University of London International Programmes

Human Resource Management

MN3075
Developed by Praba Nair
Associate Lecturer, SIM GE
Version 2

Copyright © 2019 by Singapore Institute of Management Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Topic 6

Chapter 2: Recruitment and Selection

 Chapter 2: Recruitment and Selection
Aims
The aim of this lesson is to describe the process of recruitment and selection
and evaluate the different methods of recruitment and selection.
.
Learning Outcomes
• Explain the growing importance of recruitment and selection in
relation to commitment and attitude, and workforce heterogeneity.
• Understand the difference between recruitment and selection.
• Describe the recruitment process specifically the need to have a
systematic job and person specification.
• Analyse the effectiveness of different methods of recruitment.
• Analyse the effectiveness of different methods of selection.
• Outline the key arguments relating to the debate of ‘one-best-way’
approach to recruitment and selection.
 Recommended Reading
• Pages 25 – 43 of the Subject Guide
• Torrington, D., L. Hall, S. Taylor and C. Atkinson Human
Resource Management. (Harlow: Financial Times Prentice
Hall, 2011) eight edition [ISBN SBN 9780273756927].
– Chapter 7 ‘Recruitment’
– Chapter 8 ‘Selection methods and decisions’
• Barclay, J. ‘Improving selection interviews with structure:
organisations’ use of “behavioural” interviews’, Personnel
Review 30(1) 2001, pp.81–101.
• Capelli, P. ‘Making the most of on-line recruiting’, Harvard
Business Review 79(3) 2001, pp.139–48.

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 Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment
‘Searching for and obtaining potential job candidates in
sufficient numbers and quality so that the organisation can
select the most appropriate people to fill its job needs’
Dowling & Schuler, 1990
Selection
‘Predicting which candidates will make the most appropriate
contribution – now and in the future’
Hackett, 1991

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 Recruitment and Selection
‘Recruitment may be thought of as a positive process of
generating a pool of candidates by reaching the right
audience…… Selection can be seen as a more negative process
of choosing or picking from among that pool the most suitable
candidate, both able and willing to fill the vacancy.’
Leopold, 2002, ‘Human Resources in Organisations’ pg 54

In essence, Recruitment is the process which aims to attract

suitably qualified candidates for a job. Selection is the application
of techniques with the objective of appointing the most suitable
candidate who will be successful in the job.

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 Importance of Recruitment and Selection
• Important for all levels not just management and
professional staff especially when the company requires
commitment from all levels of staff.
• The workforce is becoming heterogeneous. Therefore it
is important to have a high degree of fairness in the
recruitment and selection process.
• Governments are using legislation to intervene the
labour market.
• The recruitment process in Nissan UK lasted five days
when it set up its greenfield-site car plant in Sunderland,
England. Such was the importance to Nissan of selecting
a workforce with the exact attitudinal qualities they were
looking for.

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 Recruitment and Selection Criteria
1.Cost and budget
– Extend technique is cost efficient. Generally it applies to lower
level vacancies.
2.Validity
– Extent selection technique is an accurate predictor of future job
performance.
3.Reliability
– Extend instrument consistently measures what it is supposed to
measure.
4.Fairness
– Possibility of biasness in the recruitment and selection process.

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 Stages in good
recruitment &
selection practice

Source: Stephen Taylor (2005), People Resourcing pg 145

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 Job & Person Specification

Job specification
• description of job activities & task elements of the job
• enables organisation to find out exactly what job entails

Person specification
• description of skills, attitudes and knowledge required to
do the job effectively
• provides organisation with information regarding the type
of person required

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 Recruitment
• Determining the existence of a vacancy
– Someone leaves the organisation
– Necessary to replace? Can work be reorganised or
rescheduled?
– To acquire particular knowledge or skills
– Expansion of the business – need more staff
• Alternatives to recruitment – Workforce planning
– Promotion / Transfer of existing employees
– Job redesign / Amalgamation
– Temporary / Contract staff
– Reduction in hours – part time / flexible working

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 Recruitment
• Job analysis
– Looks at how each job fits into the organisation, what its purpose,
and the skills and personality traits required to carry it out.
– Job specification – includes job description and/or outputs or key
results areas that the job holder will be expected to achieve,
produce or be responsible for
– Person specification - prescribed list of personal requirements,
qualities or traits shown under set headings.
– Growing importance of flexibility
• Competencies
– These are skills, knowledge and attitudes that enable someone to
do the job.
– Based on analysis of people who show superior performance.
– Expressed in neutral terms e.g. customer awareness.

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 Recruitment strategy
• Range of methods
– internal advertisements, external advertisements, recruitment
agencies, executive search agencies, campus recruitment, staff
referrals
– Use of social media
• Growing importance of e-recruitment
– range from sourcing candidates to assessing candidates through
online application forms and online assessment tests
– attracts a large pool of candidates
– quicker method of recruitment than more traditional techniques
– quality of applicants recruited online can be higher e.g. BA
• Marketing exercise
– company selling itself to the labour market
– use of branding exercise to attract potential employees

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 Factors influencing Recruitment Techniques
• Type and level of vacancy
• Time constraints
– Time to fill position
• Cost constraints
– Managerial and lower level positions
• Availability of resources and expertise
– SMEs outsource to recruitment agencies
• Recruitment agencies
– Time savings
– Specialise in particular segments
– Helpful for overseas recruitment
• E-Recruitment
– Increase among UK employers from 14% in 1997 to 32% in 1999 (IPD,
1999)
– 90% of US employers using e-recruitment in beginning of century
(Capelli, 2001)

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Traditional versus Internet-based recruitment

Source: CIPD (2002) Recruitment on the Internet, Quick Facts, London:CIPD

Human Resource Management, 4th Edition
© Pearson Education Limited 2004

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 Advantages of e-recruitment
• Speed up recruitment cycle
• Reach a wider pool of applicants
• Provide up to date information of organisation
• Global coverage
• Cost-effective to build talent bank for future vacancies
• Ability to handle high volume applications
• Provide more tailored information on the post
(advertisement limited by word count)

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 Disadvantages of e-recruitment
• Limit the applicant audience as the internet may not be
the first choice for all job seekers
• Cause application overload or inappropriate applications
(easy to submit)
• Exclude those who cannot or do not want to search
online
• Make the process impersonal
• Turnoff candidates if the website is poorly designed
• Lose out on candidates if organisation’s website is
below the search engine ranking of competitors

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 Recruitment & Selection in MNCs
• Ethnocentric
– Majority of position are filled by nationals of parent company
• Polycentric
– Country nationals fill the majority of positions in subsidiary
– Key positions remain with parent country nationals e.g. finance
• Regiocentric
– Where decisions are made on regional basis regard is given to
key factor for success of product or service (e.g. local knowledge
vs product knowledge)
• Geocentric
– Best people recruited regardless of nationality for all parent and
subsidiary positions
Human Resource Management, 4th Edition
© Pearson Education Limited 2004

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 Measurement – Source Analysis
• Yield analysis
– Technique that yielded the greatest number and highest quality
applicants in the past
– Determine which method is most effective for a particular vacancy
• Time-lapse analysis
– How quickly the company needs to fill in the vacancy based on previous
recruitment campaigns
– Important when the post need to be quickly filled
• Cost-per-hire
– Take into account cost limitations
– Considerations for lower level positions - executive search are more
expensive and used for senior positions
• Methods help to determine what is effective and what should be
used in future. Importance of planning the recruitment process
systematically.

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 Shortlisting
• Aim is to reduce the pool of candidates to a manageable size.
• Initial screening techniques:
– Application form
• Most popular method
– Biodata inventories
• Multiple-choice questions on biodata, behaviour and attitudes
• Compare with ideal profile
– Realistic job previews
• Can take the form of interviews, ‘shadowing’ someone at work, case
studies, job sampling or videos
• Self select based on job previews
– On-line tests
• Psychometric instruments and tests to screen applicants on-line
– CVs and resumes
• May not include all information required
• May highlight certain qualities the employer is looking for
– Others
• Drug screening, graphology etc..
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 Selection
• After shortlisting the candidates during the initial
screening the company then makes the final selection
• Techniques include:
– Interviews
– Assessment centres
– Tests
– Work samples
– Reference Checks
• Technique used depends on the level of vacancy.

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 Interviews
• Focused interviews
– Preplanned topics/subject areas
– Interviewer has flexibility to probe further into specific areas
• Structured interviews
– Standard set of questions for each interviewee
– Responses can be systematically compared with each other
– Could be behavioural (past performance on specific areas) or
situational interviews (responses to hypothetical situations)
• Unstructured interviews
– No plans regarding the topic or questions
– No attempt to elicit comparable responses from different candidates
– Depends on the skill of the interviewer

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 Effectiveness of Interviews
• Effectiveness of interviews as a final selection technique.
• Structured interviews are more effective with a validity of 0.62
whereas unstructured interviews have a much lower validity of 0.31
(Anderson and Shackleton, 1993).
• Structured interviews are more effective especially for behavioural
rather than situational interviews (Barclay, 2001).
• Subjectivity in unstructured interviews:
– Expectancy effect
– Primacy effect
– Contrast effect
– Quota effect
– Similar-to-me effect
– Personal liking bias
– Physical cues
– Ability to recall information

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 Who is involved?
• HR Department
• Line managers
– Devolvement to line managers
• Peers
– Can be used in any stage
– Most common is to encourage employees to make referrals
• Specialist agencies
– Contingency – ad hoc recruitment using agency database
– Advertised selection – advertisement on behalf of company
– Search – head-hunting
• Outsourcing

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 Selection Tests
• Cognitive ability tests
– Attainment tests (skills candidate already possess)
– Aptitude tests (ability to acquire new skills)
• Work samples / job simulations (e.g. role play)
– Evaluate candidates practical ability
• Personality tests
– Characteristics considered important for job performance
• Ability, aptitude and personality tests are used mainly
for managerial positions.
• Tests are complementary to interviews.

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 (e.g. cognitive, job simulation and personality tests), assessment
centres and references.
c. Answers to this question depend on the techniques selected in answer
to question (b). For example, candidates might have referred, but were

Advantages & Disadvantages

not limited, to the screening and selection techniques set out in Table
1 below. You might, alternatively, segment interviewing into two or
more different selection techniques, which is a legitimate approach

of Selection Techniques
as long as you clearly distinguish between the different types of
interviewing technique, and set out clearly the different advantages
and disadvantages of each type.

Selection technique Advantages Disadvantages

Vetting application Relatively inexpensive
forms A good way of gathering basic
information
Realistic job previews Good test of organisational
commitment, fit, and
performance
Interviews There is evidence supporting
the effectiveness of structured,
behavioural and criteria-based
interviews
Valuable as part of a broader
process (e.g. assessment centres)
Cognitive tests Objective, a good way of making
comparisons between different
candidates
Cost and time-saving
Assessment centres Effective in giving an all-round
view of a candidate
Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of different selection techniques
Potentially high-volume of
application forms received for
limited number of jobs, creating
time constraints
Risk of bias
Increasingly constrained by legal
regulations
Expensive
Only limited numbers of
candidates can be assessed in
this way
How effective, especially
unstructured interviews?
Risk of bias, e.g. personal liking/
disliking, primacy effect, halo
effects, physical cues
Risk of gaming, e.g. when tests
are completed unsupervised
Expensive

15
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 Effectiveness of Tests
• Ability, attainment and aptitude tests
– High validity regarding future job performance [ability tests –
0.54; work samples – 0.55 (Anderson and Shackelton, 1993)
– Successful people have 3 kinds of abilities (Robert Sternberg
1998):
1. Analytical ability – analyse abstract data
2. Creative ability – find novel/original solutions
3. Practical ability – solutions to everyday problems
• Conventional tests tend to focus on analytical or abstract
skills.

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 Effectiveness of Tests
• Personality tests
– Criticism regarding measurability; stability of personality; position
relevance; and accuracy of questionnaire.
• Assessment Centres
– candidates undertake a variety of tests, group exercises and
interviews, while being observed by a team of multiple assessors
• Reference checks
– Provides factual check of qualifications and prior experience

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 Personality Tests
• Big five’ taxonomy of personality factors
‒ Extraversion-introversion
‒ Conscientiousness
‒ Neuroticism
‒ Agreeableness
‒ Openness to experience
• Evidence says these constructs apply across countries,
and are associated with success in diverse occupations.

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 Assessment centres

• A process whereby many selection techniques are

integrated such as group activities, in-tray exercise, role-
play, interviews, psych tests, work sample
• Cost is high. It is only practical for critical positions.
‒ Ratio of assessor to candidate is often 1:2
• Useful to discover personality e.g. leadership, team
working, competency, competitiveness, etc…

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 Reference Checks

• Widely-used in big organisations but not very valid or

reliable.
• Only minimal information is often given.
• It is mainly used for factual checks rather than character
judgements.

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 One Best Approach to Final Selection?
• Recruitment, short-listing and selection techniques will
depend on the type and level of position.
• Important to carry out the process in a thorough and
systematic manner.
• Tests can be highly accurate predictors of future
performance if properly managed. They are better
measures of ability and personality than interviews.
• Interviews to be used to assess other aspects such as
speech, poise, appearance etc..
• Interviews are useful from a company’s public relations
basis.
• Evidence suggests that interviews need to be structured
to be effective.
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 Recruitment and Downsizing
• Both activities are aimed with ensuring the ‘right’
number of employees in an organisation.
• Redundancy decisions have to be considered carefully.
• Many considerations:
– Cost and savings
– Local legislation (UK vs rest of Europe, US) – flexibility
– Power of trade unions
– Time consideration – alternative workforce arrangements

• Organisations with highly effective selection systems

experienced higher business outcomes and employee
outcomes.

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 Discussion 1
Explain the difference between ‘recruitment’ and
‘selection’.

?
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 Discussion 2
Explain when it would be justified for a firm to
spend a lot of money on recruitment.

?
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 Summary
• There is a need to develop a systematic & strategic
approach to recruitment & selection.
• Recruitment and selection processes are typically
assessed on cost, validity, reliability and fairness.
• Three types of sources analysis are used in recruitment:
yield analysis, time-lapse analysis and cost-per-hire.
• Once the pool of candidates are built, various techniques
are used to do the initial screening of candidates.
• Interviews need to be structured to be effective.
• In final selection, tests (especially ability and work
samples) are accurate predictors of future job
performance.