Recruitment:
Recruitment refers to the process of screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm, or for a vacancy in a volunteer-based some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations and companies often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies. External recruitment is the process of attracting and selecting employees from outside the organization. The recruitment industry has four main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, “headhunters” for executive and professional recruitment, and in-house recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews.
Headhunters:
A “headhunter” is 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 preexisting 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 prepare a 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).
In-House Recruitment:
Larger 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. While job postings are common, networking is by far the most significant approach when reaching out to fill positions
Passive Candidate Research Firms / Sourcing Firms:
These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support company’s 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.
Process:
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.
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 insures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.
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
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.
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, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological tests or employment testing. 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
Onboarding
Onboarding refers to the overall process of acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new team members, whether they come from outside or inside the organization. The prerequisite to successful onboarding is getting your organization aligned around the need and the role[3]. Some think of onboarding as what follows recruitment. Some think of onboarding as
something to include in the recruitment process for retention purposes. How you think of it is far less important than that you do think of it as you’re thinking about recruitment.
Internet Recruitment / 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.
- Types of Recruitment:
Internal Recruitment Process Weaknesses
The Internal Recruitment Process does not have just benefits, this process has some disadvantages as well. The Internal Recruitment Process is a very powerful tool, but it can be misused in hands of some employees and managers. The Internal Recruitment Process is not a process to steal the best employees from their departments. These employees should be treated as a very scarce resource and the internal recruitment procedures should work differently for them. The managers use the internal recruitment process as a tool to transfer their own issues to the other departments. This is very dangerous as other managers will not trust the internal recruitment process and will block the ambitions of employees to be transferred. The employees can misuse the internal recruitment process, when there are no clear rules and procedures applied. The organization can support internal rotations of employees, but the rules must be clear about the length of the stay of the employee in one department. The employee can enjoy the benefit of quick internal job hopping and the results achieved are very difficult to be recognized by the organization. No manager is able to make a full performance appraisal as the whole year in one department is unique then. The employee is just focused on his or her promotion in the organization and the salary can be increased in every step.
These include filling up a vacancy using a person who is already in the company’s payroll. The vacancy is advertised within the company and on the basis of responses from within the company, a selection is made. This type of recruitment has many advantages. The company is able to obtain accurate information about the candidate as he has already been working with them. It boosts the morale of the workforce who sees that the company is able to provide them with opportunity for future growth. The cost of recruitment is relatively less. The employees being acquainted with the company already do not require job training. However, this method of recruitment has a few disadvantages as well. The choice of candidates is greatly limited. Selection of a candidate over others results in ill feeling among those who were not chosen. The selection of the candidate involves a great deal of subjectivity amongst the superiors and hence may not always be transparent.
External Recruitment Process Key Issues
The external recruitment process is a very complex HR Process, which involves many parties and the clear follow up of the individual process steps is essential. The HRM Function is responsible for setting and defining the external recruitment process and it has to be sure to solve several success factors in the external recruitment process.
The HRM Function has to push the managers to deliver clearly defined job profiles of the vacancies and the job profile cannot be changed during the recruitment process. Or, the change of the job profile cancels the search and starts a new one again. The hiring manager has to know the rules. When the job profile changes during the search, it changes the focus of the recruitment agency and brings a lot of job candidates unsuitable for the job position.
The hiring manager can be a very weak point in the recruitment process. The hiring manager has to agree with the job profile and the hiring manager has to agree to decide quickly about the final job offer for the winning candidate. The hiring manager has to be aware of the danger of being late with inviting the job candidates and the late decision taken.
The good contract with the recruitment agencies is a basis for the efficient cooperation, The recruitment agency has to know about the conditions given and the fees given for not meeting them. The recruitment agency has clearly agree with the KPIs from the contract about the delivery of candidates, expected quality of candidates and basic competencies, which has to be met. The recruitment agency is a tool for the preselection of the job candidates and it has to be able to meet the basic expectations to reduce the time needed from the HRM employees. The recruitment agency has to receive very clear brief about the vacancy in the organization. The HRM Function and the hiring manager have to define the best job profile and the description of the ideal candidate to navigate the recruitment agency in the external recruitment process. The HRM Function has to make a description of the team, the decision process in the department to allow the recruitment agency to find a candidate with the best fit. The communication during the selection process is very crucial.
The resumes have to sent to the one single email address in the HRM Function and the organization has to provide the basic feedback very quickly. The recruitment agency has to follow all the resumes sent to the organization as it can provide the candidates with additional information.
The external sources are those sources of recruitment that are found outside the employment.
1. Advertisement: This is a common method of recruitment. The advertisement usually appears in a newspaper, website or magazine. It is important that the company pays attention to how the advertisement is drafted. For the advertisement to draw the right candidates, it has to be drafted properly with clarity and should present a favorable picture of the company and the working culture.
2. Campus recruitment: There are some cases where recruiters contact educational institutions such as colleges and universities for a list of prospective candidates. The campus recruitment has the advantage of meeting all the candidates at a single place and hence saves time and effort. While campus recruitment may be attractive, it suffers from the limitation that it is suitable only for filling “entry level” positions.
3. Unsolicited applicants: Many candidates send their resumes to company without any explicit request. Companies usually file these resumes and refer to them when the need for a position arises.
4. Websites: With the advent of the Internet, searching for candidates has acquired a whole new dimension. Web portals dedicated to finding jobs have been setup. The candidates key in their details and post their resumes. Employers have to just browse through these resumes or use the site search engine to list out people with specific skills.
5. Employee referrals: Some companies also encourage current employees to refer their friends or acquaintances for positions in the organization. This system has the advantage that the new employees also have a fair idea about the organization and its culture. The downside is that this system tends to create nepotism and allows cliques of friends and relatives to form in an organization.
6. Placement Agencies: Placement agencies maintain database of resumes from prospective candidates. Companies in need of personnel contact these agencies with their profile. The agencies provide them with a list of potential candidates. The placement agencies can also assist in the recruitment process.
External sources of recruitment have many advantages. They enable fresh talent and new ideas to enter the organization. Since the selection is made from candidates from a wide area, the choice of candidates is widened.