment Process

 costs/methods/effort involved by stage

 DROP-OUT: inquirers applications  seen candidates
 “quality” of short-list per post
 service indicators & client satisfaction/dissatisfaction
 in-house process vs. out-sourcing and agencies
 quality of Equal Opps provision
 job criteria vs. criteria used in action (actor behaviour)
 added PR value - image projected
 SURVIVAL: number retained after 6 months
 recommendations for improvement
Evaluate reliability, validity and utility of methods used
Psychometric-objective model versus social process

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 HRM: Recruitment and Selection

Evaluation of Selection Process

 candidate feedback on selection methods & experience

 observation and incident analysis e.g. re-equal opportunities
 selector “self-evaluation”?
 relevance, reliability, validity and utility of selection methods/tests
 recommendations for improvement

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