Recruitment 

refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job.
For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often
retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.

The recruitment industry has four main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment
websites and job search engines, "headhunters" for executive and professional recruitment, and
niche agencies which specialize in a particular area of staffing. Some organizations use employer
branding strategy and in-house recruitment instead of agencies. Recruitment-related functions are
generally carried out by an organization's human resources staff.

The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, screening
potential candidates using tests and/or interviews, selecting candidates based the the results of the
tests and/or interviews, and on-boarding to ensure the candidate is able to fulfill their new role
effectively.

, and literacy, throughpsychological tests or employment testing. Agency types

The recruitment industry is based on the goal of providing a candidate to a client for a price. On one
end of the spectrum there are agencies that are paid only if they deliver a candidate that
successfully stays with the client beyond the agreed probationary period. On the other end of the
spectrum there are agencies that are paid a retainer to focus on a client's needs and achieve
milestones in the search for the right candidate, and then again are paid a percentage of the
candidate's salary when a candidate is placed and stays with the organization beyond the
probationary period. Today's (march 2011) recruitment industry is fairly competitive, therefore
agencies have sought out ways to differentiate themselves and add value by focusing on some area
of the recruitment life cycle. Here are five types of typical agencies.

[edit]Traditional agency

Also known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location.
A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before being taken onto the
agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their
clients' open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with
potential employers on a contract or direct basis.

Compensation to agencies take several forms, the most popular are:

A contingency fee paid by the company when a recommended candidate accepts a job with the
client company (typically 20%-30% based and calculated on the candidates first-year base salary
(though fees as low as 12.5% can be found online, and which usually has some form of guarantee
(30–90 days standard), should the candidate fail to perform and is terminated within a set period of
time (refundable fully or prorated).

An advance payment that serves as a retainer, also paid by the company, non-refundable paid in full
depending on outcome and success (e.g. 40% up front, 30% in 90 days and the remainder once a
search is completed). This form of compensation is generally reserved for high level executive
search/headhunters
Hourly Compensation for temporary workers and projects. A pre-negotiated hourly fee, in which the
agency is paid and pays the applicant as a consultant for services as a third party. Many contracts
allow a consultant to transition to a full-time status upon completion of a certain number of hours
with or without a conversion fee.

[edit]Headhunters

A "headhunter" is an industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates often when
normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than
in-house recruiters or may have pre-existing industry experience and contacts. They may use
advanced sales techniques such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts as well as
visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles but more
often will generate their own lists. They may arrange a meeting or a formal interview between their
client and the candidate and will usually prepare the candidate for the interview, help negotiate the
salary and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry
trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings
nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers.

Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements
(sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs,
headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters
are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging
scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the
field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit
them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters
tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will attract both candidates and actively
seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies,
maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists and cold call prospective
recruits.

Headhunters are increasingly using social media to find and research candidates. This approach is
often called social recruiting.

[edit]Niche recruiters

Specialized recruiters exist to seek staff with a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these
firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into
networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs
for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific
demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These niche firms tend to be more
focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same
candidates are placed many times throughout their careers.

[edit]The alternatives to agencies

Lower recruitment budgets and frustration with sub-standard agency practices are encouraging
companies to develop new approaches to the challenge of finding and retaining talented staff. [1] A
popular alternative to using recruitment agencies is putting in place an employee referral program.
This is a system where existing employees recommend people for vacancies and if the
recommendation results in a successful hire, the employee receives a cash bonus.

The growing popularity of social media as a way to communicate with staff has seen a handful of
companies use custom, in-house platforms to facilitate employee referrals. [2]

[edit]In-house recruitment

Under pressure to reduce costs, both large- and medium-sized employers tend to undertake their
own in-house recruitment, using their human resources department, front-line hiring managers and
recruitment personnel who handle targeted functions and populations. In addition to coordinating
with the agencies mentioned above, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own
websites, coordinate internal employee referrals, work with external associations, trade groups
and/or focus on campus graduate recruitment. Some large employers choose to outsource all or
some of their recruitment process (recruitment process outsourcing) however a much more
common approach is for employers to introduce referral schemes where employees are encouraged
to source new staff from within their own network

[edit]Passive candidate research firms and sourcing firms

These firms are the new hybrid firms in the recruitment world able to combine the research aspects
(discovering passive candidates) of recruiting and combine them with the ability to make hires for
their clients. These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support companies'
recruiting efforts. Normally they will generate varying degrees of candidate information from those
people currently engaged in the position a company is looking to fill. These firms usually charge a per
hour fee or by candidate lead. Many times this uncovers names that cannot be found with other
methods and will allow internal recruiters the ability to focus their efforts solely on recruiting.

[edit]Process

[edit]Job analysis

The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or
intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job
description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search.
[3]
 Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks
performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment
effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and
job description ensures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.

[edit]Sourcing

Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing

multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional
publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs; and
2) recruiting research, which is the proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond
to job postings and other recruitment advertising methods done in #1. This initial research for so-
called passive prospects, also called name-generation, results in a list of prospects who can then be
contacted to solicit interest, obtain a resume/CV, and be screened (see below).

[edit]Screening and selection

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and
computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through résumés, job applications,interviews,
educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for
software knowledge, typing skills, numeracyOther resume screening criteria may include length of
service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are legally mandated to
provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment
agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant
tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric
testing.

A British Army etc. recruitment centre inOxford.

[edit]Onboarding

"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive
members of an organization. A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully
operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. Onboarding is
included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding
campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere
from 1 week to 6 months.

[edit]Internet recruitment and websites

Such sites have two main features: job boards and a résumé/curriculum vitae (CV) database. Job
boards allow member companies to post job vacancies. Alternatively, candidates can upload a
résumé to be included in searches by member companies. Fees are charged for job postings and
access to search resumes. Since the late 1990s, the recruitment website has evolved to encompass
end-to-end recruitment. Websites capture candidate details and then pool them in client accessed
candidate management interfaces (also online). Key players in this sector provide e-recruitment
software and services to organizations of all sizes and within numerous industry sectors, who want
to e-enable entirely or partly their recruitment process in order to improve business performance.

The online software provided by those who specialize in online recruitment helps organizations
attract, test, recruit, employ and retain quality staff with a minimal amount of administration. Online
recruitment websites can be very helpful to find candidates that are very actively looking for work
and post their resumes online, but they will not attract the "passive" candidates who might respond
favorably to an opportunity that is presented to them through other means. Also, some candidates
who are actively looking to change jobs are hesitant to put their resumes on the job boards, for fear
that their companies, co-workers, customers or others might see their resumes.

[edit]Job search engines

The emergence of meta-search engines allows job-seekers to search across multiple websites. Some
of these new search engines index and list the advertisements of traditional job boards. These sites
tend to aim for providing a "one-stop shop" for job-seekers. However, there are many other job
search engines which index solely from employers' websites, choosing to bypass traditional job
boards entirely. These vertical search engines allow job-seekers to find new positions that may not
be advertised on traditional job boards, and online recruitment websites.

[edit]