Employee Selection: Recruiting

Employee Selection: Recruiting

• Recruitment is an important step toward selecting employees.
• Recruitment involves attracting people to apply for a job as per the qualifications that are determined in the job analysis.
• Scientific principles enhance the HR field and save money for organizations.

Modern HR Practices

• Modern HR practices involve using scientific principles in selection processes.
• These have been shown to save organizations money.

Recruitment Methods

• Traditional methods included newspaper and trade publication advertisements
• Newspaper ads were considered highly effective in 2002.
• By 2007, newspaper ads were rated as less effective for recruitment.
• Modern methods include internet job postings.

Types of Recruitment

• External recruitment involves hiring new employees from outside the organization.
• Internal recruitment consists of filling positions internally by promoting or transferring current employees.
• Organizations usually advertise jobs internally first before seeking external candidiates.

Internal Promotions

• Noncompetitive promotions are based on career progression, such as moving from Engineer I to Engineer II to Engineer III.
• Competitive promotions involve employees competing for higher positions against internal and external applicants.
• Internal promotions motivate employees, but exclusive internal hiring can be limiting.

Employee Selection Process

• Common steps include job analysis, selection of testing methods, test validation, recruitment, screening, testing, and selecting
• The final step is hiring or rejecting candidates.

Media Advertisements

• Job advertisements, both in newspapers and online, ask applicants to respond by calling, applying in person, or sending a resume directly to the organization/blind box.
• Respond-by-calling ads instruct applicants to call rather than apply in person or send resumes.
• Apply-in-person ads instruct applicants to apply in person.
• Send-resume ads instruct applicants to send their resume to the company.
• Blind box ads instruct applicants to send their resume to a box without providing the company's name or address.

Writing Recruitment Ads

• Include realistic information about the job to increase applicant attraction.
• Include detailed descriptions of the job to provide applicants with an idea of how well they would fit.
• Ads should state that an in-person interview will be used to select employees.
• Creative, high-energy ads are a trend in help-wanted ads.
• One example included On-Line Software, who tripled applicants using innovative ads
• For example, a Norwegian importer sought indifferent people who lacked service-mindedness.
• A national sales company sought semi-obnoxious, pushy sales professionals for a boring, repetitive job.
• Creative and imaginative techniques from product ads can increase recruitment success.

Electronic Media

• An effective use of television recruitment includes McDonald’s commercials.
• Television commercials present the chain to be an ideal workplace for retirees.
• This includes generating applicants in addition to acting as a public relations tool.
• Americans spend 3.7 hours/day watching TV.
• Americans spend 2.3 hours/day viewing television commercials.
• Currently, digital platforms are used to reach a wider pool of applicants quickly and efficiently.

Point-of-Purchase Methods

• The point-of-purchase method of recruitment is based on advertising principles used to market products to consumers.
• For example, POP is used to place certain items in grocery stores so that consumers buy more while in the store
• Job vacancy notices are placed where customers or employees are likely to see them

Advantages

• Inexpensive
• Targeted

Disadvantage

• Only a limited number of people are exposed to the sign.
• A space-saving way to attract people in stores is through floor displays.

Recruiters

• Campus recruiters find and hire recent graduates and students for companies.
• Recruiters visit college campuses to answer questions and interview students.
• Virtual job fairs are increasing to allow students and alumni to visit with recruiters from many organizations at one time.
• Applicants in virtual job fairs can talk or instantly message recruiters.
• Outside recruiters are people or agencies that help a company find qualified job candidates outside of its current workforce.
• More than 38% of organizations use outside recruiting sources.
• These include private employment agencies and executive search firms.

Employment Agencies

• Employment agencies specialize in finding jobs for applicants and finding applicants for organizations looking for employees.
• They usually charge a business or the applicant from 10% to 30% of the employee's first-year salary.
• Employment agencies are useful if the HR department has too much workload or lacks skills and experience.

Executive Search Firms

• Reputable executive search firms, known as “head hunters”, charge fees to organizations rather than to applicants.
• Executive search firms are about 30% of the applicant's first-year salary.
• Executive search firms specialize in placing applicants in positions that are higher-paying and not entry-level.
• These include engineers, executives, and computer programmers.

Public Employment Agencies

• Public employment agencies are employment services operated by a state or local government.
• Public employment agencies are designed to match job openings with applicants.
• Public employment agencies are primarily designed to help the unemployed, but offer career advisement and resume preparation too

Employee Referrals

• An organization's current employee refers a friend/family member for a specific job.
• About 78% of private organizations use employee referrals.
• These are the top source for newly hired employees.

Direct Mail

• Organizations send out mass mailing of information about job openings to potential applicants as a method of recruitment.
• With direct-mail recruitment, an employer obtains a mailing list and sends help-wanted letters/brochures to people through mail.
• It reaches audiences such as passive job seekers that many electronic methods may not.
• Direct-mail recruiting is beneficial for specialized skills

Internet Recruiting Forms

• Employer-based websites provide information about the company, job postings, and minimum requirements.
• Effective employer-based websites are credible, detailed, easy to navigate, and interactive.
• Employer-based websites include videos of employee testimonials.
• Job boards are websites that list job openings for hundreds or thousands of organizations and resumes for applicants.
• Social networking sites include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
• These are traditional employee referral programs and networking on steroids.
• A job marketplace is where both job seekers can find jobs and employers can post openings.
• Job marketplaces include websites where potential applicants, for each job opening, can read reviews of the organization, obtain salary information, and apply.

Job Fairs

• Job fairs are a recruitment method comprised of several employers at one location.
• Job fairs allow many candidiates to obtain information one at a time.

Special Recruit Populations

• Many organizations make special efforts to recruit underrepresented groups such as women and minorities.
• One of the efforts is to recruit at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
• Some companies create internships specifically for underrepresented groups which provide exposure and mentorship.
• Organizations showcase their commitment to diversity through hiring materials by using affirmative action statements.
• Diverse employee representation signals inclusivity.
• The use of minority recruiters can make applicants from underrepresented groups feel more welcomed and understood.
• Nontraditional populations include those not typically targeted in standard hiring processes.
• Local churches were used as recruitment sources.
• Borders partnered with AARP to recruit retirees.
• IBM, Google, Morgan Stanley, and Cisco Systems designed recruitment strategies that included LGBT inclusiveness.
• One example of this iclujded domestic partner benefits.
• About 70% of organizations reported success in hiring individuals transitioning from welfare to work.
• In 2011, the Ridge House and Safe Harbors in Reno held a job fair where 15 employers met with 500 ex-convicts.
• The Ridge House hires workers with intellectual disabilities as grocery baggers.
• In 2019 Jefferson County, Alabama sponsored a job fair for individuals in prison that was attended by 75 businesses.
• Efforts are underway to hire married couples as team drivers to solve the truck driver shortage.

Recruiting "Passive" Applicants

• This involves dealing with applicants who are actively seeking work (active job seekers).
• Finding candidates who are not actively searching involves finding an "passive" applicant.
• Recruiters try to identify hidden talent and convince them to apply.
• Recruiters build relationships with professional organizations such as SIOP for I/O psychologists, SHRM for HR professionals, and ACA for compensation professionals.
• When recruiting passive applicants, recruiters attend conferences, read newsletters/magazines, and scan association websites.
• Then they approach the best candidates about applying for a job.

Evaluating Recruitment Strategy Effectiveness

• A key factor is to determine which source is best to use.
• One way is the number of applicants each source yields.
• Another way is the cost per applicant (the number of applicants divided by the amount spent for each strategy)
• An additional method evaluates campaign success

Cost per Qualified Applicant

• The amount of money spent divided by people that subsequently apply is a key measure
• It provides insight into which recruitment provides insight into the best qualified people for work
• For example, if a recruitment campaign costs $1,000 and results in 50 applicants, but only 10 are qualified, the cost per applicant is $100
• Another method looks at the number of hired employees generated by each recruitment source.
• This ensures strategy helps attract top talent
• The final method evaluates recruitment source effectiveness is assessing the number of minorities and women that applied.

Second and Third Theories

• The second theory is the result of different recruitment sources reaching and being used by different types of applicants.
• The third states that employee referrals result in higher tenure than other recruitment strategies.
• Employee referrals often lead to longer employee tenure
• People tend to be attracted to those who are similar to themselves.
• A happy employee is likely to refer someone who would also be happy and stay longer in the job.
• However, when job performance was examined instead of tenure, no significant differences were found.

Realistic Job Previews (RJPs)

• Realistic job previews (RJPs) provide an applicant an honest assessment of a job
• RJPs communicate to the applicant that the company is willing to be honest.
• A variation is the expectation-lowering procedure (ELP).
• However, expectation-lowering procedures don't focus on a particular job, it lowers an applicant’s expectations for work in general.

Effective Employee Selection Techniques

• Effective employee selection shares three characteristics.
• The selection must be valid to accurately assess candidates and be job relevant.
• The selection has content validity, criterion validity, and construct validity.
• The selection must reduce the chance of a legal challenge to comply with employment laws and hiring practices.
• The selection must be cost-effective to provide value by identifying qualified candidates while minimizing unnecessary expenses.