Chapter 5 Recruiting Applicants

1. Chapter 5Recruiting Applicants

2. Chapter Outline • 5-1 Gaining Competitive Advantage • 5-2 HRM Issues and Practices • 5-3 The Manager’s Guide

3. 5-1a Opening Case: Gaining Competitive Advantage at the Los Angeles United School District • Problem: A poor recruiting system resulting in low-quality hires. • Solution: Using an online system and rolling out the red carpet. • How the new recruitment process enhanced competitive advantage • District attracts top candidates, with 95 percent of new hires in the past year being highly qualified. • Through use of automated services, the district saves about $10 million per year.

4. 5-1b Linking Recruitment to Competitive Advantage • A recruiting program has five goals: • Achieve cost efficiency. • Attract highly qualified candidates. • Help ensure that individuals who are hired will stay with the company. • Assist a company’s efforts to comply with nondiscrimination laws. • Help a company create a more culturally diverse workforce.

5. 5-1b Linking Recruitment to Competitive Advantage (cont.) • Achieving cost efficiency: Reducing recruitment costs without lowering productivity can help enhance competitive advantage. • Attracting highly qualified candidates • Sufficient number of qualified candidates must be notified of available opportunities. • Actions must be taken to enhance the likelihood that the best applicants will accept their job offers.

7. 5-1b Linking Recruitment to Competitive Advantage (cont.) • Improving job retention rates through the use of realistic job previews (RJPs) • RJPs can reduce turnover by giving applicants more realistic information about the job and the organization. • Applicants can make a more informed choice about whether or not to accept the job offer. • Reducing turnover rates can result in substantial savings.

8. 5-1b Linking Recruitment to Competitive Advantage (cont.) • Achieving legal compliance: Organizations can help prevent discrimination charges by targeting recruitment efforts toward underutilized groups. • Extending recruitment practices to disadvantaged groups can create a more culturally diverse workforce. • Many companies have begun reaching out to seniors, minorities, welfare-to-work candidates, and people leaving the armed forces. • The manner in which a company treats these candidates during the recruitment process is vital.

10. 5-2a Recruitment Planning • Step 1: Identify the job opening • Organizations should attempt to identify job openings well in advance of an announced resignation. • The HRM department should plan for future openings, thus providing organizations with the time needed to plan and implement recruitment strategies. • Step 2: Decide how to fill the job opening • Whether to use core or contingency personnel. • If core personnel are to be used, should the firm recruit them internally or externally.

11. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Core personnel • Hired in the “traditional” manner. • Considered permanent employees. • Included in the organization’s payroll. • Contingency personnel • Employed by a supplier agency, and “loaned” to the organization. • Not included in the organization’s payroll. • Supplier pays the workers’ salaries and benefits. • Fall into three major categories: temps, outsourcing, and independent contractors.

12. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Advantages of using contingency personnel: • Flexibility to control fixed employee costs. • Relieves a company of many of its HRM burdens. • Cost savings. • Contingency workers who excel at their jobs can be offered core positions.

13. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Disadvantages of contingency personnel: • May need a considerable amount of orientation and training regarding company procedures and policies. • Might be less loyal or committed to the “host organization.” • May receive better wages than core workers, leading to resentment among core employees.

14. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Use contingency workers in situations when: • Certain types of hard-to-find expertise are required. • Companies are trying to staff new offices in geographic areas far from main headquarters. • Companies are trying to staff positions to work on projects in which unusually high risk factors may jeopardize a company’s existing workers’ compensation rates.

15. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Advantages of internal recruitment: • Enhance morale and motivation. • Qualifications of internal candidates are well known; openings can be filled more quickly. • Less expensive. • Internal candidates are more familiar with organizational policies and practices, requiring less orientation and training. • Disadvantages of internal recruitment: • Rejected candidates may become resentful. • Workers promoted into supervisory positions may find it difficult managing former coworkers.

16. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • External recruitment is limited primarily to entry-level jobs. • External recruitment for jobs above the entry level is usually restricted to the following situations: • An outsider is needed to expose the organization to new ideas and innovations. • No qualified internal candidates apply. • The organization needs to increase its percentage of employees within a particular underutilized group.

17. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Step 3: Identify the target population • Specify worker requirements. • Decide whether to target certain segments of the applicant population. • Step 4: Notify the target population • Limit the size of the applicant pool by attracting only the most qualified applicants. • A good way to do this is to clearly state the job qualifications in the vacancy notification.

18. 5-2a Recruitment Planning (cont.) • Step 5: Meet with the candidates • Gives the firm a chance to further assess the candidates’ qualifications. • Provides candidates an opportunity to learn more about the company and the employment opportunity.

19. 5-2b Methods of Internal Recruitment

20. 5-2b Methods of Internal Recruitment (cont.) • Job posting • Strengths • Enhances the probability that the firm’s most qualified employees will be considered for the job. • Gives employees an opportunity to become more responsible for their career development. • Enables employees to leave a “bad” work situation.

21. 5-2b Methods of Internal Recruitment (cont.) • Job posting • Weaknesses • Position may remain open for an extended period. • The system may prevent supervisors from hiring individuals of their choice. • Some employees may hop from job to job without any clear direction. • Employees whose bids are rejected may become alienated.

22. 5-2b Methods of Internal Recruitment (cont.) • Career development systems • Strengths • The firm’s top performers are more likely to remain with the organization. • Such systems ensure that someone is always ready to fill a position when it becomes open. • Weaknesses • An employee not selected for grooming may become disenchanted with the organization and leave. • Selected employees may become frustrated if the expected promotion does not materialize because the position never becomes vacant.

23. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment • Employee referrals • Strengths • Is effective, quite popular, and cost efficient. • Employees accurately judge the ‘‘fit’’ between the job being filled and the individual, and refer only the highest quality applicants. • Applicants referred by employees tend to perform better and stay longer. • Weaknesses • May serve as a barrier to equal employment opportunity.

24. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.)

25. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.) • Employment agencies – public • Most frequently provide personnel for clerical and blue-collar jobs. • Cost is low as the agency does not charge employers a fee. • The method is efficient as jobs can be filled fairly quickly. • Applicants may lack motivation.

26. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.) • Employment agencies – private • Have the resources to fill a wide variety of jobs. • Candidates register with the agency voluntarily –thus they may be more committed. • Agency charges a fee for its service. • They are especially useful when many individuals are expected to apply for a job or when qualified candidates are hard to find.

27. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.) • Executive search firms • Specialize in the recruitment of mid- and senior-level managers. • Charge the employer a large fee for their services. • Can be unsuccessful –only 50 to 60 percent of all executive searches result in the selection of the type of individual initially specified.

28. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.) • Campus recruiting • Used to fill specialized entry-level jobs. • Is costly and time consuming. • Recruitment process can be rather slow. • Online recruiting • Is becoming quite popular. • Is much faster and reaches a much larger audience compared to newspaper advertising. • Can be quite expensive. • Not the best approach for reaching external candidates.

30. 5-2c Methods of External Recruitment (cont.) • Choosing the right method: The following factors are the most relevant: • The type of job being filled. • How quickly the job needs to be filled. • The geographic region of recruitment. • The cost of implementing the recruitment method. • Whether the method will attract the right mix of candidates from an EEO perspective.

31. 5-3a HR Recruitment and the Manager’s Job • The line manager plays three key roles in the recruitment process. • Identifying recruitment needs triggered by replacement, additional positions being added, and a newly created job being established. • Communicating recruitment needs to the HRM department including needed skills/qualifications for the job and attractive and unattractive features of the job. • Interacting with applicants to keep them informed of the status, schedule interviews at their convenience, and allow them to speak to their future coworkers.

32. 5-3b How the HR Department Can Help • Planning the recruitment process: Determine where to find the applicants and how to attract them. • Implementing the recruitment process: Includes writing an ad, choosing the employment agency, conducting campus interviews, and coordinating candidates on-site visits.

33. 5-3b How the HR Department Can Help (cont.) • Evaluating the recruitment process involves: • Calculating the number of applicants generated from each recruitment method, the number hired, and the job success of each hire. • Determining the cost-effectiveness of each recruitment method. • Monitoring EEO statistics to ensure compliance.

34. 5-3c HRM Skill-Building for Managers • What Information to give candidates: • Describe the work setting. • Discuss salary. • Describe the workweek and the payroll period. • Describe career opportunities. • Describe what employees like best about the company. • Encourage the applicant to ask questions. • Describe what the company does. • Present relevant facts and figures. • Describe the company’s history. • Describe the department. • Describe the job itself. • Describe yourself as a manager.

35. 5-3c HRM Skill-Building for Managers (cont.) • How to provide the information • Make a favorable impression on the candidate. • Avoid acting defensively and being self-conscious. • Be easy to get along with and avoid discussing irrelevant topics. • Answer the candidate’s questions satisfactorily. • To be viewed as personable, one should: • Display warmth and be enthusiastic about the organization. • Show an interest in the applicant’s outside activities.

36. 5-3c HRM Skill-Building for Managers (cont.) • Providing realistic job previews: Would appear to be most suitable when the following conditions exist: • Turnover and associated separation costs are high. • There are negative facets of the job that applicants do not know about, and these facets may strongly influence their subsequent intentions to quit. • Qualified applicants are plentiful.

37. 5-3c HRM Skill-Building for Managers (cont.) • When providing an RJP: • Include descriptive information. • Avoid giving candidates all possible information. • The relative emphasis given to positive and negative information should reflect the actual balance of positive–negative factors found in the environment.