Recruitment & Selection

What we understand by that? Recruitment is a positive action, which results in receiving lots of application. But we are
concerned and paid for selecting the right candidate from the whole bunch of applications that we receive. But when we
talk about hiring or filling a position, we don’t refer to has selection process, rather it is referred to as recruitment process.
For the very reason, that selection is the end result of recruitment. If we follow the process of recruitment thoroughly, then
we are sure to achieve the end result of “selecting the right candidate” at the right time and at the right cost.

As I have been into recruitment for 7 years now, would like to share my knowledge and experience around it.

After completing my MBA (in HR), I tried hard enough to find a job in core HRM, but I was only getting called for
recruitment jobs. I had no choice other than to take up the role of recruiter with Artech Information Systems (formerly
known as Softek India Pvt. Ltd).

I am ashamed of my ignorance for failing to understand the fact that the recruitment is the very first step in HRM. But now
I realize and I am thankful to God, to have made the right decision. As such, recruitment is the heart of HRM. Because if
you don’t have anyone to fill the positions in your organization, for whom are you going to devise the policies, or train or
manage compensation for?

And with recruitment, I got an opportunity to learn to interact with people with business sense, right from the candidates,
hiring managers, technical managers, agencies, colleges and my own managers. This way it helped me to build up the
foremost quality of HRM professionals of interpersonal and negotiating skills. And I am sure each one of you would agree
that, though we may or may not be much familiar with concepts of HRM, if we can negotiate terms and have good
interpersonal skills, we can get away with majority of issues. Also, just being a chatter box doesn’t necessarily equip with
good people skills. This can only learned by meeting & interacting with as many people as possible.

Also, during the recruitment process, we get the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the company & its business,
policies & procedures, compensation & benefits and other inside information. This is also possible if we were with any
other functions of HRM or any job for that matter.
But, day in day out we won’t be giving a brief on those to people outside and answer their questions. Also, this is how we
would learn the sales part of the job by selling our company and the job, by just giving the right USP for the job/position or
the company. It is very difficult to shift your line from any other functions of HRM to recruitment, whereas the vice a versa
is not true.

Before we can proceed further, we need to identify the position and design a job description.

Job Description

The primary function of recruitment is to design & develop job description. This is a very tricky job and requires complete
understanding of the vacant position or job. Before start working on creating a job description, be sure to have detailed
discussion with the manager / supervisor who has created the job/position. Ideally the job description should:

– Be clear & concise. 

– Be in non-discriminatory language.
– Describe only the duties, skills and knowledge required of the position, and avoid describing personal traits.
– Be accurate about the duties and responsibilities of the position – don’t understate or overstate them.
– Describe the position as it exists today – not how it was in the past, or how it will be in the future.
– Avoid technical terms, acronyms or abbreviations.  If you must use acronyms or abbreviations, use the full term
the first time followed by the acronym or abbreviation in brackets.  

The skills, knowledge and attributes that you require in the job description should be directly related to the duties and
responsibilities performed in the “Responsibilities” section of the job description.

Education, certification, specific training or experience should not be stated as requirements of the position, unless you can
demonstrate that they are essential to the duties and responsibilities of the position, or unless they are required by law or a
relevant licensing body. (This I learnt by being in Canada. They treat people to be capable of learning and being trained for
performing jobs irrespective of their educational background).

Write one clear statement for each major duty.  For some statements, you may need to elaborate with supporting
information.
Structure of Job Description

1. Job Title / Position Title

2. Job summary
3. Reporting structure
4. Department
5. Job Location
6. Responsibilities
7. Educational qualifications & Experience required
8. Knowledge & Skills required
9. Working conditions
10. Other specific details (if any) / Company values (can be used a USP for the position)

Job Posting

Always post jobs with an option to be sent to friends and for critical positions display it on the office notice boards or of
course at the company intranet site. Employee feel good when they are provided with an opportunity to refer someone, but
also ensure that none of the employees get emotional on forcing you to take somebody for the position without the required
qualification and skills.

Sourcing

Traditionally, we follow the same sources to find the resume for standard type of jobs, which do not ask for rare skills. That
is, we look for resume in internal database or external database being job portal. And with my experience, I have always
found the best resume for common & regular skills from the obvious source that from any other source.

But yes, of course for niche skills I have had my own share of nightmares by not being able to get even a single resume in
months’ time. But I learned to source resumes from unconventional sources. Definitely placement agencies come to your
rescue most of the times, but when there are too many constraints with a particular position or job, it’s you who have to do
the entire job. No one except you will be able to find a matching resume.

You will be able to find good resume only when you start thinking out of box. Below are some of the examples / source
from where I have got good responses

– College alumni sites. Yes you can post you job ads there as well. Usually the administrators of such site would
ask for authenticity of your company and intention of posting a job. Also, they may provide you with a format
for posting.
– Forums. These days there are ample of forums for different professions. Try to know about these forums and
post in 3-4 forums, where you expect to get response.
– Closely read all the leading newspapers’ opportunity column. With that you can know & learn about various
companies which work in the similar technology that your company or client company works on. With this you
can find candidates out of your industry as well. Also, you can try you luck in cold calling and head hunting
– Map the industry in which you are working through using an open keyword searches for various technologies in
various job portals. This will get you the result of all those company which would be working on the same set of
technologies.
– Apart from standard professional colleges, find out about the various technical institutes which impart
education in similar technologies that your or your client company works on.
– Also, these days lot of conferences & seminars are organized by various associations. Work towards attending
those conferences & seminars, where you can meet people from different walks of life. Also, don’t shy away
from attending technical conferences, thinking you are HRM professional. As per my suggestion, only in
technical conferences you can meet the potential candidates.

Above are the few ways & means, which I utilized during my tenure. I am sure there might lot of other sources, from which
you can source candidates or get close to potential candidates.

All these efforts that you will make will not only take you closer to filling a position and achieving your targets, but also
widen your knowledge and horizon.
Resume Reading

Ok, now lets move on to reading resumes, which is one of the most important skills required by the recruiters. First and
foremost step before starting with reading resumes, is to read & understand the job description properly.

I see many recruiters sending me mails for Java, Mainframe, and Siebel kind of jobs.

This is purely because these recruiters fail to read the resumes properly and send mails to candidates by just doing the
keyword search on the resumes. The main problem with that is, you might just be hitting the wrong population and you
may not even realize that you are not properly focussed. And this would lead to lots of misses before you could get a decent
set of profiles to proceed further.

I can very well understand that we need to cope up with the time and deadlines, but that should not stop us from doing our
job right.

Reading resumes for sure enhances the skill - ‘attention to detail’ and everyone would agree that it is very important for any
kind of job on the earth. And this also saves a lot of time & effort for the next set of steps in the recruitment process. Of
course this will as well help in jotting down various questions for preliminary interviews or for telephonic interest checking
with the candidates.

Here is a classical example of a junior level Software Engineer resume bit.

Responsibilities:
– Coding & Development.
– Unit testing.

Technology/Platform /Software: Java, C++, C, UNIX, Oracle and XML.

I am very sure; each one of us who are into IT recruitment would have come across similar kind of resumes with above
responsibilities. Tell me, how would you be able decide on which programming language the person would actually be
coding on, until & unless you read the resume properly and ask the right question to him / her. And if you do just the
keyword search and pick up the wrong person, just know at the end that he/she is not working in Java but in C++, which
is not what you are looking for.

This is at very basic level, but yes, we all do this mistake or would have done during our initial days of recruitment or rather
to put it positively, this is how we start to learn the art of ‘scrutinizing’ the resume.

Talking to Candidates – Essence of recruitment

I have learnt the harder way to make notes well in advance on what to discuss with the candidates before calling them. This
helps in saving time, talking right to the point and getting all the relevant responses from the candidate. Also, just don’t
blindly follow any of the checklist forms if you or your company has devised. Make a sense out of it before using it. Also,
try to attach the info collected with the hardcopy of resume and as well enter your comments on to any of the recruitment
application system that you use, this will help in future references.

This practice, especially for recruitment consultancy companies proves very handy, when more than one consultant needs
to touch base with the candidates for their various clients.

But there should always be a set of guidelines in considering a candidate for more than one position. As far as possible
don’t send single candidate’s resume to more than one client at a time. I am sure, that will never happen with anybody, but
definitely do regular follow up with the client, so that after a decent wait, the same candidate can be considered for another
client or another position.

And whenever you talk with candidates, be it preliminary, or interest checking or face to face interview, please give enough
time for them to ask questions, this will help you to be more clear about the job and opportunities and fill in all those gaps
which may exist without your knowledge in the job description provided to you.

You don’t necessarily have to answer all the questions right a way. But this will definitely help in working on your listening
& analyzing skill. 
Quick example

Quality Analyst: From my experience I have understood that, apart from Software Quality role, any other junior level
Quality positions primarily involve documentation than anything technical. Though till date I have handled only 5-10
general Quality positions; I have always come across that, in neither of the job descriptions, it said it will involve 60% of
documentation. But that’s the fact. A Quality person is required to do that, but not many may be interested for the same.
So please make sure about this with the manager and try to convey the same to the candidates. As such, the
responsibilities of planning & identifying the quality system and implementing & reengineering the systems; these are
responsibilities of Analysts at higher level of Quality positions, which many of us may not realize until & unless we
actually make an effort to discuss with the managers to understand the job better.

Most importantly, if you are serious about hiring a person, be positive and serious about it especially when you meet them
face to face. I have met so many HRM professionals, without the right attitude during the initial interviews; I have come
across quite a few of them who don’t even have the courtesy to smile. Keep smiling, it is for sure contagious and spreads
fast.

Scheduling

After discussing about the position, we move forward with scheduling for interview. Inform the candidates about the
appropriate date and time of interview and how much time will the interview take, and what would be the subsequent steps
in recruitment process. Inform well in advance to everyone who is required and responsible for the interview.

Make a list of candidates called for the interview and distribute to the following persons:

 To yourself - please carry one copy with you all the time during the day of interview(s) with the contact numbers of
candidates.
 Front desk personnel
 Technical People (Manager/Leader)
 Equip your colleague with one – in case if you are moving around and if anyone wants any information on this,
he/she can always help. This may sound as if you are giving your work to someone else. NO, it would just help in
building team spirit and will help to work towards being process oriented than people oriented. I am sure even you
would also be ready to do the same for your colleagues.

Please ensure that the candidate is not made to wait for hours before the interview happens. Stick to time and ensure that
even technical people also follow the time.

If candidates are made to wait regularly, try to find out who is lacking on managing their time, and try to put it across to the
person and ensure it does not happen again. Filling a position is a two way process, if we are evaluating candidates, even
they are doing in turn and with the kind of competitive market that exist in today’s scenario, we should not lose out on good
candidates because of these trivial issues.
Some may argue that those make a fuss about waiting may not have enough patience, but I would put it this way that the
company does not have system & process, even if it does, nobody follows it.

A quick incident:

We used to have a manager, who would be well informed, but right at the time of interview, he would go to cafeteria for
his coffee & favourite pan parag. At least for such managers, don’t bring in a policy of no food or beverages at your desk.


Even if you are part of a big / reputed company, does not give an excuse to make candidates wait, thinking that they might
be desperate to join you. A big NO, they are not. This is the age of employees and not of management. When it comes to
joining a company, candidates are very mindful these days. Any above average candidate would want to be a part of
company, which has best policies & practices than just a big name in the market.

Interviewing
This is another crucial & critical aspect/function of recruitment. Asking the right questions and making apt judgements
based on candidates’ responses can only be learned slowly & gradually. Don’t expect to be an expert right on the first
interview of your career.
Basic steps for conducting Interview:

 Give a brief about the position / job and reporting structure.

 Explain the structure of interview.
 For sure, follow a checklist.
 Follow a pattern of questions both technical & behavioural.
 Make notes & try to gather as much as information possible with respect to the details given in the resume.
 Be very composed; don’t try to react to the responses of the candidate during the interview. Though it is very
difficult to develop yet essential quality.
 Please don’t judge on the looks of the candidate. (Both ways).
 Presentability in candidate is definitely a required quality for selecting a candidate but try to evaluate it with his/her
technical & other skills. If he/she stands out in knowledge & skills, try to accommodate the candidate.
 Don’t get carried away by candidates, who have excellent communication skills, they may only be good at that.
 Also, if time permits, be a part of all the technical interviews.

Follow up

Follow up diligently with the technical people / supervisors for the feedback on the candidate. Ensure to get written
comments on the candidate and attach the same with the resume.

If it is a final interview and the candidate is selected, please don’t wait until you or the responsible person drafts an offer
letter. Brief the candidate informally about the feedback and subsequent offer. Try to get the nerve of the candidate to
better understand how keen he/she is to join your company.

And in case if the candidate is to be called for the next level of interview; try to schedule subsequent levels of interview with
as little gap of days as possible. Candidates lose out interest pretty fast because of the various other opportunities available
these days.

I know and very well understand that for most of the technical positions, we are required to be behind technical
managers / supervisors to get a go ahead. But learn the tactic of pressurizing them in a smart HRM way.

Few examples:

 Candidate is very keenly looking for a change and may accept another offer.
 He/she is one of the few candidates with particular skill set that we are looking for.
 Candidate is fitting right on the bill /salary front.
 And all other reasons that you can genuinely present.

And of course very important part of follow up is the regret communication through email to all the candidates who were at
least called for final interviews. This will for sure give a professional impression about the company.

Salary Negotiations

Salary negotiation is most critical & crucial aspect of the entire hiring process. Though with my experience I have become
much comfortable with talking salary with candidates, but I never enjoy doing this part of recruitment. It is for sure
requires great attitude of diplomacy. This has to be learnt with all your diligence, as this is a most important for both the
candidate and the company. 

Primarily, salary negotiations will depend on the following aspects:

– the level of the job within your organization,

– the scarcity of the skills and experience needed for the job in the job market,
– the career progress and experience of the individual selected,
– the fair market value for the job you are filling
– the salary range for the job within your organization
– the salary range for the job within your geographic area,
– the existing economic conditions within your job market,
– the existing economic conditions within your industry, and
– Company-specific factors that might affect the given salary such as comparative jobs, your culture, your pay
philosophy, and your promotion practices.
Bottom line - How badly do you want and need the candidate? If you are too very keen, your negotiation strategy will
quickly turn into a capitulation. And, capitulation, paying more than company can afford, paying disproportionately to the
pay ranges of your current employees, and paying a new employee salary and benefits outside of your comfort zone is bad
for the company and bad for the candidate.

An Experience:

In one of the companies that I worked for previously, we hired a Technical Head by over stretching the salary limits and
extending too many benefits, only to realize at the end that he was not worth even half of what we actually offered to him
and team headed by team was in major chaos and trouble. 

Hints and tips to ensure successful salary negotiations:

 Negotiation, especially on salary is not about winning – unless both parties win. If either party feels they have
capitulated, not negotiated, both parties lose.
 Make every effort to identify the most recent salary and benefits received by candidates. Ask for salary on the job
applications and in the job postings and ads. You can also ask former employers during reference checking. You may
not be able to match the salary but you will have a good idea of what the candidate will seek during salary negotiations.
 If your initial offer is not negotiable, or barely negotiable, try to indicate that to the candidate when you make the
offer.
 Know your salary negotiation limits. Base your limits on your internal salary ranges, the salary paid employees in
similar positions, the economic climate and job searching market, and the profitability of your company.
 Recognize that, if your salary is not negotiable, and even if it is, superior candidates will negotiate with you in other
areas that may be negotiable. These include benefits, tuition assistance, a signing bonus, stock options, variable bonus
pay, commissions, car allowance, paid cell phone, and relocation expenses. In fact, candidates with rare & niche skills
will negotiate in all of these areas and more.
 When presenting an offer, be sure to highlight the reasons someone would want to work at your firm. Prospective
employees are interested not only in their career development, but also in staff recognition and bonus programs,
advancement possibilities and unique aspects of the office culture.
 To persuade your prospective employee say yes, your ideas will have to address those things that are important to
the candidate. Just like you, your prospective employee also has needs and concerns.
 Even if you are convinced of the candidate’s potential positive impact within your organization, be watchful about
the salary limits. You will regret violating your limits; even if you have to start your recruitment over, you will definitely
save yourself from years of headaches and prohibitive costs

Negotiating salary should be positive process in hiring process rather than a negative process. Also, it is a discussion and
not just a process of informing the candidates about terms & conditions of the job offer and giving the feel that if you like
take or the doors are open.

Offer & Follow up

Give out the Offer letter within 10 days of final interview and not later than that though even 10 days is also the stretched
upper limit. And try as much as possible to give an offer letter to the candidates in person rather than through email (at
least for local candidates). This will help us in finding the candidates’ willingness to join the company. Also, be open for
any discussion regarding the offer you made to the candidate. And welcome their queries regarding take home salary,
benefits, leave policy, incentive, etc.
And always present an offer letter with a closing date of not more than a week. If a candidate is not able to make a decision
in good 5 business days, then he/she may not be worth the offer. After two days call the candidate to find the decision and
get a joining date. And by the end of the week make sure you have the final decision on joining and date of joining.
Try not to over stretch to accommodate any candidate and also at the same time look for all possible genuine options to hire
the right candidate.

An experience
We hired a Software Engineer for Embedded quality position. He had a good experience with one of the major leaders in
the industry. That was a very critical position for us with strict deadlines to fill, so we were forced to stretch ourselves in
terms of salary and joining date. As such he joined us after one and half month, but quit (rather got vanished) within 3
months. That was definitely a major blow for us, because he was rated very well technically & otherwise.

And one suggestion here, when candidates ask for more than 4 weeks to join, start finding a backup, this way we can surely
save a lot of time, effort & of course avoid frustration, if the selected candidate rejects the offer after 4 weeks.
Joining

For sure we would be happy that candidates recruited by us are joining our company, but don’t let your attitude become
taken for granted. Be as formal as possible with the candidates on first day of their employment. Make sure you have
organized for all necessary resources to begin work, even if he/she is going to be on training for a while.
Generally with smaller & mid-sized companies, work stations and other resources for new joiners are not organized right on
the first day.

Of course there would be a lot of formalities and constraint to it, but as an HRM professional work with concerned people
and bring in a culture where you can provide all the resources to the new joiner on the very first day. This in turn will
speak a lot about the well set process within the organization and definitely creates an everlasting first impression.

Also, I myself have experienced that, how much ever you try one or two necessary joining forms gets delayed to be
completed because of missing info either from us or from the candidates. Make sure that you get all the required official &
statutory information filled within 15 days to one month time from the joining date. Use your follow up skill to utmost
efficiency in here. 

Induction & Orientation

Wow! We have come a long way. Now we have somebody on board for getting involved into other areas of HRM. But
before that, we surely need to induct & orient the new employees.
In case of big organizations, once an employee joins the company, the role of recruiter ends there. But with smaller / mid-
sized organizations the role of recruiters overlaps into general HRM professional as well and they are also required to be
apart of induction & orientation.

Whatever the case may be, it is recruiters’ responsibility to provide accurate information to the concerned HRM people on
Total number of new joiners;
Their names;
Their joining date;
Department &;
Contact information;

Take a full pride when you conduct the induction & orientation program. Your energy & spirit will automatically be taken
into the air. Make it a good & memorable occasion for new joiners. Carry on the impression created during the recruitment
process.

Each company must be having their own style of conducting these programs. But during this hour of initial introduction,
try to keep it simple and don’t get into too many details about functioning of each department. Make it informative than
like a classroom lectures. If possible provide an employee kit which can include:
1. Company profile
2. Employee handbook (HR policies); briefing about code of conduct, business ethics, leave policies, holiday list for the
year, etc.
3. Identity card
4. Pens with company logo or a small gift
5. Important contact details.
After all this narrate about recruitment, there is definitely a necessity to mention about Strategic Talent Acquisition.

As Personnel Management has evolved into Strategic Human Resource Management, similarly recruitment is and has evolved
into Strategic Talent Acquisition.

Recruitment is nothing more than filling open positions. It is an entirely tactical event.

Strategic Talent Acquisition takes a long-term view of not only filling positions today, but also using the candidates that come out
of a recruiting campaign as a means to fill similar positions in the future.

These future positions may be identifiable today by looking at the succession management plan, or by analyzing the history of
attrition for certain positions. This makes it easy to predict that specific openings will occur at a pre-determined period in time.
Through strategic talent acquisition, there is an effort to build & develop the organization rather than just filling a position with
focussing on short term goals of completing a project.

The candidate has an opportunity to explain his/her future career aspirations, and the recruiter can gather enough information to
determine if there is a potential fit in the organization at a given point of time. If during a strategic recruiting call, the candidate
declares that they are both qualified and interested, then the tactical nature of the call has been automatically fulfilled. If,
however, the candidate lacks sufficient experience, or the timing for a career move is not propitious, then they become candidates
for the future, and all the recruiter has to do is keep in touch until either they become available, or a position with the client
organization opens up.

Most of the money spent on Strategic Talent Acquisition would have been spent in a tactical recruiting mandate anyway. The only
additional cost is in collecting data on high-potential candidates and then keeping in touch with them until hire is made. The
additional cost becomes insignificant compared to the value of hiring top competitive talent over time.

Strategic Talent Acquisition allows us access to a pool of competitive talent that would otherwise have been missed or even worse,
ignored.
Clearly the business case for acquiring talent strategically is far more compelling than simply paying to fill positions today. What
we are doing is adding a small incremental effort, in exchange for a huge potential reward.
It just means that people are vital and most integral part for the development of the organization.
Also, as they are Talent which has been acquired, so they will be valued and will be well taken care by the organization.

- Source Sujeet S Rajawat, Asst. Manager HR, Vijay Solvex Limited, Alwar - Rajasthan

Though it may take a long time for our industry to realize the significance of Human Resources Management professional in
decision making at the top management level, but to manage day to day activities of entire organization is definitely in our hands.
Also, according to me, it is our responsibility to make employees strictly follow the systems & processes. We should try to move to
a more process oriented organization from people oriented. Definitely people make the organization, but if an employee quits,
the transition should be very smooth. This can happen only when we make a sincere effort to put the process in place. As it has
been time on discussed in this forum that we HR people when frustrated from a job or company should not opt for quit, however
should try our level best to motivate ourselves and together with the team work towards the better organization.