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?

Chris Jarvis 2
 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?

Chris Jarvis 3
 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

Chris Jarvis 4
 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?

Chris Jarvis 5
 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

Chris Jarvis 6
 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

Chris Jarvis 7