Chapter Four

.
Recruitment

Selection

Orientation
4.1 Recruitment

• The human resources are the most important

assets of an organization.

• The success or failure of an organization is

largely dependent on the caliber of the people
working in the organization.

• Without positive and creative contributions

from people, organizations can not progress and
prosper
Nature of Recruitment

• Recruitment is the process of searching for and

obtaining applicants for jobs.
• It is a linking activity as it brings employer
and prospective employees together.
• The basic function of recruitment is to locate
the sources of people required to meet the job
requirement.
• It is a pervasive function
• Recruitment is a two-way function as it takes
both recruiter and recruits together.
Purpose of recruitment

• Increase the pool of job candidates at minimum

cost
• Help increase the success rate of the selection
process by reducing the number of visibly under-
qualified or over-qualified job applicants.
• Help reduce the probability that job applicants
once recruited and selected, will leave the
organization only after a short period of time.

• Increase organizational and individual

effectiveness in the short and long term.
 Types of Recruitment

There are three types of recruitment occasions;

such as:
• Planned: The needs arising from changes in
organization and retirement policy.
• Anticipated: organization can predict by
studying trends in internal and external
environment.
• Unexpected: Resignations, deaths, accidents,
illness give rise to unexpected needs.
 Sources of Recruitment

• Thus, there are two general sources of

recruitment; internal and external.
1. Internal Sources
• Internal recruitment seeks applicants for positions
from currently employed workers of an organization.
• With the exception of entry-level positions, most
organizations try to fill positions with current
employees.
• Vacant positions in organizations could be filled by
those existing employees through transfers and
promotions.
 Cont’d

Promotion: is moving an employee from a lower

position or job status to a higher position or job
status. This is done when individuals have the
potential and capacity to carry out the
requirement of the higher position and job status.
Transfer: is moving one person from the existing
position to another position with equal status.
Other internal sources also include: Employee
referrals, former employee, Dependents and
relatives of deceased and disabled employee.
2. External Sources

• External recruiting is attracting applicants

from outside the organization.

• It is needed in organizations that are growing

rapidly or have a large demand for technical,
skilled, or managerial employees

• External sources provide large pool of

candidates.
 Cont’d
Employers require external sources for:
• To fill entry-level jobs (jobs for the beginners).
• To acquire skills not possessed by current
employees.
• To obtain employees with different
background, to provide new idea
 Sources of external recruitment include:

• Educational institute (Schools, colleges and

Universities)
• The unemployed
• Competitors and other organizations
• Private and public employment agencies
• Professional Associations
 Recruitment Method

• Methods of recruitment can be classified broadly and

specifically.
Methods of recruitment broadly
I. Internal method
Management should able to identify current
employees who are capable of filling position.
Example: Job Posting and Bidding
 Job posting is a process where announcements of
positions are made available to all current employees
through organization newsletters, bulletin boards,
and so on.
II. External Method
A. Job Advertisement
 It is a widely used recruitment method in order to
reach relatively large number of potential
applicants.
 Advertisements are commonly placed in daily
newspapers, trade and professional newspapers,
radio, TV and billboards.
 the choice of appropriate media for a specific
advertisement should depend on the type of job
and degree of coverage.
 Cont’d
• In addition to the media used, the construction of the
advertisement is also important:
Attract attention: Using wider boarders or a lot of
empty space around.
Develop or create interest in the job: Mentioning some
key aspects of the job that might spark interest of
potential applicants.
Create desire: amplifying on the interest factors and
other factors that may be part of the job (job
satisfaction, career development, etc).

Instigate action: adding phrases such as “Call today”,

Write today for more information”
B. College Recruiting (Educational
institutions)
 It involves recruitment from educational
institutions that offer opportunities to recruit
recent graduates.
 Educational institutions are particularly
excellent for entry-level positions.
 It could be also important sources of
professional and technical employees.
 This method includes campus interviews
and keeping a live register of job seekers.
C. Employment Agencies
Those agencies have information on job seekers in
terms of qualifications, skills, interests.
The major functions of these agencies are to increase
the pool of possible applicants and to do preliminary
screening.
To utilize these agencies effectively and efficiently,
organizations are advised to:
• Give the agency an accurate and complete job
description and specification.
• Specify the devices or tools that the agency should
use in screening potential applicants.
• If possible, create a long-term relationship with
one or more agencies.
 Cont’d
• Organizations specifically use employment
agencies when;
They do not have their own human
resource department
They want to fill a particular position
openings quickly.
D. Employee referrals
 Employees who were hired through referrals from
current employees tend to stay within the
organization longer
 This method of recruiting potential employees can
cut recruiting costs by eliminating advertising and
agency fees
 Employee referral method may result in nepotism
and sometimes violet Equal Employment
Opportunity law
E. Walk-ins /Write-ins or Unsolicited
application
• The most common and least expensive approach for
job candidates is direct applications where job seekers
submit unsolicited application by:
• Letter (e.g., a resume),
• Telephone
• in person
F. Internet (websites)
The main advantages of e-recruitment technique to
the organization are:
• Reduce recruitment costs and speed up the recruitment
cycle.
• Make applying easier.
• Reach a wide pool of potential applicants.
However, e-recruitment has the following
drawbacks:
It obviously excludes those applicants who either
cannot access the internet
Organizations may be bombarded with unsuitable
applicants because it is easy to apply online.
The recruitment process becomes impersonal
G. Apprenticeship/Internship
 An apprenticeship is a special form of
recruiting in which a student is placed in a
temporary job
H. Labor contractor: Often unskilled and
semiskilled workers are recruited through
labor contractors.
 Methods of Recruitment specifically

A. Direct method of recruitment: Recruiters

directly contact the prospective employees
and attract them.
B. Indirect method: Organizations encourage
prospective employees to apply for vacancies
through advertisements in newspapers,
magazines, journals, etc..
C. Third party method: Private employment
agencies
 Factors Governing Recruitment

recruitment is naturally subject to influence of

several factors these include external as well as
internal factors.
I. External Factors
 Personnel policies and practices of other organizations
regarding working conditions, salary scale, benefits,
promotional opportunities, employee relations etc.
 Career opportunities in other organization.
 Government regulations
 Supply and Demand: If the demand for a particular
skill is high relative to the supply, an extraordinary
recruiting effort may be needed.
 Cont’d
 Unemployment Rate: If it is high in a given
area, the companies’ recruitment process may
be simpler.
 Labor Market: These conditions in a local area
or of primary importance in recruiting for most
non managerial, middle level management
positions.
II. Internal Factors
 The possible internal factors affecting
recruitment process are:
Working conditions of the organization
Promotional opportunities
Salary level, and type and extent of benefits
Other Personnel policies and practices
Image of the organization
 Cont’d
Ability and skill of the management to stimulate
the candidates
Recruitment Policy
Temporary and Part time Employees
Human Resource Planning policy
Size of the Organization
Cost of Recruiting
4.2 Selection

 Recruiting thus provides a pool of applicants

for selection.

 Selection is the process of picking individuals

who have relevant qualifications to fill jobs in
an organization.

 It is the process of differentiating between

applicants in order to identify those with a
greater likelihood of success in a job
 Selection Process

 Selection is usually a series of hurdles or steps.

 Each one must be successfully cleared before the
applicant proceeds to the next stage.

 The time and emphasis placed on each step will of

course vary from one organization to another
organization and indeed job to job within the same
organization.

 The sequencing of steps also may vary from job to

job and organization to organization. Now let us
examine step by step in detail.
1. Reception
 A company is known by the people it
employs.
 In order to attract people with talent, skills,
experience a company has to create a
favorable impression on the applicant’s
right from the stage of reception.

 Whoever meets the applicant initially

should be tactful and able extend help in a
friendly and courteous/polite way.
2. Screening Interview
 It is also called preliminary interview which is
cut the cost of selection by allowing only
eligible candidates to go through the further
stages in selection.
 Getting responses from applicants on important
items determining the suitability of an applicant
for a job such as age, education, experience,
pay expectations, aptitude, location choice, etc.
 This courtesy interview as it is often called
helps the department to screen out obvious
misfits
3. Application Blank
• It is one of the most common methods used to collect
information on various aspects of the applicants
academic, social, demographic, work related
background and references.
• It is a brief history sheet of an employee’s background
usually containing the following things.
Personal Data
Marital Data
Physical Data
Educational Data
Employment Data
Extracurricular Activities Data
References
4. Selection Tests
• Another important decision in the selection
process involves applicant testing and the
kinds of tests to use.
• A test is a standardized, objective measure of a
person’s behavior, performance and attitude.
• It is standardized because the test is
administered and the way the individual scores
are calculated uniformly applied.
• Some of tests commonly used employment
tests may be stated as:
a) Intelligence Tests
 These are mental ability tests.
 They measure the incumbents learning ability and
also the ability to understand instructions and
make judgments.
 The basic objective of these tests are to pick up
employees who are alert and quick at learning things
 These tests do not measure any single trait but several
abilities such as memory, vocabulary, verbal fluency,
perception etc.
b) Aptitude Tests
 These tests indicate the ability or fitness of an individual to
engage successfully in any number of specialized activities.
They cover such areas as clerical aptitude, mechanical
aptitude, motor coordination, etc..
c) Personality Tests
 These tests are given to measure a prospective
employee’s motivation to function in a particular
environment. There are three types of PIP tests:
Projective Tests: These tests expect the
candidates to interpret problems or situations
based on their own motives, attitudes,
values, etc
Interests Tests: These are used to find how
a person in tests compares with the interest
of successful people in a specific job.
Preference Tests: These tests try to compare
employee preference with job and the
organizational requirements.
d) Achievement tests
 These are designed to measure what the applicant can do
on the job currently.
e) Simulation Tests
 Simulation exercise is a test which duplicates many of the
activities and problems an employee faces while at work
f) Assessment Centre
 An assessment centre is an extended work sample.
 These exercises are designed to simulate types of work
which the candidate will be expected to do. Initially a
small batch of applicants comes to the assessment centre
(a separate room).
 Their performance in the situational exercises is observed
and evaluated by the team of 6 to 8 trained assessors.
 Cont’d
• Examples of the simulated exercises based on real-
life, included in a typical assessment centre are as
follows:
The in-basket
Here the candidate is faced with an
accumulation of reports, memos, letters and
other materials collected in the in-basket of the
simulated job he is supposed to take over.

The candidate is asked to take necessary action

within a limited amount of time on each of these
materials say by writing letters, notes, agendas
for meetings, etc
The Leaderless Group Discussion (LGD)
 This exercise involves groups of managerial
candidates working together on a job related
problem.
 The problem is generally designed to be as realistic
as possible and his tackled usually in groups of 5
or 6 candidates.
 Two or more assessors typically observe the
interaction as the group tries to reach consensus on
a given problem.
 The LGD is used to assess dimensions such as oral
communication, tolerance for stress, adoptability,
self-confidence, persuasive ability, etc.
Business Games
simulated by competing in the market place.
Decisions might include how to advertise and
produce, how to penetrate the market, how much to
keep in stock, etc
Individual Presentations: Participants are
given a limited amount of time to plan, organize
and prepare a presentation on an assigned topic.
Structured Interview: Evaluators ask a series
of questions aimed at the participant’s level of
achievements, motivation, potential of being a
self-starter and commitment to the company.
g) Graphology Tests: It is designed to analyze the
handwriting of an individual.
h) Polygraph (lie detector) Tests: The polygraph
records physical changes in the body as the test
subject answers a series of questions. It regards
fluctuations in respiration, blood pressure and
perspiration on a moving role of graph paper.

i) Integrity Tests: These are designed to

measure employee’s honesty to predict who
are more likely to steal from an employer or
otherwise act in a manner unacceptable to the
organization.
5. Selection Interview
• Interview is the oral examination of candidates for
employment.
Types of Interviews:
• Non-directive Interview: In this the recruiter asks
questions as they come to mind. There is no specific
format to be followed.
• The Direct or Structural Interview: In this method
the recruiter uses predetermined set of questions that
are clearly job related.
• The Situational Interview: In this approach the
applicant is confronted with a hypothetical incident
and asked how he/ she would respond to it.
 Cont’d
• The behavioral Interview: The behavioral
interview focuses on actual work incidents (as
against hypothetical interview in the situational
interview) in the applicant’s past.
• Stress Interview: In this interview the
interviewer attempts to find how applicants
would respond to aggressive, embarrassing,
rude and insulting questions
• Panel interview: In a typical panel interview
the applicant meets with three to five
interviewers who take turns asking questions.
6. Medical Examination
• Certain jobs require physical qualities like clear
vision, acute hearing, unusually high stamina,
tolerance of arduous working conditions, clear tone
of voice
7. Reference Checks
• The HR department is engage in checking the
references.
• Candidates are required to give the names of two or
three references in their application forms.
8. Hiring Decision
• The line manager concerned has to make the
final decision now
• The line manager has to take adequate care in
taking the final decision because of economic,
behavioral and social implications of the
selection decisions.
 Barriers to effective selection

• Perception: Our inability to understand

others accurately is probably the most
fundamental barrier in selecting the right
candidate.
• Fairness: Fairness in selection requires
that no individual should be
discriminated against on the basis of
region, religion, race or gender.
 Cont’d
• Validity: A test that has been validated can
differentiate between the employees who can
perform well and those who will not.
• Reliability: It is one which will produce consistent
results when repeated in similar situations.
• Pressure: It is brought on the selectors by
politicians, bureaucrats, relatives, friends, pears to
select particular candidates.
 4.3 Orientation/Induction

• After selecting a candidate, he should be placed on a

suitable job.

• Proper placement helps an employee to get along with

people easily, avoid mistakes and so good performance
on the jobs.

• Orientation makes the employee feel at home from day

one and develop a sense of pride in the organization and
commitment to the job.
• Orientation is the task of introducing the new employees
to the organization and its policies, procedures and rules.
 Purpose of orientation

a) Removes fears: It assists them in knowing more

about:
 The job, its content, policies, rules and
regulations.
 The people with whom they are supposed
to interact. .
 The terms and conditions of employment
b) Creates a good impression
c) Act as a valuable source of information
 Problems of orientation

• Supervisor who is entrusted with the job is not trained or

is too busy.

• Employee is overwhelmed with too much information in

a short time.

• Employee is given only menial tasks that discourage job

interest on company loyalty.
 Cont’d
• Employee is asked to perform tasks where
there are high chances of failure

• Employee is thrown into action too soon.

• Employee is forced to fill in the gaps between

a broad orientation by the HR department and
a narrow orientation at the departmental level.
 Levels of orientation

• The following steps while organizing the

induction program:
• Welcome to the organization
• Explain about the company.
• Show the location, department where the new
recruit will work. .
• Give the company's manual to the new recruit.
• Provide details about various work groups and
the extent of unionism within the company.
 Cont’d
• Give details about pay, benefits, holidays, leave,
etc.
• Emphasize the importance of attendance or
punctuality.
• Explain about future training opportunities and
career prospects.
• Clarify doubts, by encouraging the employee to
come out with questions.
• Take the employee on a guided tour of buildings,
facilities, etc. and
• Hand him/her over to his supervisor.
THE EN
D