Chapter 7 Recruiting and selecting employees

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Chapter 7Recruiting and selecting employees
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Recruitment
is the process of generating a pool of capable
people to apply for employment to an organization.
Selection
is the process by which managers and others use
specific instruments to choose from a pool of
applicants a person or persons most likely to
succeed in the jobs, given management goals and
legal requirements.
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The stages of recruitment and selection
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Recruitment and selection

• Recruitment and selection are vital to the
  formation of a positive psychological contract,
  which provides the basis of organizational
  commitment and motivation.
• The attraction and retention of employees is part
  of the evolving employment relationship, based on
  a mutual and reciprocal understanding of
  expectations.

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Recruitment and selection

• There are wide variations in recruitment and
  selection practices, reflecting an organizations
  strategy and its philosophy towards the
  management of people.
• Progressive HR practices are crucial to a
  positive psychological contract this includes
  attention to effective recruitment and selection
  practices.

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Recruitment and Attraction

• A key role for HR is to align performance within
  roles with the strategy, so recruiting for the
  right people for a role depends on how it is
  defined in terms relating to performance to
  achieve the strategy.
• Criterion-related behaviours or standards of
  performance are referred to as competencies.
• Competencies can be used to provide the
  behaviours needed at work to achieve the business
  strategy, and enable organizations to form a
  model of the kinds of employee it wishes to
  attract through recruitment.

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Schneiders Attraction Selection Attrition
Framework

• Schneider argued that people are attracted to an
  organization on the basis of their own interests
  and personality.
• Thus, people of a similar type will be attracted
  to the same place.
• Furthermore, the attraction of similar types will
  begin to determine the place.

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Competencies

• Table 7.1 shows how one large financial services
  organization in the UK sets out its competencies.

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Recruitment and Attraction
The main approaches to attracting applicants can
be summarized as follows

• Walk-ins
• Employee referrals
• Advertising
• Websites
• Professional associations

• Educational associations
• Professional agencies
• E-recruitment (general recruitment agents/
  companies own sites)
• Word of Mouth

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Recruitment and Attraction
An organization will take account of a number of
factors when forming recruitment plans and
choosing media

• Mobility of labour geographic and occupational
• Retention and labour turnover rates
• Legislation and regulations on equal
  opportunities and diversity

• Cost
• Time taken to recruit and select
• Labour market focus, for example skills,
  profession or occupation

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Recruitment and Attraction (1)

• Personnel specifications versus competencies
• Personnel specifications may contain stereotypes
  of the ideal person and so organizations may be
  reinforcing the stereotype in their recruitment
  practices.
• The use of competencies allows organizations to
  free themselves from traditional stereotypes in
  order to attract applicants from a variety of
  sources.

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Personnel specifications versus competencies

• Competencies appear to be
• more objective
• have a variety of uses in attracting applicants
• allow an organization to use more reliable and
  valid selection techniques.

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Selection Costs

• Organizations have become increasingly aware of
  making good selection decisions, since it
  involves a number of costs
• The cost of the selection process itself,
  including the use of various selection
  instruments
• The future costs of inducting and training new
  staff
• The cost of labour turnover if the selected staff
  are not retained

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Selection reactions of applicants

• According to Hausknecht (2004) organizations must
  beware
• Invasive selection, diminishing attraction of
  organization
• Candidates with a negative experience dissuading
  others
• A negative selection experience can impact on job
  acceptance
• Discrimination legislation and regulations
• Mistreatment putting off future applications and
  stopping applicants using organizations products
  or services

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Selection Principles

• Underlying the process of selection and the
  choice of techniques are two key principles
• Individual differences Attracting a wide choice
  of applicants will be of little use unless there
  is a way of measuring how people differ, i.e.
  intelligence, attitudes, social skills,
  psychological and physical characteristics,
  experience etc.
• 2. Prediction A recognition of the way in which
  people differ must be extended to a prediction of
  performance in the workplace.

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Selection Reliability and Validity

• Reliability refers to the extent to which a
  selection technique achieves consistency in what
  it is measuring over repeated use.
• Validity refers to the extent to which a
  selection technique actually measures what it
  sets out to measure.

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Selection CVs and Biodata

• CV (a curriculum vitae) - enables candidates to
  set out their experience, skills and
  achievements.
• It also provides an early chance for the
  organization to screen the applicants before
  moving to the next stage of selection.
• Biodata - information about a persons past
  experiences and behaviours in particular
  situations, gathered by questionnaires including
  several multiple-choice questions and/or
  scenarios seeking data that can be verified as
  factual.

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Selection Interviews

• Information elicited interviews have a specific
  focus, i.e. facts, subjective information,
  underlying attitudes.
• Structure ranging from the completely
  structured to the unstructured. A compromise
  between the two enables the interviewer to
  maintain control yet allowing the interviewee
  free expression.
• Order and involvement the need to obtain
  different kinds of information may mean the
  involvement of more than one interviewer.
  Applicants may be interviewed serially or in a
  panel.

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Recruitment and selection
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Face validity

• How selection and assessment techniques appear to
  those subjected to them

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Dilemma

• Should the interview focus on establishing a good
  relationship with the applicant to elicit a
  positive reaction from the candidate about the
  selection process, or should the interview be
  concerned with using good structure and
  sophisticated questions that have higher
  predictive validity?

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Psychometric Testing

• Personality research has lent support to the use
  of sophisticated selection techniques such as
  psychometric tests that have a good record of
  reliability and validity.
• Ability tests these focus on mental abilities
  (verbal/ numerical) and physical skills testing.
  Right/ wrong answers allow applicants to be
  placed in ranked order.
• Inventories self-report questionnaires
  indicating traits, intelligence, values,
  interests, attitudes and preferences. No
  right/wrong answers but a range of choices
  between possible answers.

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Five factor (big five) model

1. Emotional stability (neuroticism)
2. Extroversion
3. Openness to experience
4. Agreeableness
5. Conscientiousness

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E-assessment

• On-line testing, or e-assessment, is also used
  for selection and other HR purposes.
• Benefits
• Online testing enables organizations to test at
  any time and anywhere in the world.
• It enables the quick processing of applicants.
• As tests are taken, results can be accumulated
  and used to improve the validity of the tests.
• Drawback
• Loss of control over the administration of the
  tests anyone can be called on to help.
• All tests need to conform to the requirements of
  discrimination laws.

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Assessment Centres

• Assessment centres are designed to yield
  information that can be used to make decisions
  concerning suitability for a job.
• They provide a fuller picture by combining a
  range of techniques.
• General methods used include group discussions,
  role plays and simulations, interviews and tests.
• Candidates attending an assessment centre will be
  observed by assessors who should be trained to
  judge candidates performance against criteria
  contained within the competency framework.

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Realistic Job Previews

• Applicants have expectations about how the
  organization will treat them. Recruitment and
  selection represent an opportunity to clarify
  these. Realistic job previews (RJPs) provide a
  means of achieving this.
• RJPs can take the form of case studies,
  shadowing, job sampling and videos this enables
  the expectations of applicants to become more
  realistic
• RJPs lower initial expectations cause some
  applicants to de-select themselves, but also
  increase levels of organization commitment, job
  satisfaction, performance and job survival.

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