Recruitment and Selection

1. Recruitment and Selection Session 7 - February 26

2. “What’s difficult about hiring people?” • Suppose you work for a company and in charge of hiring new employees. • Consider these problems: • What if you somehow you don’t seem to attract the right employees (or too few)? • What kind of questions to ask during an interview? Applicants only give socially desirable answers: they are team players, hard working etc.

3. Agenda • Recruitment • Selection

4. Difference Recruitment and Selection • Recruitment: the process through which the organization seeks applicants for potential employment. • Selection: the process by which the organization attempts to identify applicants with the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics that will help the organization to achieve its goals.

5. Recruitment • Recruitment is necessary to: • Fill vacancies created by departures (vacancy chain) • Staff new positions generated by growth • Recruitment however may not be perfectly matched to positions available • Analysis of labor needs (HR planning) and over-recruit current situation • Recruit when openings occur • Promote internally

6. Offers Made (2 : 1) 50 100 150 200 1,200 Recruiting Yield Pyramid New Hires Candidates Interviewed (3 : 2) Candidates Invited (4 : 3) Leads generated (6 : 1)

7. Yield Ratios • Applied to screened 6:1 • Screened to interviewed 4:3 • Interviewed to offered 3:2 • Offered to accepted 2:1 • Overall yield ratio • 144:6 or 24:1 or 1200:50

8. Yield Ratio • How many will be hired in a pool of 300 applicants? Is this pool size enough if there are three vacancies? • Different sources may have different yield ratios

9. Evaluating Recruiting Sources Table 5.3

10. Your Experience? • How did you learn about your current or past job? • Advertisement in newspaper • Referral from friend or relative • Internet search • Signs posted on workplace or elsewhere • Called by a recruiter • Other

11. Pros and Cons • Referrals • Eases burden on recruitment process and cheap • Likely to have a better fit • Con: sometimes associated with nepotism • Advertising in newspapers • Large pool of applicants, which can make selection process complex. • Difficult to target to particular segments.

12. Pros and Cons • Online recruiting • Cheap and can be done either on the company’s website or at a career website (e.g. Monster.com.hk) • But may be difficult to target to particular types of applicants • For more specific target groups: • Executive search firms (headhunters) • Universities

13. Agenda • Recruitment • Selection

14. Selection • Will provide information that is reliable and valid and can be generalized to apply to the organization’s group of candidates • Should measure characteristics that have practical benefits for the organization • Must meet legal requirements in effect where the organization operates

15. MGTO 121 Revisited! • Decision-making biases • Halo effect • Horn effect • Contrast effect • Similarity-attraction • Primacy and recency effects • All these biases could affect personnel selection

16. Some solutions to assessment bias • Three different approaches of solution based on different definitions of bias have been proposed • Unqualified individualism • Quota • Qualified individualism

17. Unqualified Individualism • Use test to select the most qualified individuals they could find • The goal is to predict those who would perform best on the job or in school • If race or gender was a valid predictor of performance, the unqualified individualist would see nothing wrong with using these variables for assessment and selection

18. Quota • Explicitly equalizing race and gender differences • Population has 20% minority groups, then 20% of the employees or students must be from the minority groups

19. Qualified Individualism • Compromise between unqualified individualism and quota • It selects the best qualified people • But it does not take information about race, gender, and religion into consideration for assessment and selection

20. Qual. Qual. Qual. Female Male Female Male Male Female Legal Issues: Equal Opportunity • Core Principle: Recruitment and selection need to be undertaken without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. • Applicants with better qualifications should have a higher chance of getting the job. REVERSE DISCRIMINATION AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ? DISCRIMINATION

21. Example: Johnson case • Both Paul Johnson and Diane Joyce applied for the position of road dispatcher, a job dominated by males. • Both had about 4 years of work experience, but Diane Joyce’s experience was a bit more recent. • Paul Johnson scored 75 on an graded oral interview, Diane Joyce scored 73. • Diane Joyce got the job, and Paul Johnson claimed reverse discrimination. • Court ruled it was lawful because never before had a woman held the position of road dispatcher.

22. Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) in Hong Kong • Established in 1996 • Goals • To work towards the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability and family status. • To eliminate sexual harassment, and harassment and vilification on the ground of disability. • To promote equality of opportunities between men and women, between persons with and without a disability and irrespective of family status

23. Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) in Hong Kong • EOC implements three Ordinances to achieve these goals • Sex Discrimination Ordinance Full text • Disability Discrimination Ordinance Full text • Family Status Discrimination Ordinance Full text • Some of the laws are highly relevant to the HR context Relevant sections SDO: S7, S8, S11, S12, S13, S18, S19, S20, S23, S24. Relevant sections DDO: S11, S12, S13, S18, S 19, S20, S22, S23, S83. Relevant sections FSDO: S8, S9, S14, S15, S16, S20.

24. Interviews • Nondirective interview • The interviewer has great discretion in choosing questions to ask each candidate • Structured interview • Consists of a predetermined set of questions for the interviewer to ask

25. Interview Types • Situational interviews • The interviewer describes a situation likely to arise on the job, then asks the candidate what he or she would do in that situation • Behavior description interview • The interviewer asks the candidate to describe how he or she handled a type of situation in the past. • Pros and cons of each?

26. Interviewing • Advantages • Can provide evidence of communication and interpersonal skills • Most valid when they focus on job knowledge and skills. • Disadvantages • Can be unreliable • Low on validity • Costly • Subjective/biased

27. How Organizations Select Employees • Multiple Hurdles • Establishing a minimum score for each employment test thereby gradually narrowing the candidates down • Example, passing scores are: • Math test - 70% • Conscientiousness test - 90% • Interview - 80% • Applicant A: Math 80%, Conscientiousness, 92%, Interview 85% = Eligible to Hire? • Applicant B: Math 60%, Conscientiousness, 95%, Interview 95% = Eligible to Hire?

28. Selection at Goldman Sachs • “It begins in the recruitment process, long before a formal offer is extended. Brains are not enough. The first couple of interviews determine whether a candidate meets the firm’s intellectual standards; the remainder, where far more candidates stumble, are used to determine “fit”. It is a grueling process that tests endurance as well as aptitude. Those candidates who do not evince a scorching ambition, total commitment, and an inclination for teamwork are quickly weeded out”. From: Endlich, L. (1999), Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success. New York: Simon and Schuster.

29. How Organizations Select Employees • Compensatory approach • Scores on all predictors are added together, allowing a higher score on one predictor to offset a lower score on another predictor. • Example, Total points must equal 200: • Applicant A: Math 60, Conscientiousness 100, Interview 90 = 250 points • Applicant B: Math 95, Conscientiousness 75, Interview 80 = 250 points • Applicant C: Math 50, Conscientiousness 65, Interview 80 = 195 points • Who is eligible to hire?

30. Other ways of selecting employees • Competitions! • Main prize: A position at Microsoft Shanghai • Google case (end of Chapter 6, p. 203)

31. Hot Seat Case Introduction Diversity in Hiring: Candidate Conundrum