4 Recruitment and Selection

Workforce planning

Process of deciding which positions in the firm to fill and how to fill them; goal is to identify and eliminate gaps between employer's workforce needs and current employees suitable to fill those needs; first step before recruiting.

Workforce Planning Methodology

1. Review client's business plan and workforce data - understand how projected changes influence headcount and skills 2. Forecast and identify what positions to be filled and who is promotable 3. Develop workforce strategic plan - prioritize gaps (what to fill, who can fill) and specific plans (recruitment for external, training for promotion).

Strategy and Workforce Planning

Employment plans are built on 3 forecasts: personnel needs (demand), supply of inside candidates, supply of outside candidates; gaps identified then training/recruitment plans developed.

Forecasting Personnel Needs (Labor Demand)

Company's future staffing needs reflect demand for its products/services; Short term demand: daily, weekly, seasonal sales trends; Long term demand: customers, industry publications, economic forecasts.

Trend Analysis

Study of firm's employment levels over past few years; compute employees at end of each year for past 5 years; rough estimate of future needs.

Ratio Analysis

Making forecasts based on historical ratio between causal factor (like sales) and number of employees required; assumes productivity same; ex: 1 salesperson = 50,000 Php sales, so 6 needed for 300,000 goal.

Scatter Plot

Shows graphically how two variables are related (e.g. hospital beds vs nurses); if related, points fall on straight line; forecasts need for additional employees.

Drawbacks of Ratio/Trend

Assumes firm's existing activities and skill needs will continue as is; does not account for changes; rewards managers for adding employees; institutionalizes existing ways.

Forecasting Supply of Inside Candidates

Determining which existing employees are qualified or trainable for projected openings.

Personnel Replacement Charts

Used for top positions; shows present performance and promotability for each position's potential replacement.

Position Replacement Card

Create card for each position showing possible replacements, present performance, promotion potential, training.

Markov Analysis

Forecasts availability of internal candidates; matrix showing probabilities that employees in feeder positions chain (junior engineer to engineer to senior) will move and be available to fill key position.

Forecasting Supply of Outside Candidates

Trying to see if finding suitable candidates outside will be easier; look at locale or industry unemployment rates.

Predictive Workforce Planning

Continuous planning of how projected employee shortfalls can be filled with current recruitment or retention plans.

Matching Projected Labor Supply and Demand with a Plan

Workforce plan should identify: positions to be filled, potential internal/external candidates or sources, training and promotions needed, resources required (recruiter fees, training costs, interview expenses).

Succession Planning

Systematically identifying, assessing, and developing organizational leadership to enhance performance; Steps: 1. define key positions (CEO) and high potentials 2. review current talent and create skills profiles 3. develop inside or bring in outside (internal training, cross-functional, job rotation, external training, global assignments).

Effective Recruiting / Employee recruiting

Finding and/or attracting applicants for employer's open positions; process of identifying, screening, shortlisting, and hiring; purpose: filling positions; selecting right person for right position at right time; POSITIVE process attracting as many candidates as possible.

Recruitment sourcing

Determining what recruitment options are (referrals, online ads) and assessing best for job; employers look at how many applicants each source generates.

Effectiveness metrics for sourcing

How many applicants were hired, how well hired performed, how many failed and had to be replaced, performance in terms of training, absenteeism, turnover.

Employer Branding

Affects recruiting success; focuses on what it's like to work at company; includes company values and work environment.

Recruiting Yield Pyramid

Used to gauge staffing issues to address; historical arithmetic relationships between: recruitment leads and invitees, invitees and interviews, interviews and offers made, offers made and offers accepted.

Internal Sources of Candidates

"Hiring from within" often best source; assumed to improve employee engagement; factors: size of organization, recruiting policy, image of organization (branding), image of job.

Advantages of Internal Sources

Strengths and weaknesses already known; current employees may be more committed; morale and engagement rise when promotions seen as rewards; require less orientation and training.

Disadvantages of Internal Sources

Inbreeding - managers employing clones of current effective workforce; rejected internal candidates may be discontented.

When to Promote From Within

If company is thriving, effective succession planning, have skills needed within existing employee pool.

Job Posting

Publicizing open job to company's employees via intranets or bulletin boards; lists attributes like qualifications, supervisor, work schedule, pay rate.

Qualifications Skills Inventories

Reveal which employees have right background for open job.

Promotions (Internal Recruitment)

Advancement by evaluating job performance; increase in pay and benefits; shifting employee from lower to higher position with more responsibilities.

Transfers (Internal Recruitment)

Process of interchanging from one job to another without change in designation and responsibilities; shifting department to department, location to location.

Recruitment of Former Employees

Ex-employees called back depending on requirement; cost-effective and saves time; well aware of organization, job, personnel.

Internal Advertisements or Job Postings

Posting and advertising jobs within organization; open invitation to all employees within organization.

Employee Referrals

Hiring through references of current employees; present employees can refer friends and relatives.

Previous Applicants

Hiring team examines profiles of previous applicants from recruitment database; easily contacted and positive in response.

Outside Sources of Candidates - Factors to Consider

Demographic factors, labour market, unemployment rate, labour laws, legal considerations, competitors.

Direct Recruitment

Recruitment by putting notice regarding job vacancy on notice board of organization; also called factory gate recruitment; used to recruit blue collar and technical workers.

Informal Recruiting

Recruitment through serendipitously encountering the right candidates.

Recruiting via Internet

Employers post ads on websites and job boards (Indeed); Virtual job fairs (5 hours) where visitors listen, visit booths, leave resumes, live chats.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

Online systems that help attract, gather, screen, compile, and manage applicants; provides requisitions management for monitoring open jobs, applicant data collection, reporting (cost per hire, hire by source).

Advertising

Most prevalent external source; best way to source candidates in short span; efficient way of screening specific requirements.

Medium (Advertising)

Best medium depends on positions being recruited.

Constructing the Ad - AIDA

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Employment Exchanges

Government entity where details of job seekers deposited and given to employers; for hiring unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled.

Employment Agencies - Types

Public agencies: operated by federal/state/local gov (DOLE in PH); Non-profit: associated with non-profits; Private: important sources of clerical, white-collar, managerial personnel; charge placement fee.

When to Use Employment Agency

If firm does not have own HR dept, need to fill quickly, need to attract more minority/female applicants, reach currently employed applicants who feel more comfortable dealing with agencies, reduce time devoted to recruiting.

Recruitment Process Outsourcers (RPO)

Special vendors that handle all or most of employer's recruiting needs; sign short-term contracts and receive monthly fee varying with amount of recruiting needed.

On-Demand Recruiting Services

Recruiters paid by hour or project; charged by time rather than per hire.

Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs

Outsourcing: having outside vendors locally supply services previously done by employees; Offshoring: having outside vendors abroad supply services.

Executive Recruiters / Headhunters / Search Firm

Special employment agencies retained to seek out top-management talent; only seeks out applicants for key executive and technical positions.

Retained Executive Recruiters

Focus on executive positions; paid regardless of whether employer hires executive through search firm's efforts.

Contingency-based Recruiters

Handle junior to middle-level management searches; fees around 15% to 25% of executive's total first-year pay (salary plus bonus).

Campus Recruitment

Educational institutions make provision of information to students regarding employment opportunities.

Word of Mouth Advertising

Imperceptible way of sourcing candidates; arouse interest and enthusiasm among large number of candidates.

Employee Selection

Done after reviewing resumes to identify best candidate; process of interviewing and evaluating qualities; NEGATIVE process with elimination of many candidates as possible.

Person-Job Fit

Aim of selection; matching knowledge, skills, abilities, and other competencies required for performing job with applicant's KSAOs.

Person-Organization Fit

Matching organizational values with applicant's values and ensuring they fit company culture.

Negligent Hiring

Hiring employees with questionable backgrounds (e.g. criminal records) without proper background checks.

Reliability

Refers to consistency; test yields consistent score when individual takes two alternate forms or same test on two different occasions.

Test-retest reliability

Administering test one day and re-administering same test several days later to same group; first and second scores must correlate.

Alternate forms estimate

Administer a test and administer equivalent test later.

Internal comparison estimate / Internal consistency

Compare test taker's answers to certain questions with separate set measuring same thing; assesses correlation between multiple items intended to measure same construct.

Factors causing unreliable test

Physical conditions of testing center, differences in test taker (physical/emotional, sick), differences in test administration.

Validity

Tells whether test is measuring what it is supposed to measure; correctness of inferences made based on test; how job-related test is and how performance on test predicts job performance.

Criterion validity

Relationship between scores on selection procedure (predictor) and job performance (criterion); those who do poorly on test do poorly on job.

Content validity

Demonstrates content of selection procedure is representative of important aspects of performance on job; identify critical tasks and randomly select sample to test; SMEs help choose tasks.

Construct validity

Demonstrates selection procedure measures a construct (e.g. honesty) and construct is important for successful job performance (e.g. cashier).

Analyze Job

Write job descriptions and specifications, specify human traits required (predictors), define success on job (criterion) - production-related, personnel data, worker performance.

Choose Tests

Choose several into test battery to measure array of predictors.

Administer Test

Concurrent validity - administer to current employees and compare with current performance; predictive validity - administer to applicants before hire, hire using existing techniques not new test, later measure performance and compare.

Relate Test Scores and Criteria

Correlation analysis, expectancy chart (graphical relationship).

Cross-validate and Revalidate

Test on new sample, revalidate periodically.

Validity Generalization

Degree to which validity evidence obtained in one situation can be generalized to another without further study.

Utility Analysis

Degree to which use of selection measure improves quality of individuals selected over what would have happened without measure.

Tests of Cognitive Abilities

Tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and specific mental abilities; IQ measures range including memory, vocabulary, verbal fluency, numerical ability.

Sample Intelligence Tests

Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), Wonderlic.

Specific Cognitive Abilities / Aptitude Tests

Measure aptitude for job; ex: Test of Mechanical Comprehension for machinist or engineers.

Tests of Motor and Physical Abilities

Motor: finger dexterity, manual dexterity, reaction time; physical: static strength, dynamic strength, body coordination, stamina.

Personality Tests

Most people hired based on qualifications but fired because of attitude, motivation, temperament; focus on Big Five.

Big Five Personality Dimensions

Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness.

Projective Tests

Individual presented with ambiguous stimulus and reacts; projects attitudes into picture.

Self-Report (Personality)

Applicants themselves fill them out; bottom line: use personality tests that predict performance for job.

Interest Inventories

Compare one's interests with those of people in various occupations; assumes someone will do better in occupations they are interested.

Achievement Tests

Measure what someone has learned; measures job knowledge and applicant's abilities.

Work Samples and Simulations

Present examinees with situations representative of job and evaluate responses; directly measure job performance.

Work Sampling Technique

Predicts job performance by requiring candidates to perform one or more samples of job's tasks.

Situational Judgment Tests

Designed to assess applicant's judgment regarding situation encountered in workplace.

Management Assessment Centers

2-3 day simulation where 10-12 candidates perform realistic management tasks.

Assessment Center Tasks

In-basket, Leaderless group discussion, Management games, Individual oral presentations, Testing, Interview.

Situational Testing and Video-Based Situational Testing

Situational tests require examinees to respond to situations representative of job.

Miniature Job Training and Evaluation Approach

Testing candidates to perform several of job's tasks and evaluating their performance prior to hire.

Realistic Job Previews

Explicitly explaining and asking about work schedules and work preferences.

Internal Factors Affecting Recruitment

Size of Organization, Recruitment Policy, Image of Organization, Image of Jobs.

External Factors Affecting Recruitment

Demographic Factors, Labour Market, Unemployment Rate, Labour Laws, Legal Considerations, Competitors.

Equal Opportunity

Results when all applicants treated on equal basis consistently at every stage; no discrimination.

Recruitment and Selection Process - Step by Step

1. Job Vacancy 2. Job Analysis 3. Attracting Candidates 4. Screening Candidates 5. Interviewing Candidates 6. Selecting and Appointing Candidates 7. Induction and Training 8. Employee Evaluation.

Job Vacancy (Step 1)

First step when vacancy arises; enables determination of redesigning or part-time opportunities.

Job Analysis (Step 2)

Expectation of employers - performance of job duties, traits of regularity, diligence, resourcefulness, conscientiousness, creativity.

Attracting Candidates (Step 3)

Two sources: internal and external recruitment.

Screening Candidates (Step 4)

Purpose is to narrow down field; where most suitable candidates selected for interviews.

Interviewing Candidates (Step 5)

Process after screening; aspects: proper notice of time/date, be on time, know where to go and who to contact.

Selecting and Appointing Candidates (Step 6)

Depends on urgency; if urgent occurs immediately after interviews.