recruitment And Selection

Recruitment And Selection

According to Edwin B. Flippo, “Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organisation”. Recruitment is the activity that links the employers and the job seekers.

A few definitions of recruitment are:
· A process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected.

· It is the process to discover sources of manpower to meet the requirement of staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective selection of an efficient working force.

Recruitment of candidates is the function preceding the selection, which helps create a pool of prospective employees for the organisation so that the management can select the right candidate for the right job from this pool.
The main objective of the recruitment process is to expedite the selection process.

Recruitment is a continuous process whereby the firm attempts to develop a pool of qualified applicants for the future human resources needs even though specific vacancies do not exist. Usually, the recruitment process starts when a manger initiates an employee requisition for a specific vacancy or an anticipated vacancy.

RECRUITMENT NEEDS ARE OF THREE TYPES
· PLANNEDi.e. the needs arising from changes in organization and retirement policy.
· ANTICIPATEDAnticipated needs are those movements in personnel, which an organization can predict by studying trends in internal and external environment.
· UNEXPECTEDResignation, deaths, accidents, illness give rise to unexpected needs.


Importance of Recruitment -

Attract and encourage more and more candidates to apply in the organisation.
· Create a talent pool of candidates to enable the selection of best candidates for the organisation.
· Determine present and future requirements of the organization in conjunction with its personnel planning and job analysis activities.
· Recruitment is the process which links the employers with the employees.
· Increase the pool of job candidates at minimum cost.

· Help increase the success rate of selection process by decreasing number of visibly under qualified or overqualified job applicants.
· Help reduce the probability that job applicants once recruited and selected will leave the organization only after a short period of time.
· Meet the organizations legal and social obligations regarding the composition of its workforce.
· Begin identifying and preparing potential job applicants who will be appropriate candidates.
· Increase organization and individual effectiveness of various recruiting techniques and sources for all types of job applicants


Recruitment and Selection

The recruitment and selection is the major function of the human resource department and recruitment process is the first step towards creating the competitive strength and the strategic advantage for the organisations. Recruitment process involves a systematic procedure from sourcing the candidates to arranging and conducting the interviews and requires many resources and time.

A general recruitment process is as follows:
· Identifying the vacancy: The recruitment process begins with the human resource department receiving requisitions for recruitment from any department of the company. These contain:

• Posts to be filled• Number of persons• Duties to be performed• Qualifications required
Preparing the job description and person specification.
Locating and developing the sources of required number and type of employees (Advertising etc).
. Short-listing and identifying the prospective employee with required characteristics.
. Arranging the interviews with the selected candidates.
. Conducting the interview and decision making


1. Identify vacancy
2. Prepare job description and person specification
3. Advertising the vacancy
4. Managing the response
5. Short-listing
6. Arrange interviews
7. Conducting interview and decision making

The recruitment process is immediately followed by the selection process i.e. the final interviews and the decision making, conveying the decision and the appointment formalities.



SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
Recruitment v/s Selection

Both recruitment and selection are the two phases of the employment process.
The differences between the two are:
1. Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organisation WHEREAS selection involves the series of steps by which the candidates are screened for choosing the most suitable persons for vacant posts.
2. The basic purpose of recruitments is to create a talent pool of candidates to enable the selection of best candidates for the organisation, by attracting more and more employees to apply in the organisation WHEREAS the basic purpose of selection process is to choose the right candidate to fill the various positions in the organisation.
3. Recruitment is a positive process i.e. encouraging more and more employees to apply WHEREAS selection is a negative process as it involves rejection of the unsuitable candidates.
4. Recruitment is concerned with tapping the sources of human resources WHEREAS selection is concerned with selecting the most suitable candidate through various interviews and tests.
5. There is no contract of recruitment established in recruitment WHEREAS selection results in a contract of service between the employer and the selected employee.


Recent trends of Recruitment –

The following trends are being seen in recruitment:
· OUTSOURCING
In India, the HR processes are being outsourced from more than a decade now. A company may draw required personnel from outsourcing firms. The outsourcing firms help the organisation by the initial screening of the candidates according to the needs of the organisation and creating a suitable pool of talent for the final selection by the organisation. Outsourcing firms develop their human resource pool by employing people for them and make available personnel to various companies as per their needs. In turn, the outsourcing firms or the intermediaries charge the organisations for their services.

Advantages of outsourcing are:
1. Company need not plan for human resources much in advance.
2. Value creation, operational flexibility and competitive advantage
3. turning the management's focus to strategic level processes of HRM
4. Company is free from salary negotiations, weeding the unsuitable resumes/candidates.
5. Company can save a lot of its resources and time

POACHING/RAIDING
“Buying talent” (rather than developing it) is the latest mantra being followed by the organisations today. Poaching means employing a competent and experienced person already working with another reputed company in the same or different industry; the organisation might be a competitor in the industry. A company can attract talent from another firm by offering attractive pay packages and other terms and conditions, better than the current employer of the candidate. But it is seen as an unethical practice and not openly talked about. Indian software and the retail sector are the sectors facing the most severe brunt of poaching today. It has become a challenge for human resource managers to face and tackle poaching, as it weakens the competitive strength of the firm.

E-RECRUITMENT
Many big organizations use Internet as a source of recruitment. E- recruitment is the use of technology to assist the recruitment process. They advertise job vacancies through worldwide web. The job seekers send their applications or curriculum vitae i.e. CV through e mail using the Internet. Alternatively job seekers place their CV’s in worldwide web, which can be drawn by prospective employees depending upon their requirements.

Advantages of recruitment are:
Low cost.
No intermediaries
Reduction in time for recruitment.
Recruitment of right type of people.
Efficiency of recruitment process.


HR challenges in recruitment

Recruitment is a function that requires business perspective, expertise, ability to find and match the best potential candidate for the organisation, diplomacy, marketing skills (as to sell the position to the candidate) and wisdom to align the recruitment processes for the benefit of the organisation. The HR professionals – handling the recruitment function of the organisation- are constantly facing new challenges. The biggest challenge for such professionals is to source or recruit the best people or potential candidate for the organisation.In the last few years, the job market has undergone some fundamental changes in terms of technologies, sources of recruitment, competition in the market etc. In an already saturated job market, where the practices like poaching and raiding are gaining momentum, HR professionals are constantly facing new challenges in one of their most important function- recruitment. They have to face and conquer various challenges to find the best candidates for their organisations.

The major challenges faced by the HR in recruitment are:
Adaptability to globalization –
The HR professionals are expected and required to keep in tune with the changing times, i.e. the changes taking place across the globe. HR should maintain the timeliness of the process

Lack of motivation –
Recruitment is considered to be a thankless job. Even if the organisation is achieving results, HR department or professionals are not thanked for recruiting the right employees and performers.

Process analysis –
The immediacy and speed of the recruitment process are the main concerns of the HR in recruitment. The process should be flexible, adaptive and responsive to the immediate requirements. The recruitment process should also be cost effective.

Strategic prioritization – The emerging new systems are both an opportunity as well as a challenge for the HR professionals. Therefore, reviewing staffing needs and prioritizing the tasks to meet the changes in the market has become a challenge for the recruitment professionals.