LESSON 5

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Recruitment and Selection is an important operation in HRM, designed to

maximize employee strength in order to meet the employer's strategic goals and
objectives. In short, Recruitment and Selection is the process of sourcing, screening,
shortlisting and selecting the right candidates for the filling the required vacant positions.
In this tutorial, we will discuss the various aspects of Recruitment and Selection such as
the recruitment process, the factors affecting recruitment, recruitment planning, methods
of recruitment, recruitment interviews, selection process and making an offer. The Scope
of Recruitment and Selection The scope of Recruitment and Selection is very wide and it
consists of a variety of operations. Resources are considered as most important asset to
any organization. Hence, hiring right resources is the most important aspect of
Recruitment. Every company has its own pattern of recruitment as per their recruitment
policies and procedures. The scope of Recruitment and Selection includes the following
operations:

• Dealing with the excess or shortage of resources

• Preparing the Recruitment policy for different categories of employees

• Analyzing the recruitment policies, processes, and procedures of the organization

• Identifying the areas, where there could be a scope of improvement

• Streamlining the hiring process with suitable recommendations

• Choosing the best suitable process of recruitment for effective hiring of resources

What is Recruitment?

Recruitment is a process of identifying, screening, shortlisting and hiring potential

resource for filling up the vacant positions in an organization. It is a core function of
Human Resource Management. Recruitment is the process of choosing the right person
for the right position and at the right time. Recruitment also refers to the process of
attracting, selecting, and appointing potential candidates to meet the organization’s
resource requirements. The hiring of the candidates can be done internally i.e., within the
organization, or from external sources. And the process should be performed within a
time constraint and it should be cost effective.

IMPORTANCE OF RECRUITMENT

Recruitment is one of the most fundamental activities of the HR team. If the recruitment
process is efficient, then –

• The organization gets happier and more productive employees

• Attrition rate reduces.

• It builds a good workplace environment with good employee relationships.

• It results in overall growth of the organization.

Here is a list that shows the purpose and importance of Recruitment in an

organization:

• It determines the current and future job requirement.

• It increases the pool of job at the minimal cost.

• It helps in increasing the success rate of selecting the right candidates.

• It helps in reducing the probability of short-term employments.

• It meets the organization’s social and legal obligations with regards to the work force.

• It helps in identifying the job applicants and selecting the appropriate resources.

• It helps in increasing organizational effectives for a short and long term.

• It helps in evaluating the effectiveness of the various recruitment techniques.

• It attracts and encourages the applicants to apply for the vacancies in an organization.

• It determines the present futures requirements of the organization and plan according.

• It links the potential employees with the employers.

• It helps in increasing the success ratio of the selection process of prospective

candidates.

• It helps in creating a talent pool of prospective candidates, which enables in selecting

the right candidates for the right job as per the organizational needs.
Factors Affecting Recruitment

Recruitment is an important function of the Human Resource Management in an

organization, and it is governed by a mixture of various factors. Proactive HR
Professionals should understand these factors influencing the recruitment and take
necessary actions for the betterment of the organization. When the market condition
changes, the organization also needs to monitor these changes and discover how it
affects the resources and analyze these functions for making recruitment an effective
process. We have Internal Factors as well as External Factors that influence the
recruitment process.
In this chapter, we will be discussing these factors in detail.

Internal Factors

Organizations have control over the internal factors that affect their recruitment
functions.
The internal factors are:

• Size of organization

• Recruiting policy

• Image of organization • Image of job

SIZE OF ORGANIZATION

The size of the organization is one of the most important factors affecting the recruitment
process. To expand the business, recruitment planning is mandatory for hiring more
resources, which will be handling the future operation

RECRUITING POLICY

Recruitment policy of an organization, i.e., hiring from internal or external sources of

organization is also a factor, which affects the recruitment process. It specifies the
objectives of the recruitment and provides a framework for the implementation of
recruitment programs.

IMAGE OF ORGANIZATION

Organizations having a good positive image in the market can easily attract competent
resources. Maintaining good public relations, providing public services, etc., definitely
helps an organization in enhancing its reputation in the market, and thereby attract the
best possible resources.

IMAGE OF JOB

Just like the image of organization, the image of a job plays a critical role in recruitment.
Jobs having a positive image in terms of better remuneration, promotions, recognition,
good work environment with career development opportunities are considered to be the
characteristics to attract qualified candidates.

EXTERNAL FACTORS
External factors are those that cannot be controlled by an organization. The external
factors that affect the recruitment process include the following:

• Demographic factors – Demographic factors are related to the attributes of potential

employees such as their age, religion, literacy level, gender, occupation, economic
status, etc.

• Labor market – Labor market controls the demand and supply of labor. For example, if
the supply of people having a specific skill is less than the demand, then the hiring will
need more efforts. On the other hand, if the demand is less than the supply, the hiring
will be relative easier.

• Unemployment rate – If the unemployment rate is high in a specific area, hiring of

resources will be simple and easier, as the number of applicants is very high. In
contrast, if the unemployment rate is low, then recruiting tends to be very difficult due to
less number of resources

. • Labor laws – Labor laws reflect the social and political environment of a market, which
are created by the central and state governments. These laws dictate the compensation,
working environment, safety and health regulations, etc., for different types of
employments. As the government changes, the laws too change.

• Legal considerations – Job reservations for different castes such as STs, SCs, OBCs
are best examples of legal considerations. These considerations, passed by
government, will have a positive or negative impact on the recruitment policies of the
organizations

. • Competitors – When organizations in the same industry are competing for the best
qualified resources, there is a need to analyze the competition and offer the resources
packages that are best in terms of industry standards.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS
Recruitment is a process of finding and attracting the potential resources for filling up the
vacant positions in an organization. It sources the candidates with the abilities and
attitude, which are required for achieving the objectives of an organization

Recruitment process is a process of identifying the jobs vacancy, analyzing the job
requirements, reviewing applications, screening, shortlisting and selecting the right
candidate

To increase the efficiency of hiring, it is recommended that the HR team of an

organization follows the five best practices (as shown in the following image). These five
practices ensure successful recruitment without any interruptions. In addition, these
practices also ensure consistency and compliance in the recruitment process.

Recruitment process is the first step in creating a powerful resource base. The process
undergoes a systematic procedure starting from sourcing the resources to arranging and
conducting interviews and finally selecting the right candidates

RECRUITMENT PLANNING
Recruitment planning is the first step of the recruitment process, where the vacant
positions are analyzed and described. It includes job specifications and its nature,
experience, qualifications and skills required for the job, etc.
A structured recruitment plan is mandatory to attract potential candidates from a pool of
candidates. The potential candidates should be qualified, experienced with a capability to
take the responsibilities required to achieve the objectives of the organization.

IDENTIFYING VACANCY
The first and foremost process of recruitment plan is identifying the vacancy. This
process begins with receiving the requisition for recruitments from different department of
the organization to the HR Department, which contains:

• Number of posts to be filled

• Number of positions

• Duties and responsibilities to be performed

• Qualification and experience required When a vacancy is identified, it the responsibility

of the sourcing manager to ascertain whether the position is required or not, permanent
or temporary, full-time or part-time, etc.

These parameters should be evaluated before commencing recruitment. Proper

identifying, planning and evaluating leads to hiring of the right resource for the team and
the organization.

JOB ANALYSIS
Job analysis is a process of identifying, analyzing, and determining the duties,
responsibilities, skills, abilities, and work environment of a specific job. These factors
help in identifying what a job demands and what an employee must possess in
performing a job productively. Job analysis helps in understanding what tasks are
important and how to perform them. Its purpose is to establish and document the job
relatedness of employment procedures such as selection, training, compensation, and
performance appraisal.

The following steps are important in analyzing a job:

• Recording and collecting job information

• Accuracy in checking the job information

• Generating job description based on the information

• Determining the skills, knowledge and skills, which are required for the job

The immediate products of job analysis are job descriptions and job
specifications

JOB DESCRIPTION
Job description is an important document, which is descriptive in nature and contains the
final statement of the job analysis. This description is very important for a successful
recruitment process.

Job description provides information about the scope of job roles, responsibilities and the
positioning of the job in the organization. And this data gives the employer and the
organization a clear idea of what an employee must do to meet the requirement of his job
responsibilities. Job description is generated for fulfilling the following processes:

• Classification and ranking of jobs

• Placing and orientation of new resources • Promotions and transfer s • Describing

the career path

• Future development of work standards

A job description provides information on the following elements:

• Job Title / Job Identification / Organization Position

• Job Location
• Summary of Job
• Job Duties
• Machines, Materials and Equipment
• Process of Supervision
• Working Conditions
• Health Hazards
JOB SPECIFICATION

Job specification focuses on the specifications of the candidate, whom the HR team is
going to hire. The first step in job specification is preparing the list of all jobs in the
organization and its locations. The second step is to generate the information of each
job.

This information about each job in an organization is as follows:

• Physical specifications

• Mental specifications

• Physical features

• Emotional specifications

• Behavioral specifications

A job specification document provides information on the following elements:

• Qualification

• Experiences

• Training and development Recruitment and Selection

• Skills requirements

• Work responsibilities
• Emotional characteristics
• Planning of career

JOB EVALUATION
Job evaluation is a comparative process of analyzing, assessing, and determining the
relative value/worth of a job in relation to the other jobs in an organization.

The main objective of job evaluation is to analyze and determine which job commands
how much pay. There are several methods such as job grading, job classifications, job
ranking, etc., which are involved in job evaluation. Job evaluation forms the basis for
salary and wage negotiations.
RECRUITMENT STRATEGY
Recruitment strategy is the second step of the recruitment process, where a strategy is
prepared for hiring the resources. After completing the preparation of job descriptions
and job specifications, the next step is to decide which strategy to adopt for recruiting the
potential candidates for the organization.

While preparing a recruitment strategy, the HR team considers the following points:

• Make or buy employees

• Types of recruitment

• Geographical area

• Recruitment sources

The development of a recruitment strategy is a long process, but having a right strategy
is mandatory to attract the right candidates. The steps involved in developing a
recruitment strategy include:

• Setting up a board team

• Analyzing HR strategy

• Collection of available data

• Analyzing the collected data

• Setting the recruitment strategy

SEARCHING THE RIGHT CANDIDATES

Searching is the process of recruitment where the resources are sourced depending
upon the requirement of the job. After the recruitment strategy is done, the searching of
candidates will be initialized. This process consists of two steps:

• Source activation: Once the line manager verifies and permits the existence of the
vacancy, the search for candidates starts.

• Selling: Here, the organization selects the media through which the
communication of vacancies reaches the prospective candidates.
Searching involves attracting the job seekers to the vacancies. The sources are broadly
divided into two categories: Internal Sources and External Sources

INTERNAL SOURCES

Internal sources of recruitment refer to hiring employees within the organization through:

• Promotions

• Transfers

• Former Employees

• Internal Advertisements (Job Posting)

• Employee Referrals • Previous Applicants

EXTERNAL SOURCES

External sources of recruitment refer to hiring employees outside the organization

through:

• Direct Recruitment

• Employment Exchanges

• Employment Agencies

• Advertisements

• Professional Associations

• Campus Recruitment

• Word of Mouth

SCREENING/SHORTLISTING

Screening starts after completion of the process of sourcing the candidates. Screening is
the process of filtering the applications of the candidates for further selection process.

Screening is an integral part of recruitment process that helps in removing unqualified or

irrelevant candidates, which were received through sourcing. The screening process of
recruitment consists of three steps:
REVIEWING OF RESUMES AND COVER LETTER

Reviewing is the first step of screening candidates. In this process, the resumes of the
candidates are reviewed and checked for the candidates’ education, work experience,
and overall background matching the requirement of the job.

While reviewing the resumes, an HR executive must keep the following points in mind, to
ensure better screening of the potential candidates:

• Reason for change of job

• Longevity with each organization

• Long gaps in employment
• Job-hopping
• Lack of career progression

CONDUCTING TELEPHONIC OR VIDEO INTERVIEW

Conducting telephonic or video interviews is the second step of screening candidates. In

this process, after the resumes are screened, the candidates are contacted through
phone or video by the hiring manager. This screening process has two outcomes:

• It helps in verifying the candidates, whether they are active and available

. • It also helps in giving a quick insight about the candidate’s attitude, ability to answer
interview questions, and communication skills.

IDENTIFYING THE TOP CANDIDATES

Identifying the top candidates is the final step of screening the resumes/candidates. In
this process, the cream/top layer of resumes are shortlisted, which makes it easy for the
hiring manager to take a decision. This process has the following three outcomes:

• Shortlisting 5 to 10 resumes for review by the hiring managers

• Providing insights and recommendations to the hiring manager

• Helps the hiring managers to take a decision in hiring the right candidate
Evaluation and Control

Evaluation and control is the last stage in the process of recruitment. In this process, the
effectiveness and the validity of the process and methods are assessed. Recruitment is a
costly process, hence it is important that the performance of the recruitment process is
thoroughly evaluated.

The costs incurred in the recruitment process are to be evaluated and controlled
effectively. These include the following:

• Salaries to the Recruiters

• Advertisements cost and other costs incurred in recruitment methods, i.e., agency fees.

• Administrative expenses and Recruitment overheads

• Overtime and Outstanding costs, while the vacancies remain unfilled

• Cost incurred in recruiting suitable candidates for the final selection process

• Time spent by the Management and the Professionals in preparing job description, job
specifications, and conducting interviews.

Finally, the question that is to be asked is, whether the recruitment methods used are
valid or not? And whether the recruitment process itself is effective or not? Statistical
information on the costs incurred for the process of recruitment should be effective.

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