Human Resource Management

Basic Text : Human Resource Management (14th edition)

By Gary Dessler & Biju Varkkey

Course Facilitator
Dr. Anupam Kumar Das
Assistant Professor
Department of Management studies
University of Chittagong
email : dasanupam@cu.ac.bd

1
Chapter: 3

Human Resource Planning &

Recruitment

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After studying this chapter, you should be
able to….

 List the steps in the recruitment and selection process

 Explain the main techniques used in employment planning
and forecasting.
 Explain and give examples for the need for effective
recruiting.
 Name and describe the main internal sources of candidates.
 List and discuss the main outside sources of candidates.
 Develop a help wanted ad.
 Explain how to recruit a more diverse workforce.

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The Recruitment and Selection Process
 Decide what positions have to fill through personnel
planning and forecasting.

 Build a pool of candidates for these jobs by recruiting

internal or external candidates.

 Have candidates complete application forms and perhaps

undergo an initial screening interview.

 Use selection techniques like tests, background

investigations, and physical exams to identify viable
candidates.

 Decide who to make an offer to, by having the supervisor and

perhaps others on the team interview the candidates.
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Steps in Recruitment and Selection Process
FIGURE 5–1 Steps in Recruitment and Selection Process

The recruitment and selection process is a series of hurdles aimed

at selecting the best candidate for the job.

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The Recruitment and Selection Process

This chapter focuses on

Personnel Planning and forecasting,

and on
Recruiting Techniques

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Workforce Planning and Forecasting
The recruitment and selection process starts with employment or
personnel planning.
Employment or Personnel Planning:
 The process of deciding what positions the firm will
have to fill, and how to fill them
 Embraces all future positions, form maintenance clerk to
CEO
 Linked to the organization’s overall strategy to compete
domestically and globally.
 Translated into the number and types of workers needed.
 Should flow from the firm’s strategic plans.

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Linking Organizational Strategy to HR Planning…
FIGURE 5–2 Linking Employer’s Strategy to Plans

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Planning and Forecasting…
 Succession planning
 The process of deciding how to fill the company’s
most important executive jobs
 What to Forecast?
 Like all good plans, personnel plans require some forecasts
or estimates, in this case, of three things:

 Overall personnel needs

 The supply of inside candidates
 The supply of outside candidates
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Forecasting Personnel Needs (Labor Demand)
 Factors Need to Consider
 Forecast revenues and estimate the Size of staffs to achieve
sales volume,
 Projected turnover ( resignations or dismissals), upgrade or
downgrade, technological changes and
 The department’s financial resources.

Forecasting Tools

Trend analysis Ratio analysis Scatter plotting

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Forecasting Personnel Needs…
 Trend analysis
 The study of a firm’s past employment needs over a period
of years to predict future needs.
 Studying the variations in your firm’s employment levels
over the last few years.
 But employment levels rarely depend just on the passage of
time. Other factors (like changes in sales volume and
productivity) also affect staffing needs.
 For example, you might compute the number of employees
in your firm at the end of each of the last five years or
perhaps the number of each subgroup like sales, production,
administrative etc.
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Forecasting Personnel Needs…
 Ratio analysis
 A forecasting technique for determining future staff
needs by using ratios between a causal factor(like sales
volume) and the number of employees needed(number
of sales people).
 For example, suppose a sales person traditionally
generates $500,000 in sales. If the sales revenue to
salespeople ratio remains the same, you would require
six new sales person next year (each of whom produces
an extra $500,000) to produce a hoped for extra $3
million in sales.

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Forecasting Personnel Needs…
 The Scatter Plot
 Shows graphically how two variables—such as sales
and your firm’s staffing levels—are related. If they are,
and then if you can forecast the business activity (like
sales), you should also be able to estimate your
personnel needs.

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FIGURE 5–3 Determining the Relationship Between
Hospital Size and Number of Nurses

Hospital Size Number of

(Number Registered
of Beds) Nurses

200 240

300 260

400 470

500 500

600 620

700 660

800 820

900 860

Note: After fitting the line,

you can project how many
employees are needed,
given your projected volume.

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Forecasting Personnel Needs…
 Markov Analysis
 Employers also use a mathematical process known as
Markov (named after Russian mathematician Andrei
Andreyevich Markov) analysis (or “transition analysis”)
to forecast availability of internal job candidates.
 Markov analysis involves creating a matrix that shows
the probabilities that employees in the chain of feeder
positions for a key job (such as from junior engineer, to
engineer, to senior engineer, to engineering supervisor, to
director of engineering) will move from position to
position and therefore, be available to fill the key
position.

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Drawbacks to Traditional Forecasting
Techniques
 They focus on projections and historical relationships.
 They do not consider the impact of strategic initiatives on
future staffing levels.
 They support outdated compensation plans that reward
managers for managing ever-larger staffs.
 They tend to “bake in” the idea that staff increases are
inevitable.
 They tend to validate and institutionalize present planning
processes and the usual ways of doing things in the face of
rapid change.

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Using Computers to Forecast Personnel
Requirements (Improving Productivity Through HRIS)
 Computerized Forecasts
 Computerized forecasts enable managers to build more
variables into their personnel projections.
 Software that estimates future staffing needs by:
 Projecting sales, volume of production, and personnel required to
maintain different volumes of output.
 Forecasting staffing levels for direct labor, indirect staff, and exempt
staff.
 Creating metrics for direct labor hours and three sales projection
scenarios—minimum, maximum, and probable.
 It also accommodates age, tenure, turnover rate, and time to train new
employees.
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Forecasting the Supply of Inside Candidates

 Knowing your staffing needs satisfies only half the staffing

equation. Next,
 You have to estimate the likely supply of both inside and
outside candidates. Most firms start with the inside candidates.

 Qualifications inventories
 Manual or computerized records listing employees’
 employees’ education,
 career and development interests,
 languages,
 special skills, and so on, to be used in selecting inside candidates for
promotion.

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Forecasting the Supply of Inside Candidates

Qualification Inventories

Manual systems and Computerized skills

Replacement charts inventories

 Department managers or owners of smaller firms often use manual devices

to track employee qualifications. Thus a personnel inventory and
development record form compiles qualifications information on each
employee.
 Computerized skills inventory data typically include items like work
experience codes, product knowledge, the employee’s level of familiarity
with the employer’s product lines or services, the person’s industry
experience, and formal education.

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Manual Systems and Replacement Charts

 Personnel Replacement charts

 Company records showing present performance and
promotability of inside candidates for the most
important positions. (Figure :5-4)

 Position Replacement card

 A card prepared for each position in a company to
show possible replacement candidates and their
qualifications.

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FIGURE 5–4 Management Replacement Chart Showing Development
Needs of Potential Future Divisional Vice Presidents

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Computerized Skills Inventories
 Survey Analytics’s Skills Inventory Software
 Computerized inventory of information that can be accessed to
determine employees’ background, experience, and skills that
may include:
 Work experience codes
 Product or service knowledge
 Industry experience
 The employee’s level of familiarity with the employer’s product
lines or services
 Formal education
 The usual process is for the employee, the supervisor, and
human resource manager to enter information about the
employees’ background, experience, and skills via the system.

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The Matter of Privacy (Keeping the Information Private)
The employer should secure all its employee data. Much of the
data is personal (such as Social Security numbers and illnesses).
Legislation gives employees legal rights regarding who has
access to information about them. Employers should keep their
manual records under lock and key.
 Ensuring the Security of HR Information
 Control of HR information through access matrices
 Access to records and employee privacy
 Legal Considerations
 The Federal Privacy Act of 1974
 New York Personal Privacy Act of 1985
 HIPAA (regulates use of medical records)
 Americans with Disabilities Act

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Forecasting the Supply of Outside Candidates
If there won’t be enough inside candidates to fill the anticipated
openings (or you want to go outside for another reason), you will
turn to outside candidates.
 Factors In Supply of Outside Candidates
 General economic conditions
 Expected unemployment rate
 Sources of Information
 Periodic forecasts in business publications
 Online economic projections
 U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
 U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET™
 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
 Other federal agencies and private sources

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Recruitment

 Recruiting
 The process of attracting
qualified persons to apply for
the jobs that are open. It is the
process of seeking sources for
job candidates.
 It is a process of discovering
potential candidates for
actual or anticipated
organizational vacancies.
 Finding and/or attracting
applicants for the employer’s
open positions.
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Recruitment
 Recruiting Goals
 The first goal of recruiting is to communicate the position

in such a way that job seekers respond. The more

applications received, the better the recruiter’s chances
for finding an individual who is best suited to the job
requirements.
 The second goal is to provide enough information about the

job to discourage the unqualified candidates from applying.

This will minimize the cost of processing the
unqualified candidates.

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Relationships among Job Analysis, Human Resource
Planning, Recruitment, and Selection

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The Need for Effective Recruiting

 It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of

effective recruiting.
 If only two candidates apply for two openings, you
may have little choice but to hire them. But if 10 or
20 applicants appear, you can use techniques like
interviews and tests to screen out all but the best.
 Even high unemployment doesn’t necessarily mean
that it is easy to find good candidates.

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What Makes Recruiting A Challenge?

It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of effective

recruiting. It’s easy to assume that recruiting is easy—
that all you need do is place a few ads on the Web.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Several things
make it more complex.

Recruiting Challenges

Effectiveness of Effects of Legal requirements

chosen recruiting nonrecruitment associated with
methods issues and policies employment laws

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Effective Recruiting
 External Factors Affecting Recruiting
 Looming undersupply of workers
 Lessening of the trend in outsourcing of jobs
 Increasingly fewer “qualified” candidates
 Other Factors Affecting Recruiting Success
 Consistency of recruitment with strategic goals
 Types of jobs recruited and recruiting methods
 Nonrecruitment HR issues and policies
 Successful prescreening of applicants
 Public image of the firm
 Employment laws

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Organizing How You Recruit
Should you centralize your firm’s recruitment efforts,
or let each plant or office do their own recruiting?
Reasons for doing so appear on this slide.

Advantages of Centralizing Recruiting Efforts

Facilitates Reduces Ensures Fosters effective

strategic duplication of compliance with use of online
priorities HR activities EEO laws recruiting

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Organizing How You Recruit…
The Supervisor’s Role:

 The human resource manager charged with filling an open

position is seldom very familiar with the job itself. Someone
has to tell this person what the position really entails, and
what key things to look or watch out for. Only the position s
supervisor can do this.

 The supervisor should therefore know what sorts of questions

to expect, and here your knowledge of job analysis should
serve you well.

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Measuring Recruiting Effectiveness
 What to measure?
 How many qualified applicants were attracted from
each recruitment source?
 If more applicants are generated than positions to fill, the firm
can be more selective
 More is not always better. The employer needs qualified,
hirable applicants.
 How to measure?
 Assessing both the quantity and the quality of the applicants
produced by a source.
 Using simple prescreening selection devices.

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Internal Sources of Candidates

1. The Internal Search

 A “promotion from within” concept.
 Many large organizations attempt to
develop their own low-level employees for
higher positions.
 Often the best source of candidates.
However, there are advantages and
disadvantages to using internal candidates.

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Internal Sources of Candidates…
Advantages
 Foreknowledge of
candidates’ strengths
and weaknesses
 More accurate view of
candidate’s skills
 Candidates have a stronger
commitment
to the company
 Increases employee morale
 Less training and
orientation required
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Disadvantages
 Failed applicants become
discontented
 Time wasted interviewing
inside candidates who will
not be considered
 Inbreeding strengthens
tendency to maintain the
status quo
Internal Sources of Candidates…
 Finding Internal Candidates

Hiring-from-Within Tasks

Posting open Rehiring former Succession

job positions employees planning

 Job Posting
 A method of informing employees of job vacancies by
posting a notice in central locations and giving a specified
period to apply. or
 Publicizing an open job to employees (often by literally
posting it on bulletin boards) and listing its attributes.

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Internal Sources of Candidates…
 Rehiring:
 Rehire someone who left company. It has Pros and
Cons
– Advantages:
• They are known quantities.
• They know the firm and its culture.
– Disadvantages:
• They may have less-than positive attitudes.
• Rehiring may sent the wrong message to current
employees about how to get ahead.

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Internal Sources of Candidates…
 Succession Planning
 Succession planning involves developing workforce
plans for the company’s top positions.
 The ongoing process of systematically identifying,
assessing, and developing organizational
leadership to enhance performance by practicing
“Talent Management”
 Succession planning steps:
 Identifying and analyzing key jobs/needs.
 Develop inside candidates.
 Assess and Selecting those who will fill the key
positions.
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Internal Sources of Candidates…
2. Employee referrals/recommendations
 Current employees can be asked to
recommend recruits.
 Advantages include:
 the employee’s motivation to make a good
recommendation
 the availability of accurate job information
for the recruit
 Disadvantages include:
 the possibility of friendship being confused
with job performance
 the potential for nepotism
 the potential for adverse impact

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Outside Sources of Candidates…

Locating Outside Candidates

1 Recruiting via the Internet 6 Executive Recruiters

On Demand Recruiting
2 Advertising 7
Services (ODRS)

3 Employment Agencies 8 College Recruiting

Temp Agencies and Alternative

4 9 Referrals and Walk-ins
Staffing

5 Offshoring/Outsourcing

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 FIGURE 5–7 Some Top Online Recruiting Job Boards

 Recruiting Via Internet

 Most people go
online to look for
jobs.
 Most employers and
for most jobs,  (www.bdjobs.com)
Internet-based ads  (www.aiminlife.com)
and recruiting is far  (www.mychakri.com)
and away the
 (www.jobstreet.com)
recruiting source of
choice  (www.prothomalojobs.com)

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Recruiting via the Internet
 Advantages
 Cost-effective way to publicize job openings
 More applicants attracted over a longer period
 Immediate applicant responses
 Online pre-screening of applicants
 Links to other job search sites
 Automation of applicant tracking and evaluation

 Disadvantages
 Exclusion of older and minority workers
 Unqualified applicants overload the system
 Personal information privacy concerns of applicants

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Advertisement
While Web-based recruiting is rapidly replacing help wanted ads,
a glance at any paper or business or professional magazine will
confirm that print ads are still popular.
• The Media Choice
 Selection of the best medium depends on the positions for which
the firm is recruiting.
 Newspapers: local and specific labor markets
 Trade and professional journals: specialized employees
“Next Key Player”
 Internet job sites: global labor markets “Are you looking to make an
impact”
• Constructing (Writing) Effective Ads “Travel or challenge”
“Call today” or “please
forward your resume”
 Create attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA).
 Create a positive impression (image) of the firm

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FIGURE 5–8 Help Wanted Ad that Draws Attention

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Employment Agencies

Types of Employment
Agencies

Public Nonprofit Private

agencies agencies agencies

There are three main types of employment agencies:

(1) public agencies operated by federal, state, or local
governments;
(2) agencies associated with nonprofit organizations; and
(3) privately owned agencies.

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Employment Agencies
 Public or Non-Profit agencies: focus on helping
unemployed individuals with lower skill levels
to find jobs

 Private agencies: provide more comprehensive

services and are perceived to offer positions and
applicants of a higher caliber.

 Fees may be paid by employer, employee

or both.
 Important sources of clerical, white-collar,
and managerial personnel
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Employment Agencies

Why Use a Private Employment Agency?

 No HR department: firm lacks recruiting and screening
capabilities to attract a pool of qualified applicants.
 To fill a particular opening quickly.
 To attract more minority or female applicants.
 To reach currently employed individuals who are more
comfortable dealing with agencies than competing
companies.
 To reduce internal time devoted to recruiting.

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Employment Agencies

Avoiding Problems with Employment Agencies

 Give agency an accurate and complete job description.
 Make sure tests, application blanks, and interviews are part
of the agency’s selection process.
 Review candidates accepted or rejected by your firm or the
agency for effectiveness and fairness of agency’s screening
process.
 Screen agency for effectiveness in filling positions.
 Supplement the agency’s reference checking by checking
the final candidate’s references yourself.

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Temp Agencies and Alternative Staffing

 Employers increasingly supplement their permanent

workforces by hiring contingent or temporary
workers, often through temporary help employment
agencies.
 Also known as part-time or just-in-time workers, the
contingent workforce is big and growing.
 The contingent workforce isn’t limited to clerical or
maintenance staff.
 It includes thousands of engineering, science, or
management support occupations, such as temporary
chief financial officers, human resource managers,
and CEOs.

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Temp Agencies and Alternative Staffing

 Benefits of Temps
 Increased productivity—paid only when working
 Allows “trial run” for prospective employees
 No recruitment, screening, and payroll
administration costs
 Costs of Temps
 Increased labor costs due to fees paid to temp
agencies
 Temp employees’ lack of commitment to the firm

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Temp Agencies and Alternative Staffing
 Concerns of Temp Employees (WHAT SUPERVISORS
SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TEMPORARY EMPLOYEES CONCERNS)

 Dehumanizing, impersonal, and discouraging treatment by

employers.
 Insecurity about employment and pessimism about the future.
 Worry about the lack of insurance and pension benefits.
 Being misled about job assignments and whether temporary
assignments are likely to become full-time positions.
 Being “underemployed” while trying to return to the full-time
labor market.
 Anger toward the corporate world and its values; expressed as
hostility and disenchantment.

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Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs
Outsourcing and offshoring are perhaps the most extreme
examples of alternative staffing. Rather than bringing people in
to do the firm’s jobs, outsourcing and offshoring send the jobs
out.
 Outsourcing means having outside vendors supply services (such as
benefits management, market research, or manufacturing) that the
firm’s own employees previously did in-house.
 Offshoring is a narrower term. It means having outside vendors or
employees abroad supply services that the firm’s own employees
previously did in-house.
 Outsourcing and offshoring are both contentious. Particularly in
challenging economic times, employees, unions, legislators, and
even many business owners feel that shipping jobs out (particularly
overseas) is ill-advised.

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Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs

Political and military

instability

Resentment and
Cultural
anxiety of U.S.
misunderstandings
employees/unions

Outsourcing/
Offshoring
Customers’ securing
Costs of foreign Issues and privacy
workers
concerns

Foreign contracts,
Special training of
liability, and legal
foreign employees
concerns

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Executive Recruitment
 Executive Recruiters (Headhunters)
 Executive recruiters (also known as headhunters) are special
employment agencies retained by employers to seek out top-
management talent for their clients. For executive positions,
headhunters may be your only source of candidates.
 The employer always pays the fees.
 Guidelines for Choosing a Recruiter
1. Make sure the firm is capable of conducting a thorough search.
2. Meet individual who will actually handle your assignment.
3. Ask how much the search firm charges.
4. Make sure the recruiter and you agree on what sort of person you need
for the position.
5. Never rely solely on the recruiter to do reference checking.

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On-Demand Recruiting Services (ODRS)

 A Service that Provide short-term specialized

recruiting to support specific projects without the
expense of retaining traditional search firms.
 They are basically recruiters who get paid by the
hour or project, instead of a percentage fee.

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College Recruiting
Sending an employer’s representatives to college campuses to
prescreen applicants and create an applicant pool from the
graduating class—is an important source of management trainees
and professional and technical employees.
 On-campus recruiting goals  On-site visits
 To determine if the candidate is  Invitation letters
worthy of further consideration  Assigned hosts
 To attract good candidates  Information packages
 Planned interviews
 Timely employment offer
 Follow-up
 Internships

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Employee Referrals and Walk-ins
 Employee Referrals
 Referring employees become stakeholders.
 Referral is a cost-effective recruitment program.
 Referral can speed up diversifying the workforce.
 Relying on referrals may be discriminatory.
 Walk-ins
 Seek employment through a personal direct approach to
the employer.
 Courteous treatment of any applicant is a good business
practice.

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Improving Productivity Through HRIS:
An Integrated Approach to Recruiting

Elements of an HRIS

Requisition
Recruiting Screening Hiring
management
solution services management
system

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Recruiting A More Diverse Workforce
Recruiting a diverse workforce isn’t just socially responsible.
Given globalization and the rapid increase in minority, older
worker, and women candidates, it is a necessity.

Single parents

The disabled Older workers

Minorities and
Welfare-to-work
women

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Developing and Using Application Forms
With a pool of applicants, the prescreening process can begin.
The application form is usually the first step in this process
(some firms first require a brief, prescreening interview or
online test). A filled-in application provides four types of
information listed in the slide.

Uses of Application Form

Information

Applicant’s Applicant’s Applicant’s Applicant’s

education and prior progress employment likelihood of
experience and growth stability success

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FIGURE 5–9 FBI Employment Application

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