Comprehensive Study Notes on Recruitment and Employee Selection

What is Recruitment?

  • Recruitment involves attracting people with the right qualifications to apply for a job.
  • It refers to the overall process of:
    • Identifying potential candidates
    • Attracting candidates
    • Interviewing candidates
    • Selecting candidates
    • Hiring new employees
    • Onboarding new employees

Types of Recruitment

1. Internal Recruitment

  • Definition: Promoting someone from within the organization.
  • Benefits:
    • Enhances employee morale and motivation.
    • Gives current employees an advantage in obtaining internal positions.

2. External Recruitment

  • Definition: Hiring someone from outside the organization.

Writing Recruitment Ads

  • Effective qualities of recruitment ads:
    • Ads featuring the company emblem with creative illustrations attract a larger number of applicants.
    • Ads that include salary ranges and a company phone number attract higher-quality applicants (Kaplan, Aamodt, & Wilk, 1991).
    • Realistic ads (not “too good to be true”) increase applicant attraction (Thorsteinson, Palmer, Wulff, & Anderson, 2004).
    • Detailed job and organization descriptions help applicants assess their fit and generate positive impressions (Roberson, Collins, & Oreg, 2005).
    • Including information about the selection process can affect application likelihood.

Media Advertisements

Newspaper Ads

  • A common method of recruiting employees:
    • Rated as one of the most effective avenues in 2002.
    • Considered one of the least effective methods by 2007.

Four Ways to Respond to Job Ads

  1. Respond by Calling
    • Used for quick applicant screening or to hear an applicant’s voice.
  2. Applying in Person
    • An approach when organizations want to see applicants' physical presence and prevent phone traffic.
  3. Sending a Résumé Directly
    • Suitable for organizations expecting large responses without sufficient resources.
  4. Sending a Résumé to a Blind Box
    • Blind recruitment involves removing identifying information from resumes and applications for impartial assessment.
    • Reasons for blind box recruitment:
    1. The organization wishes to remain anonymous.
    2. Concern that applicants may not apply if they know the company's name.
    3. A need to replace existing employees discreetly.

Electronic Media for Recruitment

  • Statistics: 96% of organizations use newspapers for recruitment ads; only 26% use television or radio.
    • Used primarily for blue-collar jobs and local hiring.
  • Decline of TV and Radio Recruitment:
    • Shift to cheaper and faster internet recruitment.
    • Limited detail and lack of applicant screening in traditional media.

Situation-Wanted Ads

  • Definition: Ads placed by applicants rather than organizations.
  • Purpose:
    • Increase visibility to employers.
    • Attract employers not publicly posting vacancies.
    • Showcase initiative and confidence.

Point-of-Purchase Methods

  • Based on advertising principles targeting consumers.
  • Job vacancy notices are displayed where customers or current employees might see them, mainly for blue-collar and service industry roles.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

  • Advantages: Cost-effectiveness and targeting of specific audience.
  • Disadvantages: Limited exposure to potential candidates.

Recruiters and Methods

Campus Recruiters

  • Organizations recruit from college campuses to interview students for available positions.
  • Common for white-collar jobs, entry-level positions, and management trainee programs.

Virtual Job Fairs

  • Allow students and alumni to connect with recruiters from numerous organizations online.

Outside Recruiters

  • Utilization of outside recruiting sources:
    • Includes private employment agencies, public employment agencies, and executive search firms.
    • Private agencies and search firms profit from recruitment, while public agencies are nonprofit.

Employment Agencies and Search Firms

Employment Agencies

  • Function as middlemen between companies and applicants:
    • Charge either the employer or the applicant a fee (10% to 30% of first-year salary).
  • Regulation in the Philippines by:
    • Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for local agencies.
    • Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) for overseas recruitment agencies.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

  • Advantages: Cost-saving if an agency fails to find suitable candidates.
  • Disadvantages: Loss of control over recruitment process; potential for undesirable hires.

Executive Search Firms

  • Known as “head hunters” and specialized in higher-paying roles.
    • Charge fees to organizations rather than applicants (about 30% of the first-year salary).

Public Employment Agencies

  • Help the unemployed while sometimes providing career advice and résumé preparation.
  • Advantages include:
    • Filling blue-collar and clerical roles without hiring costs.
    • Government programs that can subsidize training costs.
    • Improved quality of hires due to standardized tests.

Kiosks in Public Locations

  • Job search kiosks placed in malls and public buildings to help applicants find local job openings.
  • Increasingly used by companies receiving large numbers of walk-in applicants.

Employee Referrals

  • Referrals from current employees are highly effective in recruitment:
    • Rated most effective method by HR professionals.
    • Study shows referred applicants by successful employees have longer tenures.
  • Importance of diversity in the referral pool concerning ethnic and racial representation.

Employment Profile

Definition

  • An employment profile details job roles, recruitment methods, and selection processes.
  • Importance of accurate job descriptions for effective hiring.

Direct Mail Recruitment

  • Involves sending job offers/brochures to targeted individuals, including passive job seekers.
  • Success reliant on quality of mailing list, offer, and design.

Internet Recruitment

  • Shift to internet for recruitment due to efficiency:
    • 56% of résumés were received electronically by 2004.
  • Forms of internet recruitment:
    1. Employer-Based Websites: Post job openings; allow online applications.
    2. Internet Recruiting Sites: Reach broader audiences effectively.

Job Fairs

  • Events allowing organizations to interact with applicants in-person:
    • Useful for obtaining résumés.
    • Can address urgent hiring needs post-events like layoffs.

Incentives

  • Attract employees with incentives such as signing bonuses or employee discounts:
    • Useful in competitive hiring markets.

Evaluating Recruitment Effectiveness

Methods of evaluation include:

  • Number of applicants generated.
  • Cost per applicant.
  • Number of qualified applicants met.
  • Cost per qualified applicant.
  • Successful hires produced by each method:
    • Research indicates employee referrals and internal recruitment are most effective due to accurate job information provided.

Employment Interviews

Definition

  • Systematic method of selecting employees through interviewer questions and assessment of responses.
  • Interviews classified by structure, style, and medium:
    • Structured Interviews: Predefined questions from job analysis; standardized scoring.
    • Unstructured Interviews: No standard questions or scoring; more flexible.

Issues with Unstructured Interviews

  • Poor intuitive ability: Interviewer decisions based on intuition not reliable.
  • Lack of job-relatedness: Selection information needs relevance to job duties.
  • Primacy effect: Early presented information has higher influence.
  • Contrast effect: One applicant’s performance influences perceptions of subsequent applicants.
  • Negative information bias: Negative information is weighted more heavily.
  • Similarity bias: Similarities between interviewer and interviewee can skew results.
  • Nonverbal communication: Cues significantly correlate with interview scores.

Interview Styles and Mediums

Styles:

  • One-on-one Interviews
  • Serial Interviews
  • Return Interviews
  • Panel Interviews
  • Group Interviews

Mediums:

  • Face-to-face, Telephone, Videoconference, Written

Interview Questions Types

  1. Clarifiers: Verify information from résumé/application.
  2. Disqualifiers: Answers that eliminate applicants from further consideration.
  3. Skill-Level Determiners: Assess applicant skills.
  4. Future-Focused: Situational questions to gauge applicant response.
  5. Past-Focused: Evaluate prior experiences.
  6. Organizational-Fit Questions: Assess compatibility with organizational culture.

Conclusion on Job Search Skills

  • Skills are essential for successful employment:

    • They encompass effective interviewing, writing cover letters, and preparing resumes.
    • Enhance applicants' ability to convey their qualifications succinctly.
    • Employers depend on these tools for evaluating candidates.

  • Emphasis on the importance of job search skills for future career investments.

References

  • Aamodt, M. G. (2015). Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach, Eighth edition (Jon-David Hague, Ed.). Cengage Learning.