Recruitment Process

The recruitment and selection is the major

function of the human resource department and
recruitment process is the first step towards
creating the competitive strength and the
recruitment strategic advantage for the
organisations. Recruitment process involves a
systematic procedure from sourcing the
candidates to arranging and conducting the
interviews and requires many resources and
time. A general recruitment process is as
follows:

Identifying the vacancy:

The recruitment process begins with the human
resource department receiving requisitions for
recruitment from any department of the
company. These contain:

• Posts to be filled
• Number of persons
• Duties to be performed
• Qualifications required

• Preparing the job description and person specification.

• Locating and developing the sources of required number and type of employees
(Advertising etc).

• Short-listing and identifying the prospective employee with required

characteristics.

• Arranging the interviews with the selected candidates.

• Conducting the interview and decision making

1. Identify vacancy

2. Prepare job description and person specification

3. Advertising the vacancy

4. Managing the response

5. Short-listing

6. Arrange interviews
 7. Conducting interview and decision making

The recruitment process is immediately followed by the selection process i.e. the final
interviews and the decision making, conveying the decision and the appointment
formalities.
Objective:-
objective of the recruitment process is to obtain the number and quality of employees
that can be selected in order to help the organisation to achieve its goals and objectives.
With the same objective, recruitment helps to create a pool of prospective employees for
the organisation so that the management can select the right candidate for the right job
from this pool.
Recruitment acts as a link between the employers and the job seekers and ensures the
placement of right candidate at the right place at the right time.

In this is competitive global world and

increasing flexibility in the labour market, recruitment is becoming more and
more important in every business. Therefore, recruitment serves as the first step
in fulfilling the needs of organisations for a competitive, motivated and flexible
human resource that can help achieve its objectives.

Meaning Of Recruitment

recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating
them to apply for jobs in the organisation”. Recruitment is the activity that links the
employers and the job seekers. A few definitions of recruitment are:

 A process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process
begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The
result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected.

 It is the process to discover sources of manpower to meet the requirement of staffing

schedule and to employ effective
measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective
selection of an efficient working force.
Recruitment of candidates is the function preceding the selection, which helps create a
pool of prospective employees for the organisation so that the management can select the
right candidate for the right job from this pool. The main objective of the recruitment
process is to expedite the selection process.

Recruitment is a continuous process whereby the firm attempts to develop a pool of

qualified applicants for the future human resources needs even though specific vacancies
do not exist. Usually, the recruitment process starts when a manger initiates an employee
requisition for a specific vacancy or an anticipated vacancy.

RECRUITMENT NEEDS ARE OF THREE TYPES

 PLANNED
i.e. the needs arising from changes in organization and retirement policy.

 ANTICIPATED
Anticipated needs are those movements in personnel, which an organization can predict
by studying trends in internal and external environment.

 UNEXPECTED
Resignation, deaths, accidents, illness give rise to unexpected needs.

Purpose & Importance Of Recruitmen

 Attract and encourage more and more
candidates to apply in the organisation.

 Create a talent pool of candidates to enable

the selection of best candidates for the
organisation.

 Determine present and future requirements of

the organization in conjunction with its
personnel planning and job analysis activities.

 recruitment is the process which links the

employers with the employees.

 Increase the pool of job candidates at

minimum cost.
 Help increase the success rate of selection process by decreasing number of visibly
under qualified or overqualified job applicants.

 Help reduce the probability that job applicants once recruited and selected will leave
the organization only after a short period of time.

 Meet the organizations legal and social obligations regarding the composition of its
workforce.

 Begin identifying and preparing potential job applicants who will be appropriate
candidates.

 Increase organization and individual effectiveness of various recruiting techniques

and sources for all types of job applicants.

Sources Of Recruitment

Every organisation has the option of choosing

the candidates for its recruitment processes from
two kinds of sources: internal and external
sources. The sources within the organisation
itself (like transfer of employees from one
department to other, promotions) to fill a
position are known as the internal sources of
recruitment. Recruitment candidates from all the
other sources (like outsourcing agencies etc.) are
known as the external sources of The
recruitment.
 SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT

Internal Sources Of Recruitment

1. TRANSFERS
The employees are transferred from one
department to another according to their
efficiency and experience.

2. PROMOTIONS
The employees are promoted from one
department to another with more benefits and
greater responsibility based on efficiency and
experience.

3. Others are Upgrading and Demotion of

present employees according to their
performance.

4. Retired and Retrenched employees may also

 be recruited once again in case of shortage of
qualified personnel or increase in load of work.
recruitment such people
save time and costs of the organisations as the people are already aware of the
organisational culture and the policies and procedures.

5. The dependents and relatives of Deceased employees and Disabled employees are
also done by many companies so that the members of the family do not become
dependent on the mercy of others.

External Sources Of Recruitment

1. PRESS ADVERTISEMENTS
Advertisements of the vacancy in newspapers
and journals are a widely used source of
recruitment. The main advantage of this method
is that it has a wide reach.

2. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES
Various management institutes, engineering
colleges, medical Colleges etc. are a good source
of recruiting well qualified executives,
engineers, medical staff etc. They provide
facilities for campus interviews and placements.
This source is known as Campus Recruitment.

3. PLACEMENT AGENCIES
Several private consultancy firms perform
recruitment functions on behalf of client
companies by charging a fee. These
agencies are particularly suitable for recruitment of executives and specialists. It is also
known as RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing)

4. EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES
Government establishes public employment exchanges throughout the country.
These exchanges provide job information to job seekers and help employers in
identifying suitable candidates.

5. LABOUR CONTRACTORS
Manual workers can be recruited through contractors who maintain close contacts
 with the sources of such workers. This source is used to recruit labour for
construction jobs.

6. UNSOLICITED APPLICANTS
Many job seekers visit the office of well-known companies on their own. Such
callers are considered nuisance to the daily work routine of the enterprise. But can
help in creating the talent pool or the database of the probable candidates for the
organisation.

7. EMPLOYEE REFERRALS / RECOMMENDATIONS

Many organisations have structured system where the current employees of the
organisation can refer their friends and relatives for some position in their
organisation. Also, the office bearers of trade unions are often aware of the
suitability of candidates. Recruitment Management can inquire these leaders for
suitable jobs. In some organizations these are formal agreements to give priority
in recruitment to the candidates recommended by the trade union.

8. RECRUITMENT AT FACTORY GATE

Unskilled workers may be recruited at the factory gate these may be employed
whenever a permanent worker is absent. More efficient among these may be
recruited to fill permanent vacancies.

Recent Trends in Recruitment

 OUTSOURCING
In India, the HR processes are being outsourced
from more than a decade now. A company may
draw required personnel from outsourcing firms.
The outsourcing firms help the organisation by
the initial screening of the candidates according
to the needs of the organisation and creating a
suitable pool of talent for the final selection by
the organisation. Outsourcing firms develop their
human resource pool by employing people for
 them and make available personnel to various
companies as per their needs. In turn, the
outsourcing firms or the intermediaries charge
the organisations for their services.
Advantages of outsourcing are:

1. Company need not plan for human resources much in advance.

2. Value creation, operational flexibility and competitive advantage

3. turning the management's focus to strategic level processes of HRM

4. Company is free from salary negotiations, weeding the unsuitable

resumes/candidates.

5. Company can save a lot of its resources and time

• POACHING/RAIDING
“Buying talent” (rather than developing it) is the latest mantra being followed by
the organisations today. Poaching means employing a competent and experienced
person already working with another reputed company in the same or different
industry; the organisation might be a competitor in the industry. A company can
attract talent from another firm by offering attractive pay packages and other
terms and conditions, better than the current employer of the candidate. But it is
seen as an unethical practice and not openly talked about. Indian software and the
retail sector are the sectors facing the most severe brunt of poaching today. It has
become a challenge for human resource managers to face and tackle poaching, as
it weakens the competitive strength of the firm.

• E-RECRUITMENT
Many big organizations use Internet as a source of recruitment. E-recruitment is
the use of technology to assist the recruitment process. They advertise job
vacancies through worldwide web. The job seekers send their applications or
curriculum vitae i.e. CV through e mail using the Internet. Alternatively job
seekers place their CV’s in worldwide web, which can be drawn by prospective
employees depending upon their requirements.
Advantages of recruitment are:

o Low cost.

o No intermediaries

o Reduction in time for recruitment.

o Recruitment of right type of people.

o Efficiency of recruitment process.

Factors Affecting Recruitment

The recruitment function of the organisations is
affected and governed by a mix of various
internal and external forces. The internal forces
or factors are the factors that can be controlled
by the organisation. And the external factors are
those factors which cannot be controlled by the
organisation. The internal and external forces
affecting recruitment function of an
organisation are:
 FACTORS AFFECTING RECRUITMENT

Recruitment Vs Selection
Both recruitment and selection are the two
phases of the employment process. The
differences between the two are:

1. The recruitment is the process of searching the

candidates for employment and stimulating them
to apply for jobs in the organisation WHEREAS
selection involves the series of steps by which
the candidates are screened for choosing the
most suitable persons for vacant posts.

2. The basic purpose of recruitments is to create

a talent pool of candidates to enable the selection
of best candidates for the organisation, by
attracting more and more employees to apply in
the organisation WHEREAS the basic purpose
of selection process is to choose the right
candidate to
fill the various positions in the organisation.

3. Recruitment is a positive process i.e. encouraging more and more employees to apply
WHEREAS selection is a negative process as it involves rejection of the unsuitable
candidates.

4. Recruitment is concerned with tapping the sources of human resources WHEREAS

selection is concerned with selecting the most suitable candidate through various
interviews and tests.

5. There is no contract of recruitment established in recruitment WHEREAS selection

results in a contract of service between the employer and the selected employee.