Recruitment

Recruiting employees is prelude to selecting employees. All things being equal, the larger the pool of arguably qualified applicants, the more likely an organization is to select someone most likely to excel at that position.

In recent years organizations have consistently discussed the actual identification of employees to consider for employment (i.e., recruitment) as part of a broader talent management process that connects the quality of hires to concerns regarding strategic HR. Consider the short presentation of the Head of Corporate Resourcing at Nestle.

Based on job descriptions and the knowledge and skills required to perform the jobs, organizations must determine when, where and how to find candidates for any particular position.

The text book makes a solid argument that recruitment will be tied to forecasting future labor demand. Some of the relevant data will come from external sources. For example, national economic indicators might suggest an economic downturn that would reduce the need to recruit certain types of employees. On the other hand, much data will be derived from internal records. The use of a transitional matrix is an example illustrated in the text.

Eventually an organization will determine the types of jobs for which it must recruit and anticipate the number of persons it must hire. Certainly organizations will seek applicants in excess of the number of anticipated openings. It is at this point that the interests of the applicant and the organization begin to converge. As the organization begins to advertise openings, a potential applicant begins a search. Where the recruitment and search processes converge will determine when any particular person will become aware of an opening and decide whether to apply.

The number of tools used to help the employer’s and potential employees’ interests to connect has grown considerably in recent years. In the past, local job searches usually began with an advertisement in the local newspaper’s “want ad” section. In many cases interested candidates were invited to an office to complete a paper application. In some cases the ad would provide an address to which the applicant could send a resume. For other than a local search, organizations might place ads in national newspapers (e.g., Wall Street Journal, New York Times) or in national trade publications (e.g., Chronicle of Higher Education). For management or professional/technical positions at the highest levels, an organization might have employed search firms to handle this phase of the process.

Recruitment Tools: Past and Present

The text and likely your own personal experiences suggest that a much larger array of options currently exists. The digital revolution created websites such as Monster.com, designed specifically to make a connection between employer and applicant. LinkedIn, a professional networking site, provides a huge data source for recruitment activities, as does such a site as Facebook. This latter example illustrates the ability to use what is primarily a social networking site as a recruitment tool.

Of course, whatever tools are used for the purpose of recruitment must conform to law protecting various groups from either intentional or unintentional discrimination. For example, even if not done deliberately for discriminatory purposes, advertising a job in a local newspaper with little or no circulation among protected groups will likely have a disproportionate impact on the number protected group applicants, and eventually have an adverse impact on minority group employment. Similarly, in organizations of with little worker diversity, relying on employees’ word-of-mouth advertising would frequently perpetuate an existing demographic within the workforce.