Introduction
One of the most crucial elements of organizational success is strategic human resource management. Human resource management is process through which organizational leaders plan for a favorable workforce, hire qualified people, skill them appropriately, and shift their talent mix to meet demands in their respective market. The process also involves building an inclusive work environment that allows employees to be innovative, give maximum output, and remain committed to achieving organizational goals (Kidder, 2007).
One of the crucial components of human resource management in an organization is recruitment and selection of employees. Recruitment refers to a human resource management function that allows an organization to establish a need to enforce its workforce by enlisting people to fill vacant or newly created positions. On the other hand, selection refers to a human resource management function that allows organizational leaders to choose suitable candidates for a job position from successful candidates in the recruitment stage (Asher, 2008).
The capacity of an organization to meet its goals, those of their customers, and remain competitive lies in its ability to attract and retain quality employees within its workforce. The recruitment and selection process involves different steps that apply in a systematic manner. Results of preliminary steps in the process provide the foundation for going through with subsequent steps. Recruitment and selection will always be a fundamental building block to strategic human resource planning and management (Kidder, 2007).
Discussion
Recruitment and selection of employees in an organization can happen either internally or externally. Internal recruitment involves enlisting candidates to fill a vacant or a newly created job vacancy from within an organizations workforce. This type of recruitment applied a promotion system that seeks to reward employees for good work, loyalty, and increasing their skills (Asher, 2008).
The good thing about an organization recruiting from within its workforce is that it helps to increase stability and reduce cost of operation by eliminating the need for training new employees. Other benefits of internal recruitment include reduction of employee turnover, help to maintain productivity, and acts as an incentive for employees to give their best because there is a reward. However, it is important to understand that internal recruitment also has a number of negative impacts on organizational success. One of the main shortcomings of internal recruitment is that it denies an organization a chance to introduce fresh blood into its workforce (Asher, 2008). Introducing new people in a workforce helps in bringing fresh talent, skills, ideas, and viewpoints that can help in improving productivity and service delivery.
On the other hand, external recruitment entails enlisting candidates to fill a vacant or newly created position in an organization from outside an organization. This mainly involves engaging the services of a recruiting agency or welcoming individuals interested in vacant positions to send in their applications directly to an organizations human resource department (Benton, 2010). Compared to internal recruitment, external recruitment provides an organization with more benefits. External recruitment allows an organization to have a wide pool of candidates from which they can select their preferred candidate in terms of skills and qualifications. This allows an organization to improve its workforce by introducing new individuals who can bring in fresh ideas, skills, and help in increasing diversity (Benton, 2010).
Recruitment and selection is a very important process in an organization regardless of whether it is done internally or externally. The most important thing is to ensure that organizational leaders use the process to attract and recruit the most suitable candidates who have the ability to take their employer to higher levels in terms of productivity and service delivery (Asher, 2008). Professionalism and ethical intelligence are crucial elements that organizational leaders must apply in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for their organizations from this process.
Importance of recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection is both a costly and crucial component of organizational success. Costs incurred by organizations form this process involve paying the recruiting team, training employees about an organization’s culture, making calls to successful applicants among others. According to human resource experts, the global labor market is quite dynamic and organizations need to increase their capacity in order to deal effectively with emerging trends (Asher, 2008).
Organizational leaders have a challenge to ensure that they hire individuals who can easily adapt to change, show loyalty, have knowledge on a wide selection of fields, have confidence, and have a dependable personality. Employees in an organization are supposed to be assets whose investment should reward the employer with prolonged stability, productivity, and success (Kidder, 2007).
Building a workforce of individuals with such qualities will definitely provide a good foundation for an organization to have prolonged stability and success in everything they do. One of the main functions played by recruitment and selection in an organization is matching competent individuals with their right jobs (Benton, 2010). The process allows people to apply skills and experience acquired to their respective jobs instead of using them on other engagements that do not fully exploit their potential.
Effective recruitment and selection is very important to organizational success. Studies have shown that an effectively managed recruitment and selection process helps an organization to retain a competitive advantage over its rivals (Benton, 2010). Therefore, it is important for organizational leaders to hire the right workers for their organizations because it helps in staying ahead of the park. Retaining competitive advantage in an organization involves an organization that has the ability to complement its intent to apply the latest technology and physical resources with getting the right people to use those resources.
It is important for organizational leaders to understand that good decision-making during recruitment and selection helps an organization a lot in getting it right in terms of meeting the needs of their employees and customers. Studies have established that when an organization hires the right workers, the outcome is usually satisfied employees and customers (Benton, 2010).
Recruitment and selection should be done effectively in order to reduce the cost of operation. If organizational leaders make mistakes during the process, the repercussions can be very costly. It is important to assess skills and competences of all candidates effectively before hiring them (Asher, 2008). If an under qualified individual is hired, productivity is likely to reduce and the employer may be forced to incur extra costs in training or replacing them. All the time and monetary resources invested in dealing with such kind of a mistake can hurt the productivity of an organization and its ability to remain competitive against other organizations (Benton, 2010). Good job description is very important in informing interested individuals the skills they need to have, as well as duties and responsibilities their employer will expect them to fulfill. This enables the recruiting team to have a wide pool of highly competent and skilled candidates from which to make a selection.
Effective recruitment and selection also helps an organization in boosting its employee retention strategies (Asher, 2008). One of the biggest challenges that human resource managers deal with in an organization is maintaining low employee turn over. It is hard to prevent employees from looking to work where they want, but it is possible to ensure that the rate at which it happens remains low. During the recruitment and selection process, it is important for organizational leaders to assess all candidates for qualities that demonstrate strong work ethics (Kidder, 2007). One of the things that organizational leaders ought to consider when assessing candidates is the period they lasted in their previous jobs.
Candidates who demonstrate a trait of changing employers within a short period can be costly to have in the workforce especially when trying to improve the retention rate. It is also important for recruiters to consider the responsibility pattern of candidates from their previous jobs (Benton, 2010). Hiring people who reduce their responsibilities every time they change their jobs can be a huge risk to improving employee retention because they are likely to have negative influence on existing employees.
Effective recruitment and selection also helps to strengthen the relationship between employee loyalty and the level of productivity. Studies have established that loyal employees help an organization in achieving its goals faster because they have high motivation to work, thus giving maximum output (Asher, 2008). During the recruitment and selection process, organizational leaders should ensure that all candidates are assessed for their strengths and weaknesses, as well as achievements during their previous jobs. It is also important for recruiters to question all candidates on why they want to change employers.
This can give a good platform for identifying how the candidates value their employers, work, colleagues, and career goals. Human resource experts argue that loyal employees often demonstrate a passion for their work, employers, workmates, and a strong desire to work for an employer who can fulfill their career goals (Benton, 2010). Hiring individuals with such personalities can help an organization to improve their productivity, competitiveness, innovation, and financial stability.
Effective recruitment and selection is important to organizational success because it helps to keep employers away from legal battles involving employee treatment. Human resource experts advise organizational leaders to ensure that recruitment and selection processes within their organizations are free of illegal practices such as nepotism and discrimination of any kind (Benton, 2010). Employers are required to provide all job applicants with an equal opportunity in the recruitment and selection process. It is illegal for an employer to discriminate an individual because of their religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation, race, skin color, country of origin, and any form of disability (Benton, 2010).
Employers should ensure that all essential requirements for a job are provided when advertising a vacant position. Employers should also ensure that interview venues do not limit the ability of any applicant to have easy access, because if can be a legal case where there is evidence.
Another importance of effective recruitment and training is that it helps to boost an organizations reputation. Having a good reputation for hiring the right employees helps an organization to maintain its competitiveness in a market because employees and customers will be more loyal (Benton, 2010). Employees also tend to have a positive attitude towards their work because the good care from their employer does enough to provide the necessary motivation to work. The main benefit of getting a good reputation form the recruitment and selection process is that it attracts the best skilled individuals into the workforce whenever a vacant job position arises. Employers need to invest a lot in having an effective recruitment and selection process because it has many benefits to an organization in the end (Benton, 2010). There is an urgent need to make the best out of the process in order to meet changing needs in an ever-changing labor market.
Steps in recruitment and selection process
The recruitment and selection process has various steps that apply in a systematic order. The first step in the process is recognition and appraisal for need to hire (Parker, 2009). Before conducting all activities involving a vacant position, it is important for organizational leaders to asses whether there is need to hire or duties and other workers can share responsibilities linked to the position. Organizational leaders establish the need to hire by assessing an organization’s goals, mission statement, corporate culture, and the ability support an extra member in its workforce (Maxwell, 2009). The main aim of this step is to assess the need for and establish the purpose of a job position.
The second step is conducting a job analysis (Parker, 2009). A job analysis seeks to identify crucial job elements such as compensation terms, education requirements, level of experience, as well as duties and responsibilities among others. This step aims at identifying the specifics of a vacant position and creating a profile according to an organization’s corporate culture. Organizational leaders should use this step to provide a valid reason why it is necessary to have a vacant position filled especially for newly created ones (Maxwell, 2009). Independent jobs that do not relate with other positions and do not have an orientation towards achieving organizational goals require careful analysis before agreeing to advertise.
The third step is job description (Parker, 2009). This step is very crucial to the success of the recruitment and selection process because it helps an applicant to know something about their potential employer, their job title, expectations of their employer, required qualifications, as well as the duties and responsibilities they will fulfill if they are hired. A job description should clearly describe an organizations goals and the role of successful candidates in supporting those goals. This should be contained in the job profile that details specific qualities that a successful candidate should have (Maxwell, 2009). The two main components of a job description are specifications of the vacant position and performance targets for an organization, which hired individuals, should help in achieving.
The fourth step is involves developing a recruitment and selection plan (Parker, 2009). In this step, organizational leaders plan how to conduct the process and identify all the things that will be needed in successful completion of the exercise. The recruitment and selection plan describes how an organization plans to attract and hire the best-qualified individuals among the applicants. The plan also describes how the recruiting panel will fight vices such as discrimination, nepotism, corruption, and bigotry that are associated with the process (Maxwell, 2009). It is important for organizational leaders to ensure that the process promotes a culture of equality, diversity, and openness among all employees in the organization.
The fifth step of the recruitment and selection process is the creation of a search committee (Parker, 2009). This entails selecting a group of individuals who will conduct the process in a professional and ethical manner. A selection committee allows an organization to hire the right individual for a job because each member gives a different review of the candidates. The sixth step is advertising the job in organization’s website and other media (Parker, 2009). Jobs should be advertised only in areas where the selection committee agrees and for the agreed period. During this step, organizational leaders should ensure that the information contained in the job advertisement is not changed. This prevents compromising the chances of candidates during selection. Some people apply immediately an advert is posted while others apply towards the expiry date. Reviewing of candidates should start after the minimum number of days through which the job advert should appear.
The next step of the process is reviewing and short-listing applicants (Parker, 2009). Selection committee members use their expertise to review the applicants. First, they check whether the applicants have satisfied the job’s minimum requirements. Those who meet all requirements are then considered for interview. For purposes of professionalism and quality results, it is important for the selection committee to ignore applications made after the period of application ends. The next step in the recruitment and selection process is conducting interviews on shortlisted candidates (Parker, 2009).
This step allows the applicant and the employer to meet and familiarize with other. Interviews allow the employer to validate information provided by candidates during the application. The selection committee should prepare questions relevant to the vacant position and ensure that they have an effective system of asking questions (Maxwell, 2009). They should also allow interviewees a chance to ask anything regarding the job or employer. Interviews can be conducted over the phone or one on one in front of a panel.
The next step is reviewing interviewees and selecting the best-suited candidate (Parker, 2009). The selection committee should use a rating system for every candidate and select the winner from the one who has the highest score. The final step in the process is making an offer to the selected candidate. This step allows the selection committee to review and discuss job specifications with the individual before making any agreement. When both parties agree on terms and conditions of the job, the individual signs important documents (Maxwell, 2009). They include performance appraisal, remuneration package, and any other contract papers. At this stage, the individual is ready for induction into the organization’s corporate culture.
Conclusion
One of the crucial components of human resource management in an organization is recruitment and selection of employees. Recruitment refers to a human resource management function that allows an organization to establish a need to enforce its workforce by enlisting people to fill vacant or newly created positions. Selection refers to a human resource management function that allows organizational leaders to choose suitable candidates for a job position from successful candidates in the recruitment stage. Recruitment and selection of employees in an organization can happen either internally or externally. Recruitment and selection is both a costly and crucial component of organizational success. Effective recruitment and selection is very important to organizational success. Recruitment and selection should be done effectively in order to reduce the cost of operation.
References
Asher, M. (2008). Recruitment and Selection: A Competency Approach. New York: Cengage Learning. Web.
Benton, W. (2010). Recruitment and Selection: A Framework for Success. New York: McGraw-Hill. Web.
Kidder, T. (2007). Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company. Web.
Maxwell, J. (2009). Recruitment and Selection in a Full Employment Economy. California: Thomas Nelson Inc. Web.
Parker, G. (2009). Human Resources: Recruitment and Selection Hiring Process. New York: Human Resource Development. Web.