MGMT20004

Topic 2 –
Recruitment
and Selection
 Lecture 1 - Recruitment
Objectives of recruitment
Recruitment as a two-way process
Choices:
Where to recruit?
Agenda How to recruit?
Recruitment challenges:
Realistic Job Previews
Ethics and diversity in recruitment

Lecture 2 - Selection
Recruitment: Seeking and attracting a pool of Selection: The process of choosing the best
qualified applicants from which candidates for qualified candidate/s from a group of
job vacancies can be selected. applicants.

Recruitment and Selection

Strategic recruitment

Linking recruiting activities to the organisation’s

strategic business objectives and culture.

Employer branding:
Promoting an image of the company as a good employer, to
create a favourable impression with potential applicants.
Strategic
recruitment
 Potential
Employer
Candidate
Recruitment as
a two-way
process
Effective recruitment:
• enables employers and potential candidates to
find out each other
• attracts a pool of suitably qualified candidates
• facilitates potential candidate self-selection
 Determining
Determining and categorising the organisation’s long-range and short-
and
range HR needs.
categorising

Being aware Being aware of changes in the labour market.

Recruitment Developing Developing appropriate recruitment advertisements and literature and

involves select method/s to be used.

Recording the number and quality of applicants from each recruiting

Recording source.

Following Following-up on applicants and evaluate.

Where to
recruit?
Internally or
externally
 • Databases – current employees
– Skills inventories
– Succession planning
– Performance appraisal data
How to recruit
• Job posting:
(internally)?
– Bulletin boards/intranet
– Newsletters
– Word of mouth
– Personally approach
How to recruit
(externally)?
 Open strategy:
widely advertised,
internet or other social
media

Targeted strategy: Key

Attraction skill shortages
Passive job seekers
Strategies Former employees
Referrals or networks
Outplacement firms
Employer associations
Social Media such as
LinkedIn, Instagram
(Heneman et al., 2012, also see DuBrin
2014)
 Advertising:
communicate message about
company image

Recruitment ‘low-involvement’ advertisements

over long period of time create
and Attraction awareness of organization rather
than generate recruits

recruitment advertising is now

more like product marketing
External advertising

• AIDA technique:
– Attention (eye-catching, descriptive title)
– Interest (some of the critical points of interest: job detail,
reporting relationships, qualifications)
– Desire (offering incentives; apart from salary, appeal will be
emotive)
– Action (call for action – ask/invite communication).
 Fit
Recruitment Attraction–Selection–Attrition framework Schneider
and Attraction (1987): ‘if they don’t fit, they leave’

Person–Environment (P-E) fit

Person–Organization (P–O) fit
Person–Job (P-J) fit
Person-Team (P-T) fit
 E-Recruitment
Recruitment and
Attraction
usability of company’s
website and content
features affect applicant’s
perception of job
Types:
‘smart phone’ apps
commercial job boards
Social networking sites
Benefits of online
applications:
• save costs and allow faster
response and turnaround
• build database and maintain
contact with potential
candidates
• tools for filtering applicants
and starting selection
process
Realistic Job Previews
Ethics and diversity in recruitment
 A method of conveying job
information to an applicant in an
unbiased manner, including both
positive and negative factors

Realistic Job Informs applicant about all details

Previews of job so that they can obtain an
accurate understanding of the job

Should also convey information

about the wider culture
 Potential positive impacts Potential negative impacts

Employee
perception of
Realistic Job employer honesty Tension with promoting
Previews Ability to cope with
stress
‘positive image’ of employer
(employer branding)
(tensions) Self selection
Formation of Discourages qualified
psychological candidates from applying
contract
Retention
Job satisfaction
See Eliis, Troncoso Skidmore and
Combs 2017 on Readings Online under
week 2
 Recruiting is now one of the most important HR
applications of social networking sites such as
Facebook and Google+ (social) and LinkedIn
(professional).

Ethics and The HR manager can glean considerable career-related

information about both passive and active job seekers,
diversity in undertake detailed searches and track desired
recruiting candidates.
The use of social networking sites in recruitment has
raised a number of ethical, privacy issues and potential
for greater discrimination.
Diversity and
discrimination
in recruiting
 Women
Older workers
Migrants Would someone from
any of these ‘target
People with
Diversity groups’ tend to be
disabilities
excluded/discouraged
’target groups’ LGBTIQ+ by the recruitment
Indigenous people process (when
otherwise qualified)?
People with
caregiving
responsibilities
 Does the ‘ideal worker’ reflect the diversity of
the population?

Revisit Is it gendered, raced, sexed, classed, aged etc?

assumptions of
the ‘ideal Be careful about assessing ‘fit’ (organization or
worker’ job)

Does the organization need to change to

become more inclusive?
 REVISIT LANGUAGE AND REVISIT JOB CRITERIA AND HOW
IMAGES USED IN RECRUITMENT THEY ARE FRAMED

Potential actions
Selection
 Recruitment: Seeking and attracting a pool
of qualified applicants from which
candidates for job vacancies can be selected.

Recruitment
and Selection
Selection: The process of choosing the best
qualified candidate/s from a group of
applicants.
What do employers
want?
Can do
Will do
Fit

Performance = ability x motivation x

opportunity

REALITY CHECK: impossible to perfectly

predict how a new hire will perform in a
job role (Highhouse 2008 in Miles and Sadler-Smith 2014)
 Compensatory
Two – Considering all the selection data
(favourable and unfavourable) before a
approaches to selection decision is made.
the selection
Hurdles
decision
– Involves the screening out of candidates at
each stage of the selection process.
Two
approaches to
the selection
decision
Selection is a Organizations should be attuned to applicant reactions to hiring
processes (perceptions of fairness and just treatment, see
two-way Truxillo, Bauer and Garcia 2017)
process
between Invasive selection: diminishes attraction of organization
applicants and Candidates’ negative experience: dissuades others.
employers Negative selection experience can impact on job acceptance.
Selection methods are covered by legislation and regulations
relating to discrimination.
Mistreatment: puts off future applications and stops
applicants using products or services.
 Resumes
Structured Application
Biographical data
Selection interview
Assessment centres
Selection Ability tests, eg. cognitive ability, other specific ability tests
devices Job knowledge tests
Personality tests
Physical tests
Simulation tests
Structured reference checks
(Gatewood, Field & Barrick 2011)
 Predictive www.wisdomjobs.com
values
Selection criteria
& process
 Reliability and Validity
Selection Reliability: the extent to which a selection technique
achieves consistency in what it is measuring over
repeated use.

Validity: the extent to which a selection technique

actually measures what it sets out to measure.

Face validity – whether applicants judge selection

techniques to be related to the job.
Types of
psychological
testing
 Personality characteristics create parameters for people’s
behaviour; thus can provide a framework to
Personality assist in predicting behaviour:
Eg. improve hiring, transfer and promotion decisions.
testing in
selection
 Trivial validities
Some Correlations for any individual trait with job
criticisms of performance are typically low
Personality
Faking
Tests Individuals may answer in a dishonest way

Negative applicant reactions

Applicants, in general, believe personality tests
are less valid predictors of job performance
 Ability tests = Measures that assess an
individual’s capacity to function in a
certain way

15 to 20% of organizations use ability tests in

selection

Ability Tests – Two types

an overview oAptitude - Assess innate capacity to function
oAchievement - Assess learned capacity to
function

oValidity is particularly high for jobs of medium

and high complexity but also exists for simple
jobs
 Participants observed by assessors who use
Assessment measurement dimensions e.g. competencies.
Centres
Combination of methods including simulations of key
elements of work.

Information is brought together from all the methods,

usually under competency headings.

Participants can be assessed in groups.

 Case studies, shadowing, job sampling and videos allow applicants
to form more realistic expectations (Realistic Job Previews)
Pre-Employment
Lowering initial expectations can cause some applicants to de-select
Activities themselves, but also increase levels of organization commitment,
job satisfaction, performance and job survival.

See Ellis et al 2017 for research on RJPs in teacher hiring, satisfaction

and retention (don’t need to understand the method and analysis
section – just read pp. 449-456 and Discussion of result 464-467)
Research and
the
employment
interview
 Performing well in the selection process and during the interview = Job
Offers

A person who turns in a carefully crafted resume, job application and

presents with ease in an interview, is more likely to be hired than someone
who turns in poorly crafted communications and is ineffectual in an
interviews interview.
Non verbal skills, vocal characteristics and physical appearance have an
effect on interview outcomes.
Job applicants with higher interview anxiety received lower interview
evaluations
Interview training, increase job search self-efficacy, reduce anxiety
 When does interviewing work?
Includes structured behaviour-based questions that seek examples of the
key competencies required of the position
When it focuses on past behaviour (not theoretical knowledge)
Premise - past behaviour is the best predictor of future performance

Interviews Behavioural Question Example:

Meetings & presentations are an important part of a Manager's job.
Tell me about your most successful presentation to a management meeting.
What made it successful and what impact did it have?
 Know the job, personal characteristics, skills and qualifications
expected.
Set specific objectives.
Structure the interview around questions designed to elicit
information about whether and how the applicant meets the
criteria
How to Involve more than one person (Panel)
Provide the proper setting for the interview – put the applicant at
interview ease.
successfully Review the application form or resume.
Beware of prejudice.
Don’t make snap decisions – make notes for every answer;
compare systematically question by question between panel.

See Miles and Sadler-Smith 2014 for a study of managers’ use of

intuition in selection processes
 Encourage the applicant to do most of the talking, but the
interviewer must still keep control of the interview.
How to Explain the job.
Close the interview – be clear about what the next steps are and
interview when you expect to make a decision
successfully Write-up the interview properly – who is the preferred candidate
and why? Evidence from panel ratings against each question
Check references and evaluate the whole process.
 Types of Interview Questions:
(i) Behavioural questions
(assumption- past behaviour predicts future behaviour)
Can you tell me about a time when you managed conflict
successfully. What did it involve, how did you approach it
and what was the outcome?
Interviewing
(ii) Situational questions
. This job involves direct line management of staff. If you
were faced with a situation where two of your direct
reports were involved in conflict, what would you do to
resolve that conflict?
 Performance and retention
Direct and indirect costs of recruitment and
selection
Evaluating Bad hires – disruption and loss of morale,
Recruitment impact on quality of service, productivity,
and Selection organizational learning
The more senior the position, the greater the
impact
Potential reputational damage