Running head: THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

The Recruitment Process Daniel A. Plaza National American University

The recruitment process

The recruitment process An organization is a complex systematic structure of interactive human relations which has the function to organized or administered tasks and it can lead the company to its success or failure. This is the reason why hiring becomes very important in the company. The recruitment department must meet several phases in order to have a successful recruitment process. There are eight phases approximately in this process, the job position analysis, interviews, psychological tests and training programs are just a few and every single one of them can determined if the candidate is appropriate for the organization or not. A common definition of the selection process is that is a sequence of steps to take in order to get a person who meets certain requirements necessary to fill a particular job position. These steps must be performed with accuracy in order to avoid mistakes; if the recruitment department omits a step the organization runs the risk of not achieving the desired success. The first step in this complex process is the analysis of the job position. This phase provides the recruitment department with information about the duties and responsibilities that the person is going to be pardoning during the job. It also provides information about what type of skills, experience, knowledge and psychological profile the future employee must have. To ensure the success of the analysis, the recruitment department must have a visible support from senior managers. Senior managers should communicate their requirements about what type of person they want to fill the position. The necessary information can be collected by performing different techniques such as interviews, observing a similar job position, making a job position questionnaire, an employees journal or a combination of two or more of them. In the interview method, the analyst discusses the details of the job position with one or more employees who are occupying the same or similar position to be filled inside the

The recruitment process

organization. Generally the analyst uses a checklist to conduct the interview in which he or she writes notes of responses and then gives them a place in the various sections of the job description. The analyst doesnt need to interview all the employees, with just a representative sample would be enough. A supervisor can help identify two or three employees who have more and lees experience in the job in order to be interviewed by the analyst. This way the analyst can set minimum and maximum requirements for the job position. The observation technique consists of seen some employees who currently holds the job position while they are performing their duties. The analyst occasionally asks questions about various elements of work. During the observation, the analyst carefully takes notes which he or she then uses for the preparation of the job description. One of the most common techniques use by the analyst is the employment of an extensive questionnaire. It is distributed to all the employees of a specific department for its complication and then it is return to the analyst. Not all companies that employ this technique lets the employees fill out the questionnaire because they higher administration doesnt want to involved the employees in making the descriptions of their jobs. The employees journal method requires each employee to keep a log of their daily activities during a given period. This method is acceptable only when the work is routine and repeated in a short-term period of time like a week or in some cases a month. Production jobs, clericals, office administration or maintenance jobs are some examples. This method does not provide adequate information to the analyst when the work varies widely or when tasks are not repeated in the short term period. This is obviously the case of the supervisory and management positions, sales or marketing departments.

The recruitment process

The second phase in the recruitment process is known as the human resource inventory. Most companies have an inventory of employees which are files that contains records of employees. These files or documents contains relevant data on their performance, ranging from the employment application, tests were performed in the selection process, which has had disabilities, etc. When there is an opening position in the company, the recruitment department often turns to this medium in order to verify if the company has the right employee within the organization to fill the position. When the recruitment department uses this internal inventory, it represents an opportunity for the companys employees to fill vacancies through an internal competition. This gives them the not only the possibility of a career development but also an effective motivational strategy. This procedure aims to provide an opportunity of improvement to all the employees, showing them that the company provides opportunities to promote the most capable and skilled employee, meaning that interest of employees to excel in their work knowledge and culture will be constant. After reviewing the human resource inventory the recruitment department enters a third phase in which they will have to make a decision of whether to recruit from the inside of the organization or from the exterior or market. The internal recruitment is when the company seeks to fill the new position through the relocation of their employees. They can be promoted, known as vertical movement, or transferred, known as horizontal movement. There are some advantages when the company uses the internal recruitment process. It is much cheaper for the company because it avoids costs related to the publication of the recruitment, cost related to the reception of the possible candidates, admission fees, costs of integrating new employees, and other types of costs. It is also faster than the external recruitment because it avoids frequent delays that happen in the

The recruitment process

eternal recruitment. The company feels more secure because the candidate is already known by the organization. He has ben already evaluated for a period of time and underwent the concepts of their superiors in most of the time. The candidate doesnt need a period of trail or a period of integration to the company. This process is a powerful source of inspiration and motivation for the other employees because they see the possible the possibility of advancement within the organization for those who have shown some conditions for future advancement. It develops a healthy competitive spirit among the companys employees bearing in mind that the opportunities will be offered to those who demonstrate the necessary skills. It is valid to mention that the internal recruitment has some disadvantages for the company. It requires that the employees have potential development to move up a least a few levels above the position they are entering and motivation to get there. If the organization docent offers advancement opportunities at the right time they might frustrate their employees causing apathy, indifference even their withdrawal of the organization so they can pursue better professional opportunities. The internal recruitment can cause a conflict of interest because not all of the employees will have the necessary conditions to be promoted. If it is not well administrated it can lead to a situation known as the Peter Principle. This principle states that when companies constantly promotes their employees to reward them for their exceptional work eventually the employees would be stock in a position where they would be performing an unsatisfactory work and the company would not be able to return him to this or her last position. The external recruitment is when the company seeks to fill the new position through the selection of external candidates attract by web publications, new papers publications or other types of advertisement systems. There are advantages when the company decides to use the external recruitment process. When recruitment from outside the company, the new employed

The recruitment process

would bring new experiences into the organization, human resource inputs always causes the importation of new ideas and different approaches to solving problems within the organization. When recruiting from outside the organization, as a system, it is constantly update regarding the external environment and what is happening in other companies. The disadvantages regarding this process are noticeable too. It usually takes more time than the internal recruitment. The period spend in choosing and implementing the appropriate techniques, the attraction and introduction to candidates, the exams and other commitments and incomes is not small and the higher the job position the grater the period of time spend. It is also more expensive and requires immediate investments and expenditures, print advertising, recruitment agency fees, operating expenses relate to wages and social obligations of the recruitment team, office supplies, forms and much more. In principle it is less secure than the internal recruitment and external candidates are unknown, coming from backgrounds and career paths that the company is not able to verify accurately. Despite the techniques of recruitment, companies insurance them self against the uncertainty by singing a trial contract with the employee which means that the he or she is going to be on trial for a couple of months. The companys current employees get frustrate because they start to perceive barriers that holds them back and wont let their professional life be develop they might perceive this situation as an unfair policy towards them. It also affects the companys wage policy acting on its wage system, especially when the supply and demand of human resources are imbalanced. Once the recruitment department has a certain number of candidates, they have to choose those who are as close as possible from meeting the prerequisites for the position. After the preselection, the third phase that comes in the recruitment process is known as the Interview. The interview is a resource that the recruitment department uses in order to obtain more relevant

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information about the candidate. There are 3 types of interviews that the recruitment department can do in this phase. The first type is known as the Unstructured Interview. This type of interview consists on asking questions according to what is arising during the interview, there arent any set or questions program. It is not 100% recommended because it is difficult administrate and causes it to ignore important questions about the topic. The recruitment department doesnt benefit from applying it because it doesnt deliver adequate information about the candidate. The structured interview, as its name mentions, is an interview in which the questions are structured. Adding more questions or changing them during the interview is impossible. It is not recommended to use it because it enables the candidate to challenge the question ask by the interviewer. The mixed interview is define as one in which the questions have already been develop but it is possible to add more questions during the interview period. It allows more freedom to the candidate there fore it delivers better results. After the recruitment department has selected what type of interview fits better there necessities they can began with the initial interview. The initial interview is carried out to obtain general information, having a duration of 10 to 15 minutes. It is generally performed by a selected manager. After the candidate passes the initial interview they have to undergo the final interview. Its objective is to obtain relevant information about the candidate. Once the initial and final interview, it is necessary to make a report informing about the performance of the candidates. Generally each company has its own format but usually it contain information about the personal appearance, physical conditions and an evaluation from the interview regarding the posture that the candidate had during the interviews.

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Psychological Testing is the fourth phase in the recruitment process. There are different types of psychological test that can be applied to the candidates and all of them are used to measure their skills and capabilities. The test presents questions with several options for answering but only one of the options can be chosen. It is applied to the intermediate or administrative levels but not for those levels in which the physical work predominates. They are classified in to two groups, those who analyze the personality of the candidate and those who analyze the efficiency of the candidate. Some people believe they can modify their own personality base on the appropriate response in the personality test. They dont know that the construction or structure of the question presented in the test aims to discover how perfect they are trying to appear. There are to known questionnaires about the personality testes, the temperaments inventory from Guilford y Zimmerman and the 16 PF from Catelli. The last one is the most widely used in the recruitment process it consists of questions that doesnt live any aspect of the personality unverified. It allows the measurement of 4 dimensions such as anxiety, extroversion, sensitivity and independence. The psychometric aptitude test, also called efficiency test, measures certain abilities that the candidate must possess regarding their intellectual capacity. Depending on the type of job this test can be used to measure different aptitudes such as IQ, verbal reasoning, memory, skills and abilities and creativity just to mention a few. The fifth phase is the practical or evidence of work. In this phase the recruitment department tests their experience by providing them whit the necessary tools and implements. The sixth phase is the medical examination. Some companies requires to know the health statues of their future employees.

The recruitment process

The socioeconomic study is the seventh phase. It is conducted to determine the candidate financial situation, creditworthiness and possible criminal records. Companies usually dont give a high value to this step but is recommended to do it when the job position activity requires the candidate to handle money. The recruitment process is the eighth phase. This is the penultimate step in the recruitment process. It notifies the candidate that he or she has been selected to fill the vacancy. It is the establishment of a formal relationship with the new employee. The last phase in the recruitment process is the Control of the Recruitment Process. It can be defined as the verification of the recruitment processes through periodic evaluations made to the new employee. The objective is to determine whether the recruitment process had the desired success for the organization and if it met its goal. It is evident that is very important to perform a recruitment process in order to obtain qualify employee that can be of a great value to the organization. To be successful in this task the recruitment department must fulfill every phase and have a control in each one of them in order to analyze what can be improved to obtain more qualified and more efficient employees. An efficient recruitment process is synonym of a successful company.

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References Wikipedia. (n.d.) Retrived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment Margaret A. Richardson. (n.d.) Recruitment Strategies Managing/Efecting the recruitment process. Retrieve from: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan021814.pdf Caja de Herramientas. (n.d.) Seleccin de Personal. Retrived Julie 29, 2011from: http://www.infomipyme.com/Docs/GT/empresarios/rrhh/page7.html Walsall Council . (n.d.) . Recruitment process . Retrived from:
http://cms.walsall.gov.uk/index/jobshop/recruitment_process.htm ACAS . (n.d.) . The recruitment process . Retrived from http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=751