UNDERSTANDING RECRUITMENT PROCESS:

Recruitment is the phase, which immediately precedes selection. Its purpose is to pave the -
way for the selection procedures by producing, ideally, the smallest number of candidates
who appear to be capable either of performing the required tasks of the job from the outset, or
of developing the ability to do so within a-period of time acceptable to the employing
organization. The smallest number of potentially suitable candidates can in theory, of course,
be any number. The main point that needs to be made about the recruitment task is that the
employing organization should not waste time and money examining the. Credentials
of people whose qualifications do not match the requirements of the job.

Apart from the methods used and the general administration of task, the achievement of the
objective will depend very much in the end on how efficiently the basic tasks of manpower
planning and job analysis have been carried out and applied. In short, efficient recruitment of
staff may be described as knowing what resources you want, what resources are available,
where and how they may be found.

The Objectives of Recruitment are:

 To attract people with multi-dimensional skills and experiences that suits the present
and future organizational strategies
 To induct outsiders with a new perspective to lead the company
 To infuse fresh blood at all levels of the organization
 To develop an organizational culture that attracts competent people to the Company
 To search or head hunt/ head pouch people whose skills fit the . company's values.
 To devise methodologies for assessing psychological traits
 To seek out non-conventional development grounds of talent
 To search for talent globally and not just within the company
 To design entry pay that competes on quality but not on quantum
 To anticipate and find people for positions that does not exist yet.

Merits of Centralized Recruitment:

  Average cost of recruitment per candidate/unit should be relatively less due to
economies of scale
 It would have more expertise available to use
 It can ensure board unifonnity among human resources of various units/zones in
respect of education, skill, knowledge, talent etc.,
 It would generally be above malpractices, abuse of powers, favoritism, bias etc.,

Merits of Decentralized Recruitment:

 The unit concerned concentrates only on those sources/places where it normally gets
the suitable candidates. As such, the cost of recruitment would be relatively less.
 The unit gets the most suitable candidates as it is well aware of the requirements of
the jobs regarding cultural, traditional, family background aspects, local factors, social
factors etc.,
 Units can recruit candidates as and when they are required without any delay.
The different kinds of internal sources are:

(a) Present permanent employees:

Organizations consider the candidates from this source for higher-level jobs due to

availability of most suitable candidates for jobs relatively or equally to the external source, to

meet the trade union demands and due to the policy of the organization to motivate the

present employees.

(b) Present temporary/casual employees:

Organizations find this source to fill the vacancies relatively at the lower level owning to the

availability of suitable candidates or trade union pressures or in order to motivate them on the

present job.

(c) Retired employees:

., Generally, particular organizations retrench the employees due to lack of work. The

organization takes the candidates for employment from the retrenched employees due to

obligation, trade union pressure and so on. Sometimes, the organizations prefer to re-employ

their retired employees as a token of their loyalty to the organization or to postpone some

internal conflicts for promotion.

External sources:

External sources are sources outside organizational pursuits. Organizations

search for the required candidates from these sources for the following

reasons:

 The suitable candidates with skill, knowledge, talent etc., are generally available.
 Candidates can be selected without any pre-conceived notion or reservations.
 Cost of employees can be minimized because employees selected from this source are
generally organization.
  Human resources mix can be balanced with different background, experience, skills
etc.,
 Latest knowledge, skill, innovative or creative talent can also be flowed into the
organization.
 Existing sources will also broaden their personality
 Long run benefit to the organization in the sense that qualitative human resources can
be brought. Placed in the minimum pay scale.
Different kinds of External sources are:

(a) Campus recruitment:

Different types of organizations like industries, business firms, service organizations, social
or religious organizations can get fresh candidates for different types of jobs from various
educational institutions like collages and universities imparting education in science,
commerce, arts, engineering and technology, agriculture, medicine, management studies etc.,
(b) Private employment agencies/consultants:

Public employment agencies or consultants like ABC consultants in India perform

recruitment functions on behalf of a client company by charging fees. Line managers are
relieved from recruitment functions so that they can concentrate on their operational activities
and recruitment functions are entrusted to a private agency or consultants.
(C) Professional associates;

Professional organizations or associates maintain complete bio-data of their members and

provide the same to various organizations on requisition. They also act as exchange between
their members and recruiting firms in exchanging information, clarifying doubts etc.
organizations find this source more useful to recruit the experienced and professional
employees like executives, managers, engineers.

MODERN METHODS OF RECRUITMENT:

A number of modem recruitment sources are being used by the corporate sector in addition to
traditional sources. The sources are divided into internal and external sources.
Internal sources:

(a) Employee referrals:

Present employees are well aware of the qualifications, attitudes, experience and emotions of
their friends and relatives. They are also aware of the job requirements and organizational
culture of their company. As such, they can make preliminary judgments regarding the match
between the job and their friends or relatives. Hence, the HR Managers of the company
depend on the present employees for reference of the candidates for various jobs. This source
reduces the cost and the time required for recruitment. Further this source enhances the
effectiveness of recruitment.

External sources:

(a) Walk in interviews and tests:

The busy and rapidly changing organizations do not find time to perform various functions of
recruitment. Therefore, they advice the potential candidates to attend for an interview directly
and without a prior application on specified date, time and at a specified place.
(b) Consult in:

The busy and dynamic companies encourage the potential job seekers to approach them
personally and consult them regarding the jobs. The companies select the suitable candidates
from among such candidates through the selection process.
(c) E-Recruitment:

The technological revolution in telecommunications helped the organizations to use Internet

as a source of recruitment. Organizations advertise the job vacancies through the world wide
web (www). The job seekers send their applications through e-mail using Internet.
Alternatively job seekers place their CV's in the worldwide web/ Internet, which can be
drawn by the prospective employers depending upon their requirements. For eg:
Monsterindia.com, timesjobs.com, naukri.com, Chckjobs.com
(d) Outsourcing:

Some organizations recently started developing human resources pool by employing the
candidates for them. These organizations do not utilize the human resources instead they
supply HRs to various companies based on their needs on temporary or ad-hoc basis. Various
companies, rather than employing HRs draw HRs from these organizations on commission
basis.

UNDERSTANDING SELECTION PROCESS:

Recruitment function helps the organization to develop a pool of prospective human

resources. It is difficult for the HR manager to employ the suitable people out of the pool. In
fact, many organizations face critical problems in choosing the people. Selection techniques
and methods reduce the complexities in choosing the right candidates for the job.

After identifying the sources of human resources, searching for prospective employees and
stimulating them to apply for jobs in an Organization, the management has to perform the
function of selecting the right employees at the right time. The obvious guiding policy in
selection is the intention to choose the best qualifies and suitable job candidate for each
unfilled job.

The objective of the selection decision is to choose the individual who can most successfully
perform the job from the pool of qualified candidates. The selection procedure is the system
of functions and devices adopted in a given company to ascertain whether the candidate's
specifications are matched with the job specifications and requirements or not.

The selection process can be successful if the following requirements are satisfied:

 Someone should have the authority to select. This authority comes from the
employment requisition, as developed by an analysis to the workload and work force.
 There must be some standard of personnel with which a prospective employee may be
compared, i.e. a comprehensive job description and job specification should be
available before hand.
 There must be a sufficient number of applicants from whom the '' required number of
employees may be selected.
Selection of personnel to man the organization is a crucial, complex and continuing function.
The ability of an organization to attain its goal effectively and to develop in a dynamic
environment largely depends upon the effectiveness of its selection programmer. If the right
person is selected, he is valuable asset to the organization.
SELECTION PROCEDURE:

Selection procedure employs several methods of collecting information about the candidate's
qualifications, experience, physical and mental ability, nature and behavior, knowledge and
aptitude for judging whether a given applicant is suitable or not for the job. Therefore the
selection procedure is not a single act but is essentially a series of methods or stages by which
different types of information can be secured through various selection techniques. At each
step facts may come to light, which are useful for comparison with the job requirement and
employee specifications.

Steps in Scientific Selection Procedure:

 Job analysis
 Recruitment
 Application form
 Written examination
 Preliminary interview
 Business games
 Tests
 Final interview
 Medical examination
 Reference checks
INDETAIL EXPLANATION:

(A) JOB ANALYSIS:

Job analysis is the basis for selecting the right candidates. Every organization should finalize
the job analysis, job. Description, job specification and employee specifications before
proceeding to the next step of selection.

(b) APPLICATION FORM;

Application form is also known as application blank. The techniques of application blank are
traditional and widely accepted for securing information from the prospective candidates. It
can also be used as a device to screen the candidates at the preliminary level. Many
companies formulate their own style of application forms depending upon the requirement of
information based on the size of the company, nature of business activities, type and level of
the job etc. Information is generally required on the following items in the application forms:
  Personal background information
 Educational qualifications
 Work experience
 Salary (drawing and expecting)
 Personal attainments including likes and dislikes

(c) WRITTEN EXAMINATION:

Organizations have to conduct written examination for the qualified candidates after they are
screened on the basis of the application blanks so as to measure the candidate's ability in
arithmetical calculations, to know the candidate's attitude towards the job, to measure the
candidate's aptitude, reasoning, knowledge in various disciplines, general knowledge and
English language

(d) PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW:

The preliminary interview is to solicit necessary information from the prospective

applications and to assess the applicant's suitability to the job. An assistant in the personnel
department may conduct this preliminary interview. The information thus provided by the
candidate may be related to the job or personal specifications regarding education,
experience, salary expectations, attitude towards job, age, physical appearance and other
requirements etc. Thus, preliminary interview is useful as a process of eliminating the
undesirable and unsuitable candidates. If a candidate satisfies the job requirements regarding
most of the areas, he may be selected for further process. Preliminary interviews are short and
known as stand up interviews or sizing up of the applicants or screening interviews.
However, certain required amount of care is to be taken to ensure that the desirable
(H) BUSINESS GAMES:

Business games are widely used as a selection technique for selecting management trainees,
executive trainees and managerial personnel at junior, middle and top management positions.
Business games help to evaluate the applicants in the areas of decision-making, identifying
the potentialities, handling the situations, problem-solving skills, human relations skills etc.
participants are placed in a hypothetical work situation and are required to play the role
situations in the game. The hypothesis is that the most succe
ssful candidate in the game will be most successful one on the job.
(I) TESTS:

Psychological tests play a vital role in employee selection. A psychological test is essentially
an objective and standardized measure of sample of behavior from which inferences about
future behavior and performance of the candidate can be drawn.

Objectivity of tests refers to the validity and reliability of the instruments in measuring the
ability of the individuals. Objectivity provides equal opportunity to all the job seekers without
any discriminating against sex; caste etc. standardization of test refers to uniformity of
procedure in conducting the tests for all the candidates. Sample behavior refers to the sample
of the total behavior of the prospective employee on the job.
Types of Psychological Tests

(I) Aptitude Tests:

(a) Intelligence Test (IQ)

(b) Emotional Quotient

(c) Skill Tests

(d) Mechanical Aptitude

(e) Psychometric Tests

(f) Clerical Aptitude Tests

Type of Test

(ii) Achievement Tests:

(a) Job Knowledge Test

(b) Work Sample Test

(iii) Situational Tests:

(a) Group discussions

(b) In Basket

(iv) Interest Test:

(v) Personality Tests:

(a) Objective Tests

(b) Protective Tests

(vi) Multi-Dimensional esting

Types of test:

Tests are classified into six classes, each class is again divided into different types of tests.
They are:
APTITUDE TESTS:

These tests measure whether an individual has the capacity or latent ability to learn a given
job if given adequate training. Aptitudes can be divided into general and mental ability or
intelligence and specific aptitudes such as mechanical, clerical, manipulative capacity etc.
General aptitude test is of two types namely intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient
(EQ).

Clerical aptitude tests;

These types of tests measure specific capacities involved in office work. Items of this tests
include spelling, computation, comprehension, copying, word measuring etc.
ACHIEVEMENT TESTS:

These tests are conducted when applicants claim to know something- as these tests are
concerned with what one has accomplished. These tests are more useful to measure the value
of a specific achievement when an organization wishes to employ experienced candidates.
These tests are classified into (a) job knowledge test and (b) work sample test.

SITUATIONAL TESTS: This test evaluates a candidate's in a similar life situation. In this
test the candidate is asked either to cope with the situation or solve clerical situations of the
job

(1) Group discussion (GD) :

This test is administered through the group discussion approach to solve a problem under
which candidates are observed in the areas of initiating, leading, proposing valuable ideas,
conciliating skills, oral communicating skills, coordinating and concluding skills.
INTEREST TESTS:
These tests are inventories of the likes and dislikes of candidates in relation to work, job,
occupations, hobbies and recreational activities. The purpose of this test is to find out whether
a candidate, is interested or disinterested in the

Job for which he is a candidate and to find out in which area of the job range/occupation the
candidate is interested. The assumption of this test is that there is a high correlation between
the interest of a candidate in a job and job success. Interest inventories are less faked and they
may not fluctuate after the age of 30.

MULTI-DIMENSIONAL TESTING:

However, the need for multi-skills is being felt be most of the companies consequent upon
globalization, competitiveness and the consequent customer-centered strategies. Organization
have to develop multidimensional testing in order to find out whether the candidates possess
a variety of skills or not, candidate's ability to integrate the multi-skills and potentiality to
apply them based on situational and functional requirement.
PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW:

(1) Informal interview:

This is the interview, which can be conducted at any place by the person to secure the basic
and non-job related information. The interaction between the candidate and the personnel
manager when the former meets the latter to enquire about the vacancies or additional
particulars in connection with the employment advertisement is an example of the informal
interview.

(2) Unstructured interview:

In this interview, the candidate is given the freedom to tell about himself by revealing his
knowledge on various items/areas, his background, expectations, interest etc. Similarly, the
interviewer also provides information on various items required by the candidate.

CORE INTERVIEW:

It is normally the interaction between the candidates and the line executive

Or experts on various areas of job knowledge, skill, talent etc. This interview

May take various forms like:

(1) Back ground information interview:

This interview is intended to collect the information, which is not available inThe application
blank and to check that information provided in theApplication blank regarding education,
place of domicile, family, health, interest, hobbies, likes, dislikes and extra curricular
activities of the applicant.
(2) Job and probing interview:

This interview aims at testing the candidate's job knowledge about duties, activities, methods
of doing the job, critical/problematic areas, methods of handling those areas etc.

(3) Stress interview

This interview aims at testing the candidate's job behavior and level of understanding during
the period of stress and strain. The interviewer tests candidate by putting him under stress and
strain by interrupting the applicant from:areas, keeping silent for unduly long periods after he
has finished speaking etc.

(4) Group discussion interview;

There are 2 methods of conducting group discussion interviews, viz. group interview method
and discussion interview method. All the candidates are brought into one room and are
interviewed one by one under group interview. This method helps a busy executive to save
valuable time and gives a fair account of the objectivity of the interview to the candidates.

(5) Formal and structured interview:

In this type of interview, all the formalities, procedures like fixing the value, time, panel of
interviewers, opening and closing, intimating the candidates officially etc. are strictly
followed in arranging and conducting interview. The course of the interview is preplanned
and structured, in advance, depending on job requirements

(6) Panel interview:

A panel of experts interview each candidate, judges his performance individually and
prepares consolidated judgment. This type of interview is known as panel interview.
Interviewers for middle level and senior level mangers are normally conducted are the panel
of experts.
DECISION-MAKING INTERVIEW:

After the experts including the line managers of the organization in the core areas of the job
examine the candidates, the head of the department/section concerned interviews the
candidates once again, mostly through informal discussion. The interviewer examines the
interest of the candidate in the job, organization, reaction/adaptability to the working
conditions, career planning, promotional opportunities, work adjustment and allotment etc.
The personnel manger also interviews the candidates with a view to find out his
reaction/acceptance regarding salary, allowances, benefits, promotions, opportunities etc..

(K) MEDICAL EXAMINATION:

Certain jobs require certain physical qualities like clear, vision, perfect hearing unusual
stamina; tolerance of hardworking conditions, clear tone etc. Medical examination reveals
whether or not a candidate possesses these qualities. Medical examination can give the
following information:

 Whether the applicant is medically suited for the specific job

 Whether the applicant has health problems or psychological attitudes likely to
interfere with work efficiency or future attendance.

(L) REFERENCE CHECKS:

After completion of the final interview and medical examination, the personnel department
will engage in checking references. Candidates are required to give the names of references
in their application forms. These references may be from the individuals who are familiar
with the candidate's academic achievement or form the applicant's previous employer, who is
well versed with the applicant's job performance, and sometimes from co-workers.
(M) FINAL DECISION BY THE LINE MANAGER:

The line manager concerned has to make the final decision whether to select or reject a
candidate after soliciting the required information through techniques discussed earlier. The
line manager has to take much care in taking the final decision not only because of economic
implications but also because of behavioral and social implications. A careless decision of
rejecting would impair the morale of the people and they would suspect the selection
procedure and the basis of selection of this organization. A true understanding between line
managers and personnel managers should be established to take proper decisions.

(N) JOB OFFER:

Thus, after taking the final decision, the organization has to intimate this decision to the
successful as well as unsuccessful candidates. The organization offers the job to the
successful candidates either immediately or after some time depending upon its time
schedule. The candidate after receiving job offer communicates his acceptance to the offer or
requests the company to modify the terms and conditions of employment or rejects the offer.

(O) EMPLOYMENT:

The company may modify the terms and conditions of employment as requested by the
candidate. However the alteration is purely depends on the sole discretion of the Management
/ company. The company employs those candidates who accept the job offer with or without
modification of terms and conditions of employment and place them on the job.

With the employment of the candidate the recruitment and selection process is completed.