Recruitment, selection and training

Recruitment is the process of identifying that the organisation needs to employ someone up to the point at which application forms for the post have arrived at the organisation. Selection then consists of the processes involved in choosing from applicants a suitable candidate to fill a post. Training consists of a range of processes involved in making sure that job holders have the right skills, knowledge and attitudes required to help the organisation to achieve its objectives. Recruiting individuals to fill particular posts within a business can be done either internally by recruitment within the firm, or externally by recruiting people from outside. The advantages of internal recruitment are that: 1. Considerable savings can be made. Individuals with inside knowledge of how a business operates will need shorter periods of training and time for 'fitting in'. 2. The organisation is unlikely to be greatly 'disrupted' by someone who is used to working with others in the organisation. 3. Internal promotion acts as an incentive to all staff to work harder within the organisation. 4. From the firm's point of view, the strengths and weaknesses of an insider will have been assessed. There is always a risk attached to employing an outsider who may only be a success 'on paper'. The disadvantages of recruiting from within are that: 1. You will have to replace the person who has been promoted 2. An insider may be less likely to make the essential criticisms required to get the company working more effectively 3. Promotion of one person in a company may upset someone else.

External recruitment
External recruitment makes it possible to draw upon a wider range of talent, and provides the opportunity to bring new experience and ideas in to the business. Disadvantages are that it is more costly and the company may end up with someone who proves to be less effective in practice than they did on paper and in the interview situation. There are a number of stages, which can be used to define and set out the nature of particular jobs for recruitment purposes: Job analysis is the process of examining jobs in order to identify the key requirements of each job. A number of important questions need to be explored: the title of the job to whom the employee is responsible for whom the employee is responsible

a simple description of the role and duties of the employee within the organisation. Job analysis is used in order to: 1. Choose employees either from the ranks of your existing staff or from the recruitment of new staff. 2. Set out the training requirements of a particular job. 3. Provide information which will help in decision making about the type of equipment and materials to be employed with the job. 4. Identify and profile the experiences of employees in their work tasks (information which can be used as evidence for staff development and promotion). 5. Identify areas of risk and danger at work. 6. Help in setting rates of pay for job tasks. Job analysis can be carried out by direct observation of employees at work, by finding out information from interviewing job holders, or by referring to documents such as training manuals. Information can be gleaned directly from the person carrying out a task and/or from their supervisory staff. Some large organisations specifically employ 'job analysts'. In most companies, however, job analysis is expected to be part of the general skills of a training or personnel officer.

Job description
A job description will set out how a particular employee will fit into the organisation. It will therefore need to set out: the title of the job to whom the employee is responsible for whom the employee is responsible a simple description of the role and duties of the employee within the organisation. A job description could be used as a job indicator for applicants for a job. Alternatively, it could be used as a guideline for an employee and/or his or her line manager as to his or her role and responsibility within the organisation.

Job specification.
A job specification goes beyond a mere description - in addition, it highlights the mental and physical attributes required of the job holder. For example, a job specification for a trainee manager's post in a retail store included the following:

'Managers at all levels would be expected to show responsibility. The company is looking for people who are tough and talented. They should have a flair for business, know how to sell, and to work in a team.' Job analysis, description, and specification can provide useful information to a business in addition to serving as recruitment instruments. For example, staff appraisal is a means of monitoring staff performance and is a feature of promotion in modern companies. In some companies, for example, employees and their immediate line managers discuss personal goals and targets for the coming time period (e.g. the next six months). The appraisal will then involve a review of performance during the previous six months, and setting new targets. Job details can serve as a useful basis for establishing dialogue and targets. Job descriptions can be used as reference points for arbitrating in disputes as to 'who does what' in a business.Selection involves procedures to identify the most appropriate candidates to fill posts. An effective selection procedure will therefore take into consideration the following: keeping the costs of selection down making sure that the skills and qualities being sought have been identified, developing a process for identifying them in candidates making sure that the candidates selected, will want the job, and will stay with the company. Keeping the costs of selection down will involve such factors as holding the interviews in a location, which is accessible to the interviewing panel, and to those being interviewed. The interviewing panel must have available to them all the necessary documentations, such as application forms available to study before the interviews take place. A short list must be made up of suitable candidates, so that the interviews do not have to take place a second time, with new job advertisements being placed. The skills required should have been identified through the process of job analysis, description and specification. It is important then to identify ways of testing whether candidates meet these requirements. Testing this out may involve: interviewing candidates asking them to get involved in simulated work scenarios asking them to provide samples of previous work getting them to fill in personality and intelligence tests giving them real work simulations to test their abilities.

Induction and training

New workers in a firm are usually given an induction programme in which they meet other workers and are shown the skills they must learn. Generally, the first few days at work will simply involve observation, with an

experienced worker showing the 'new hand' the ropes. Many large firms will have a detailed training scheme, which is done on an 'in-house' basis. This is particularly true of larger public companies such as banks and insurance companies. In conjunction with this, staff may be encouraged to attend college courses to learn new skills and get new qualifications. Training thus takes place in the following ways: 1. On the job - learning skills through experience at work 2. Off the job - learning through attending courses. Promotion within a firm depends on acquiring qualifications to do a more advanced job. In accountancy for example, trainee accountants will be expected to pass exams set by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). At the same time, a candidate for promotion must show a flair for the job. It is the responsibility of the training department within a business to make sure that staff with the right skills are coming up through the firm or being recruited from outside. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants has 300,000 members and students throughout the world. It is a professional body setting standards for the accountancy profession. To be properly qualified, accountants must have passed examinations that make them eligible for membership of one or more professional accounting bodies, such as ACCA. Typically accountants will improve their knowledge and experience by taking courses run and organised by ACCA during their professional training enabling them to develop and enhance their careers. Induction is the process of introducing new employees to an organisation and to their work responsibilities in that organisation.

Recruitment
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, selecting, and on boarding a qualified person for a job. At the strategic level it may involve the development of an employer brand which includes an 'employee offering'. The stages of the recruitment process include: job analysis and developing a person specification; the sourcing of candidates by networking, advertising, or other search methods; matching candidates to job requirements and screening individuals using testing (skills or personality assessment); assessment of candidates' motivations and their fit with organizational requirements by interviewing and other assessment techniques. The recruitment process also includes the making and finalizing of job offers and the induction and on boarding of new employees. Depending on the size and culture of the organization recruitment may be undertaken in-house by managers, human resource generalists and / or recruitment specialists. Alternatively parts of all of the process might be undertaken by either public sector employment agencies, or commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies.

Recruitment process:
The process of recruitment may be define in the following ways:

Job analysis:
In situations such as where one or more new jobs are to be created and recruited to for the first time, a job analysis and/or in some cases a task analysis might be undertaken to document the actual or intended requirements of the job. From these the relevant information is captured in such documents as job descriptions and job specifications. Often a company will already have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed. Where already drawn up, these documents need to be reviewed or updated to reflect present day requirements. Prior to initiating the recruitment stages a person specification should be finalized to provide the recruiters commissioned with the requirements and objectives of the project.

Sourcing:
Sourcing is the use of one or more strategies to attract or identify candidates to fill job vacancies. It may involve internal and/or external advertising, using appropriate media, such as local or national newspapers, specialist recruitment media, professional publications, window advertisements, job centres, or in a variety of ways via the internet. Alternatively, employers may use recruitment consultancies or agencies to find otherwise scarce candidates who may be content in their current positions and are not actively looking to move companies may be proactively identified. This initial research for so-called passive candidates, also called name generation, results in a contact information of potential candidates who can then be contacted discreetly to be screened and approached.

Screening and selection:

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for relevant skills, knowledge, aptitude, qualifications and or job related experience. These can be via: screeningrsums (also known as educational determined CVs); job

applications; interviews.

More

proactive

identification

methods

include performance assessments, psychological, aptitude, numeracy, physical and litera cy testing. Many recruiters and agencies use applicant tracking systems to perform the filtering process, along with software tools for psychometric testing and performance based assessment. Performance based assessment is a process to find out if job applicants perform the responsibilities for which they are applying. In many countries, employers are legally mandated to ensure their screening and selection processes meet equal opportunity and ethical standards. In addition to the above selection assessment criteria, employers are likely to recognise the value of candidates who also have the so-called 'soft skills', such as interpersonal or team leadership and have the ability to reinforce the company brand through their behaviour in front of customers and suppliers. Multinational organisations and those that recruit from a range of nationalities are also concerned candidates will fit into the prevailing company 'culture.

A British Armed Forces recruitment centre in Oxford. Lateral hiring:

"Lateral hiring" refers to a form of recruiting; the term is used with two different, almost opposite meanings. In one meaning, the hiring organization targets employees of another, similar organization, possibly luring them with a better salary and the promise of better career opportunities. An example is the recruiting of a partner of a law firm by another law firm. The new lateral hire then has specific applicable expertise and can make a running start in the new job. In some professional branches such lateral hiring was traditionally frowned upon, but the practice has become increasingly more common. An employee's contract may have a non-compete clause preventing such lateral hiring. In another meaning, a lateral hire is a newly hired employee who has no prior specific applicable expertise for the new job, and for whom this job move is a radical change of career. An example is the

recruiting of a university professor to become chairman of the board of a company.

On boarding:
For more details on this topic, see on boarding. "On boarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization. A wellplanned introduction helps new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. On-boarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have on boarding campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.

Recruitment approaches:
There are a variety of recruitment approaches and most organisations will utilize a combination of two or more of these as part of a recruitment exercise or to deliver their overall recruitment strategy. In summary five basic models more commonly found are:

An in-house personnel or human resources function may in some case still conduct all stages of the recruitment process. In the smallest organisations recruitment may be left to individual managers. More frequently whilst managing the overall recruitment exercise and the decision-making at the final stages of the selection process external service providers may undertake the more specialized aspects of the recruitment process.

Outsourcing of recruitment to an external provider may be the solution for some small businesses and at the other extreme very large organisations

Employment agencies are established as both publicly funded services and as commercial private sector operations. Services may support permanent, temporary, or casual worker recruitment. They may be generic agencies that deal with providing unskilled workers through to highly skilled managerial

or technical staff or so-called niche agencies that specialize in a particular industrial sector or professional group.

Executive search firms for executive and professional positions. These firms operate across a range of models such as contingency or retained approaches and also hybrid models where advertising is also used to ensure a flow of candidates alongside relying on networking as their main source of candidates.

Internet recruitment services including recruitment websites and job search engines used to gather as many candidates as possible by advertising a position over a wide geographic area. In addition social network sourced recruitment has emerged as a major method of sourcing candidates.

In-house recruitment:
Many employers undertake at least some if not most of their own inhouse recruitment, using their human resources department, frontline hiring managers and recruitment personnel who handle targeted functions and populations. In addition to coordinating with the agencies mentioned above, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own websites and other job boards, coordinate internal employee referrals, target and headhunt external candidates (much like an external agency or search firm), work with external associations, trade groups and/or focus on campus graduate recruitment. Some large employers choose to outsource all or some of their recruitment process (recruitment process outsourcing) however a much more common approach is for employers to introduce referral schemes where employees are encouraged to source new staff from within their own network.

Internal recruiters:
An internal recruiter (alternatively in-house recruiter or corporate recruiter) is member of a company or organization and typically works in the human resources (HR) department. Internal recruiters may be multi-functional, serving in an HR generalist role or in a specific role focusing all their time on recruiting. Activities vary from firm to firm but may include, screening CVs orrsums, conducting aptitude or psychological testing, interviewing,

undertaking reference and background

checks, hiring;

administering contracts, advising candidates on benefits, onboardingnew recruits and conducting exit interviews with employees leaving the organisation. They can be permanent employees or hired as contractors for this purpose. Contract recruiters tend to move around between multiple companies, working at each one for a short stint as needed for specific hiring purposes. The responsibility is to filter candidates as per the requirements of each client.

Employee referral:
For more details on this topic, see employee referral. An employee referral program is a system where existing employees recommend prospective candidates for the job offered, and if the suggested candidate is hired, the employee who referred receives a cash bonus. In some cases the organization provides the employee referral bonus only if the referred employee stays with the organization for stipulated time duration (most cases 3 6 months). Referral bonus depends on the grade of the referred employee, higher the grade higher the bonus however the method is not used for senior level hiring.

Outsourcing:
An external recruitment provider may suit small organisations without the facilities to recruit. In typically the largest organisations a formal contract for services has been negotiated with a specialist recruitment consultancy. These are known in the industry as Recruitment Process Outsourcing. Recruitment process outsourcing may involve strategic consulting for talent acquisition, sourcing for select departments or skills, or total outsourcing of the recruiting function.

On-Campus Recruiting:
College recruiting may not be living up to its potential:

Companies may not be realizing full value from their recruitment programs.

Fewer than half of corporate recruiters receive training in the proper techniques for interviewing job applicants.

Recruiters tend to form a positive or negative impression about an applicant's qualifications in the first few minutes of an interview, hardly sufficient time to collect information on which to base a recruiting decision. Recruiters also tend to spend more time talking with applicants they consider to be qualified and less time with applicants they dismiss on the basis of a superficial judgement. Often, recruiters do not follow the corporate script about: 1. The topics to be covered in an interview 2. Sometimes they applicants. fail to discuss important issues with

All these points reflect a lack of interviewing skills.

Employment agencies:
Employment agencies operate in both the public and private sectors. Publicly funded services have a long history, often having been introduced to mitigate the impact on unemployment of economic downturns, such as those which form part of the New Deal program in the US, and the Job Centre Plus service in the UK. The commercial recruitment industry is based on the goal of providing a candidate to a client for a price. At one end of the spectrum there are agencies that are paid only if they deliver a candidate that successfully stays with the client beyond the agreed probationary period. On the other end of the spectrum there are agencies that are paid a retainer to focus on a client's needs and achieve milestones in the search for the right candidate, and then again are paid a percentage of the candidate's salary when a candidate is placed and stays with the organization beyond the probationary period. The agency recruitment industry is highly competitive, therefore agencies have sought out ways to differentiate themselves and add value by focusing on some area of the recruitment life cycle. Though most agencies provide a broader range of service offering, at the two extremes are the traditional providers and the niche operators.

Traditional agency:
Also known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location. A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before being taken onto the agencys books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients' open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with potential employers on a contract or direct basis.

Niche recruiters:
'Specialized recruiters' exist to seek staff with a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers. Online resources have developed to help find niche recruiters. Niche firms also develop knowledge on specific employment trends within their industry of focus (e.g. the energy industry) and are able to identify demographic shifts such as aging and its impact on the industry. Financial arrangements operated by agencies take several forms, the most popular are:

A contingency fee paid by the company when an agency introduced candidate accepts a job with the client company. Typical fees range from 15% to 25% based on the candidates first-year base salary (fees as low as 12.5% can be found online). This type of recruitment usually has a rebate guarantee should the candidate fail to perform or leave within a set period of time (often up to a 3-month period and as much as a 100% rebate).

An advance payment that serves as a retainer, also paid by the company, non-refundable paid in full depending on outcome and success (e.g. 40% up front, 30% in 90 days and the remainder

once a search is completed). This form of compensation is generally reserved for high level executive search/headhunters

Hourly charge for temporary workers and projects. A prenegotiated hourly fee, in which the agency is paid and pays the applicant as a consultant for services as a third party. Many contracts allow a consultant to transition to a full-time status upon completion of a certain number of hours with or without a conversion fee.

Executive search firms ("Head-hunters")

An executive search firm or "head-hunter" are industry terms for a third-party recruiters who seeks out candidates often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have pre-existing industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles but more often will generate their own lists. They may arrange a meeting or a formal interview between their client and the candidate and will usually prepare the candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidates annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will attract both candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain

large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists and cold call prospective recruits. Headhunters are increasingly using social media to find and research candidates. This approach is often called social recruiting.

Executive research & resourcing firms:

These firms are the new hybrid operators in the recruitment world able to combine the research aspects (discovering passive candidates) of recruiting and combine them with the ability to make hires for their clients. These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support companies' recruiting efforts. Normally they will generate varying degrees of candidate information from those people currently engaged in the position a company is looking to fill. These firms usually charge a daily rate or fixed fee. Executive research can help companies uncover names that cannot be found through traditional recruitment methods and will allow internal recruitment and resourcing managers more time to deal with face to face interviews.

Internet recruitment services:

Recruitment websites Such sites have two main features: job boards and a rsum/curriculum vitae (CV) database. Job boards allow member companies to post job vacancies. Alternatively, candidates can upload a rsum to be included in searches by member companies. Fees are charged for job postings and access to search resumes. Since the late 1990s, the recruitment website has evolved to encompass end-to-end recruitment. Websites capture candidate details and then pool them in client accessed candidate management interfaces (also online). Key players in this sector provide e-recruitment software and services to organizations of all sizes and within numerous industry sectors, who want to e-enable entirely or partly their recruitment process in order to improve business performance. The online software provided by those who specialize in online recruitment helps organizations attract, test, recruit, employ and retain quality staff with a minimal amount of administration. Online recruitment websites can be very helpful to find candidates that are

very actively looking for work and post their resumes online, but they will not attract the "passive" candidates who might respond favorably to an opportunity that is presented to them through other means. Also, some candidates who are actively looking to change jobs are hesitant to put their resumes on the job boards, for fear that their companies, co-workers, customers or others might see their resumes.

Job search engines:

The emergence of meta-search engines allows job-seekers to search across multiple websites. Some of these new search engines index and list the advertisements of traditional job boards. These sites tend to aim for providing a "one-stop shop" for job-seekers. However, there are many other job search engines which index solely from employers' websites, choosing to bypass traditional job boards entirely. These vertical search engines allow job-seekers to find new positions that may not be advertised on traditional job boards, and online recruitment websites.

Recruitment Agency Directories:

With the emergence of the Internet, also came the functionality to provide recruitment agencies with a low-cost alternative to advertising. Unlike a standard directory, these niche directories have helped those searching for employment representation, a way to narrow down their requirements based on their own job-searching requirements. Recruitment agencies are then able to showcase their services directly to those looking.

Social recruiting:
Social recruiting is the use of social media for recruiting including sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Talent Acquisition:
Talent acquisition is the targeted recruitment/acquisition of high performing teams for example; in sales management or financial traders into a company from a competitor or similar type of organisation. Organisations requiring external recruitment or headhunting firms are now employing "talent acquisition" specialists whose job it is to identify, approach and recruit top performing

teams from competitors. This role is a highly specialised role akin to that of a traditional recruiter/head-hunter specialist but carrying greater visibility and strategic importance to a business. In many cases the talent acquisition person is linked directly to a company's executive management, given the potential positive impact a company can benefit from by getting high performing sales people into the business, whilst removing the same performing sales people from competitors.