Introduction
In view of the quantity of areas of prospective recruitment and the various numbers of techniques existing, it is imperative for a company to have an effective recruitment and selection strategy. This will create a positive image of the organization and assist it compete even more effectively in a progressively competitive marketplace. In developing a recruitment strategy, human resource planners must take into consideration both the internal and external limitations of the organization. HR professionals must also be acquainted with the effectiveness of different recruitment and selection strategies for the target pool of candidates (Catano 2009: 279). Hence, an effective recruitment process can be implemented by utilizing a modern job description, developing an effective recruitment and selection strategy, and assessing the recruitment and selection strategy to verify its efficacy.
Organization Description
Ted Noffs Foundation is an alcohol and drug center that was pioneered in 1970 by Australian humanitarian Reverend Ted Noffs. Currently, the Ted Noffs Foundation maintains the legacy of Ted Noffs by offering vital services for young people and their families who are fighting drug and alcohol problems along with related trauma. Its services for young people are entirely founded on leading research that is frequently assessed and endorsed by the government. Presently it has programs and services for youth in need all over Australia, which take account of education and training, counseling, and support and withdrawal services. Ted Noffs has its head office at Randwick, NSW Alison Road and has branches in Palm Dubbo, Mt Druitt, Palm Sydney, Coffs Harbour, among others. It employs a staff of 300 committed employees (TedNoffs Foundation n.d.).
Vacancy: Alcohol and Drug Counselor
Job Description
Selection Strategy: Advertisements
The selection strategy of Ted Noffs Foundation will be newspaper advertising. Through this advertising strategy, Ted Noffs will be able to draw on a wider pool of potential candidates for filling the vacancy. The position will be advertised twice per week for a period of two weeks in mainstream Sydney Newspapers (The Australian, Labor Daily, The Daily Mirror and The Australasian Worker). This strategy cuts down cost by roughly 52%. Ted Noffs also chose newspaper advertisements as the ideal selection strategy due to the fair economic cost it entails. Each advertisement that is placed on every newspaper will cost a flat fee of $ 200. TedNoffs estimated that each newspaper will have 15,000 readers per average day. The newspaper ad will occupy a ¼ size on each of the selected newspapers and will be run on Mondays and Fridays.
The selection strategy is beneficial as newspaper advertisements have a wider coverage given that they are read by a wide audience. Moreover, newspaper advertisement facilitates rapid competitive responses (Hillestad & Berkowitz 2004: 196). The newspaper ad will utilize a small-space strategy. This is an effective strategy for attaining moderate frequency in advertisements placement at comparatively modest cost (Rogers 2001:104).
Newspaper advertisements will reach the target group successfully. Nevertheless, the success of the newspaper advertisement will be based on its timing, comprehensiveness and timing. The small size advertisement will allow more frequency, additional continuity and additional coverage. The bright color that will be incorporated in the newspaper ad will influence the size of the frequency, which is a determining factor of frequency (Tyagi & Kumar 2004: 274).
TedNoffs Newspaper Advertisement
The recruitment strategy of TedNoffs Foundation will be both fully structured and unstructured advertising. TedNoffs Foundation will also incorporate situational questions and experience-based questions in its job interviews.
Unstructured Interviews
The unstructured interview will take the form of free-ranging discussion, sometimes with the interviewer using a set of ‘desired’ questions but at the same time offering the interviewee the liberty to respond in a common way (Gareth Roberts 1997: 11.) The unstructured interviews will focus on the candidate’s skills, knowledge and abilities. TedNoffs chose unstructured interviews because they are normally asked in an unstructured manner, allowing the interviewee to engage in a broader dialogue about his/ her background with the interviewer (Byers 2006:14)
The unstructured interview will entail asking each candidate similar set of questions and evaluating their feedback on the basis of a pre-determined criterion. Questions and assessment criteria will be based on the job description. TedNoffs will formulate criteria to categorise the candidate’s responses, for example excellent, good, average and unsatisfactory. The purpose is to try to get all interviewers “on the same page” by identifying and classifying in advance what is a good response and what constitutes a poor response, so that all the interviewers will be assessing candidates against the same criteria. In the situational and experience based questions, the queries are aimed at drawing out the candidates approach to various circumstances (Hodson 2001: 53).
The situational questions will ask candidates about hypothetical situations that might be encountered in the job and how they would react in under those situations. They are also termed as “What-if” questions or hypothetical questions. TedNoffs incorporated situational questions because they are moderately easy to match the applicant’s answers to the needed response for the job position (Hoevemeyer 2006: 10). The questions will unswervingly tap into the problem-solving skills of the potential candidate, in addition to his/her work-related experience (Latham & Sue-Chan 1999: 56). The following is an example of a situational question that will be incorporated in the unstructured interviews:
A client arrives to a session drunk. How would you handle this?
Experienced-based questions will focus on particular examples of the candidate’s prior work experiences as well as their reactions to past situations that are critical to the job under consideration. TedNoffs incorporated experience-based questions for the advantage it offers of tapping into actual feelings and behaviour rather than theoretical ones (Jones 2001: 623).
The following is an example of an experienced-based question that will be incorporated in the unstructured interviews:
Please illustrate a situation where you had to deal with an aggressive client and summarize how you deal with this. What were some of the strong points and weak points in your approach?
The unstructured questions will be accompanied by a pre-set scoring key in order to effectively distinguish between candidates. The scoring key shall contain competencies of excellent, good, average, and unsatisfactory responses against which candidates’ answers will be evaluated. The intention of using pre-determined scoring criteria is to reduce reliance on interviewer’s memory or written notes, as well as provide uniformity of assessment across candidates ( Byme 2001: 234). It will also provide enhanced clarity against which candidates are evaluated. Interviewers will document the candidate’s responses during the interview preferably in shorthand for later scrutiny. While assessing and comparing their notes, interviewers will reconcile any discrepancy or gaps in the information, seeing to it that each response is marked with the competency it reflects (Huffcutt & Woehr 1999: 549)
The ratings will, to begin with, be made on individual competencies before a final rating or judgement of the candidate is settled on (Taylor & O’Driscoll 39: 1995). Competency ratings will typically be made on ranges from 1 to 5, and will be rated by either how the candidate is compared with other candidates or how the candidate compares with the competencies needed in the job. The five-point scoring key will incorporate the following ranks:
- far below minimum prerequisite
- slightly below minimum prerequisite
- presently meets minimum prerequisite
- slightly above minimum prerequisite
- far above minimum prerequisite
The interviews will also be tape-recorded and each interviewee’s performance will be played back at the time of ranking. Every interviewer will individually rate each candidate on their competency before checking a candidates’ performance with the rest of the interviewers. This practice will lessen one interviewer influencing others’ preliminary ratings. Once individual interviewers have recorded their individual ratings, ratings of all the interviewers for each candidate will be synchronised through simple averaging of the ratings. The candidates who will attain rank 3 (presently meets minimum requirements) will progress to the final stage of fully structured interviews (Taylor & O’Driscoll 1995: 40). The applicants will be given sufficient opportunity to clarify their responses, and each interviewer shall probe their subjects with extra questions until he or she entirely comprehends the candidate’s suitability for the position. Unstructured interviews are subsequent to the final stage of structured interviews. A cut-off score approach to selection will be set for candidates who have achieved a specific score. Candidates will then proceed to the next and final phase of the selection process.
Fully Structured Interviews
The fully structured interview will be centred on a set of questions of clearly defined criteria. The questions will be carefully formulated to draw specific information from candidates about their suitability under the stated criteria. The responses will be scored against a pre-set scoring range. The candidates will be furnished with a future hypothetical circumstance and asked to clarify how they would handle it (Kenexa & Creglow, n.d.). TedNoffs chose the structured questions because they are the finest vehicle to wind up an external interview process. They also want to ensure that the interview process has been objective and fair to all applicants (Byers 2006: 15).
The structured format will make sure that a specified interviewer has exact information on each candidate. It will also ensures that when several interviewers ask the same set of questions to different applicants, not to mention that there will be greater uniformity in the subsequent evaluation of interviewees (Mathis & Jackson 242: 2008).
Final Selection Decision
After each interviewer has rated a specific candidate, the human resources specialist with the help of the hiring manager will direct the discussion on whom among the candidates at this stage to pick. This simply entails finding the rating for each dimension. The final general evaluation discussion, which transpires after all candidates have been interviewed, will comprise of two parts, a ranking and a rating. Candidates will be compared with the standards need for the job and are separately rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Those applicants obtaining a satisfactory rating will then be rank-ordered in terms of their particular fit in the available position. The result is a rank order of the satisfactory candidates, together with an explanation of their strengths and weaknesses with relation to the job vacancy. Exceptionally high levels of agreement ought to transpire among panel interviewers when finalizing on the final rankings (Berman 1997: 142).
Once average ratings have been set up for each candidate on each competency, a final selection judgment will be made. Candidates will be judged against each other by tallying competency ratings for each. In the instance where two or more top candidates will have almost equal ratings, a final decision will be made by taking into consideration trainability of the lower rating competencies for each individual. For instance, if two candidates, A and B, have total ratings of 40 across nine competencies with almost the same ratings on all but two competencies, interviewee A may be found to have scored lower in report writing skills while interviewer B found to be comparatively poor in problem solving skills. Under such this scenario, interviewee B could be selected over interviewee A if the problem solving skills is considered to be more easily trained on the job than is report writing skills. If, conversely, there are no disparities between the two candidates on individual competencies, additional information about the suitability of each candidate will have to be gathered to allow the HR managers to make a final decision. This can be achieved through, for instance, reference checks or extra interviews. When competencies have finally been weighted, these weights will be merged with competency ratings by multiplying ratings and weights and totaling weighted ratings (Taylor, O’Driskoll 1995:41).
For the final selection decision, the weighted ratings will subsequently be evaluated for evidence of applicable ability and competency. Finally, the interviewer will compare the weighted ratings of each applicant and arrive at the decision on which candidate to select based on the highest weighted rating (Roberts, 11).
Fully Structured Interview Assessment Form
- Candidate’s Name:
- Interviewer:
- Name:
- Date:
- Signature:
- Key:
- A=Excellent
- B=Good
- C=Average
- D=Unsatisfactory
Improving Recruitment and Selection Strategies
The newspaper advertisement will be improved to draw interest, communicate easily, clearly pass the intended message, as well as to present a clear response mechanism (Elearn & Pergamon 2005: 51).. The design will focus on clarity with the layout and text portraying a professional image of the company. Branding shall be visible but not excessive, and will not steal attention from the newspaper advertisement. The job advertisement will initially draw attention from suitable job seekers, attract applicable interest, produce desire, and lastly offer a clear instruction for the next feedback or action. It is imperative to use exciting job titles to produce interest in the position and for candidates to discover more about the opportunity. The benefits of the opportunity should will be presented and will to a small extend emphasize how working at TedNoffs will make better a candidate’s life. For instance, such motivating issues as the pay range, performance bonuses, and tuition reimbursement, among others, will be stated. This is so because, in order to create interest, it is crucial to state what the successful candidate will be responsible for in the state role and how challenging the job will be (Price & Novak 2007: 31).
The core basis for an improvement in the newspaper job advertisement is in the design. Being an ideal newspaper advertisement, TedNoffs advertisement should draw the attention of the appropriate people and similarly distract undesired candidates. Nevertheless, the placement of the advertisement is very vital as well. It must be ascertained that the chosen newspaper is read by the group of people the company aspires to attract (Wutke 2009:7). Also, a more effective strategy to make the newspaper advertisements improve will be to make use of an appealing graphic design, including the company’s website address in the advert, employing an appealing headline and precisely explaining the type of candidate needed for the open position.
Improving Interviews
For enhanced interviews, the interviewers should consider supplying a copy of some of the interview questions earlier to the interview, for instance 15-20 minutes earlier to the interview, for perusal of questions. This can assist candidates arrange a response to questions that entail an in-depth response. Additionally, the human resource department should formulate objective questions which have no clues to a desired response. They should make decisions according to particular criteria as stated on the job description, rather than largely relying upon an international rating system for evaluating suitability of candidates for an open position. Moreover, the HR department should give candidates the chance of receiving comments on their performance in the interview at a later date, for instance about their strengths and as well as areas they need to improve on. Finally, by upholding Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies and procedures, the interviewing team will greatly eliminate bias in the interview process (Blackman & Funder 2002: 113).
Conclusion
The ultimate aim of the recruitment strategy and selection strategy is to attract good-quality applicants through the quickest, most objective, and most cost-effective means of advertisement. Placing newspaper advertisements and thereafter conducting a stepwise, well formulated structured as well as unstructured interviews, emerges as the best strategy for hiring a new employee, which N HR department should adapt. These strategies achieve efficacy in meeting the selection criteria. Selection of the right candidate will also entail putting time, care, planning and preparation into the recruitment process, just as Clarke & Combat Poverty Agency (n.d.) have supposed.
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