Chapter 5

Expanding the
Talent Pool:
Recruitment and
Careers

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 Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, you should be able to
1. Describe how a firm’s strategy affects its recruiting
efforts, and outline the elements that are part of a
strategic recruiting strategy.
2. Describe the methods firms use to recruit externally and
internally.
3. List some of the ways firms can improve their recruiting
and the metrics they use to do so.
4. Explain how career management programs integrate the
needs of individual employees and their organizations.
5. Explain why diverse recruitment and career development
activities are important to companies.
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 Discussion Starter #1

Luke’s Lobster uses

social networking to
promote its brand.

How has the use of the Internet and social

networks affected how today’s companies brand
and recruit?
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 5.1 Business Strategies and Their
Link to Strategic Recruiting
Recruiters always have to consider the firm’s
strategy.

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 Figure 5.1:
Elements of a Recruitment Strategy

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 Activity
Step 1: Conduct an online search and find at least
three articles related to the importance of selecting
an appropriate recruiting strategy.
Step 2: Using these articles as reference, write a
two-page report summarizing your findings with
examples to substantiate it. Be sure to cite your
sources.
Step 3: Share your report with the rest of the class
to initiate a class discussion.

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 5.2 External and
Internal Recruiting Methods
The two primary locations in which to find
candidates are those external to the firm
(external candidates) and those internal to the
firm (internal candidates), each of which are
recruited somewhat differently.

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 Figure 5.2:
Sources of External Recruitment

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 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 1 of 6)

Advertisements
 Advertising can reach a large audience of possible applicants.
 Preparing recruiting advertisements not only is time consuming; it requires
creativity in terms of developing their design and message content.

Walk-Ins and Unsolicited Applications and Résumés

 It is often believed that individuals who contact employers on their own
initiative will be better employees than those recruited through ads.

The Internet
 Looking on the Internet is the most commonly used search tactic by
jobseekers and recruiters to connect with one another.
 Both companies and applicants find the Internet cheaper, faster, and
potentially more effective.

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 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 2 of 6)

Social Media
 Firms are utilizing social media websites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn) to
recruit employees.
 Passive jobseekers – People who are not looking for jobs but could be
persuaded to take new ones given the right opportunity

Mobile Recruiting
 Mobile recruiting – The process of recruiting candidates via their mobile
devices

Job Fairs
 At a job fair companies and their recruiters set up booths, meet with
prospective applicants, and exchange employment information.
 Virtual job fair – Job fairs conducted online

Copyright ©2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved.

 Video Highlight #1
This six-minute, step-by-step demo of LinkedIn
Recruiter shows how the recruiting tool can be
used to find and attract the best passive
jobseekers on LinkedIn.

“LinkedIn Recruiter Demo”

Copyright ©2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved.

 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 3 of 6)

Employee Referrals
 Word-of-mouth recommendations are the way most job positions
are filled.
 Research findings:
 Employee referrals are the best source of applicants.
 Referred employees have higher retention rates than those who are not
referred and are hired in less than half the time as other candidates.
 Once hired, applicants referred by an employee tend to remain with the
organization longer.
 Negative factors:
 Corporate “inbreeding” – Occurs when firms hire employees similar to
those who provided the referrals and thereby discriminate against
protected classes
 Nepotism – A preference for hiring the relatives of current employees

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 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 4 of 6)

Re-recruiting
 Re-recruiting – The process of keeping track of and maintaining
relationships with former employees to see if they would be willing to return
to the firm

Executive Search Firms

 In contrast to public and private employment agencies, which help
jobseekers find the right job, executive search firms (often called
“headhunters”) help employers find the right person for a job.

Educational Institutions
 High schools and community colleges
 Work-study programs
 Internships

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Figure 5.3: Steps for Strengthening a Firm’s
On-Campus Recruiting Relationships

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 Figure 5.4:
Unpaid Internship Guidelines

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 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 5 of 6)

Professional Associations and Labor Unions

 Placement centers are usually included at the national meetings of
professional associations.
 Labor unions have been a principal source of applicants for blue-collar and
some professional jobs.

Public Employment Agencies

 Each of the 50 U.S. states maintains an employment agency that works with
employers to post their job openings in online job banks and matches
unemployed qualified workers to the jobs so they can apply for them.

Private Employment Agencies

 Private employment agencies are companies that, for a fee, match people
with full-time jobs.

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 5.2a External Recruiting Methods
(slide 6 of 6)

Staffing Agencies
 Staffing agencies (e.g., Adecco, Kelly Services) are firms that hire
and place workers in temporary positions.

Independent Contractors
 Independent contractors – Workers who are self-employed and do
project work on a contract basis for different organizations

Employee Leasing
 Employee leasing – The process of dismissing employees who are
then hired by a leasing company (which handles all HR-related
activities) and contracting with that company to lease back the
employees

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 5.2b Internal Recruiting Methods
(slide 1 of 2)

 Most companies try initially to fill job vacancies above the entry-level
position through promotions and transfers.
 Promoting employees rewards them for their past performance and
encourages them to continue their efforts, which in turn can improve
morale within the organization and support a culture of employee
engagement.
 Research suggests that internal candidates are likely to outperform
external candidates.
 When qualified employees are passed over for external candidates,
a firm’s current employees can become disillusioned to the point
where they begin looking elsewhere for jobs.
 When experienced employees leave an organization, they take with
them years of corporate knowhow that is hard to replace.

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Figure 5.5: Warning Signs
of a Weak Talent “Bench”

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 5.2b Internal Recruiting Methods
(slide 2 of 2)

Internal Job Postings

 Bulletin boards
 Intranets

Identifying Talent through Performance Appraisals

 Nine-box grid – A comparative diagram that includes appraisal and
assessment data to allow managers to easily see an employee’s actual and
potential performance.

Skills Inventories and Replacement Charts

 Skills inventories – Track an employee’s education, past work experience,
vocational interests, specific abilities and skills, compensation history, and
job tenure to see how they can best be used
 Replacement charts – Used for succession planning

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 Figure 5.6:
An Example of a Nine-Box Grid

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 5.3 Improving the
Effectiveness of Recruiting
A firm can improve its effectiveness when it
comes to recruiting by doing the following:
 Recruiters need an accurate job analysis.
 Line managers and employees need to be intimately
involved in the process.
 A job-starting date that works for both the organization
and the potential new hire needs to be established.
 After the person has been hired, the firm should
conduct a “debrief” and identify any lessons to
improve the recruiting process.

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 5.3a Using Realistic Job Previews
Realistic job preview (RJP) – Informing
applicants about all aspects of the job, including
both its desirable and undesirable facets
Proponents of RJPs believe that applicants who
are given them are more likely to remain on the
job and be successful because they will
experience fewer unpleasant surprises.

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 Discussion Starter #2
Explain how realistic job previews (RJPs)
operate.
As a manager or business owner, would you use
them?

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5.3b Surveys and Employee Profiles
Another way to improve a company’s recruiting
is to survey managers, top performers, new
hires, and candidates who turned down jobs.
Employee profiles – A profile of a worker
developed by studying an organization’s top
performers to recruit similar types of people

Copyright ©2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved.

 5.3c Recruiting Metrics
 Time-to-fill – Metrics that refer to the number of days from when a
job opening is approved to the date a person accepts the job and
begins it
 Quality-of-fill – A metric that measures how well new hires have
gotten “up to speed,” are performing, and their retention levels
 Yield ratio – The percentage of applicants from a particular source
that make it to the next stage in the selection process
 Acceptance rate – The percentage of applicants who accept a
firm’s jobs after being offered them
 Applicant tracking system (ATS) – A system recruiters use to post
job openings, screen résumés and uploaded profiles, contact via
email potential candidates for interviews, and track the time, costs,
and other metrics related to hiring people

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Figure 5.7: Time-to-Fill Calculations

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 5.4 Career Management:
Developing Talent Over Time
 Proactive companies see career development and recruiting
functions as strategic imperatives and, therefore, as an ongoing
process designed to maximize the talents of their employees and
retain them.
 These companies study their firms’ strategies in conjunction with their
organizational charts, job analysis information, and external factors such
as the labor market and the competition, and then recruit proactively and
continually.
 Managers play a key role in expanding the talent pools of firms.
 Good managers “grow” talent by listening to their employees’
aspirations, act as coaches, identify their strengths and areas of
improvement, and offer them continual feedback.
 Good managers also ensure employees receive training, self-
assessment tools, and information about the organization and possible
career paths within it.
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 Figure 5.8: Steps in the
Career Management Process

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5.4a The Goal: Matching the Needs of the
Organization to the Needs of Employees
A career development program should be
viewed as a dynamic process that matches the
needs of the organization with the needs of
employees as those needs change.

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 Figure 5.9: Blending the Needs of Individual
Employees with the Needs of Their Organizations

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5.4b Identifying Career Opportunities
and Requirements (slide 1 of 2)
To identify career opportunities and
requirements, managers have to continually
analyze the:
 Competencies required for jobs
 Progression among related jobs
 Supply of ready (and potential) talent available to fill
those jobs

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5.4b Identifying Career Opportunities
and Requirements (slide 2 of 2)
 Job progressions – The hierarchy of jobs a new employee might
experience, ranging from a starting job to jobs that successively
require more knowledge and/or skill
 Job progressions serve as a basis for developing career paths—the
lines of advancement in an occupational field within an organization—for
individuals.
 An individual’s career advancement can move along several
different paths via promotions, transfers, demotions, and even exits.
 Promotion – A change of assignment to a job at a higher level in the
organization
 Transfer – The placement of an employee in another job for which the
duties, responsibilities, status, and pay and benefits are approximately
equal to those of the previous job the person held
 Demotion – A downward transfer that moves an individual into a lower-
level job that can provide developmental opportunities
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 Figure 5.10: Typical Line of
Advancement in HR Management

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 Figure 5.11:
Stages of Career Development

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 5.4c Career Development Initiatives
(slide 1 of 2)

Career Counseling
 Involves talking to employees about their current job activities and
performance, personal and career interests and goals, personal skills, and
suitable career development objectives

Mentoring Programs
 Mentors – Individuals who coach, advise, and encourage employees of a
lesser rank
 Reverse mentoring – A program whereby younger employees are called
on to mentor older employees and executives about social media trends,
new technology, and marketplace trends

Tuition Assistance Programs

 Corporations often offer their employees tuition assistance to help them
further their careers if they take courses related to the firms’ businesses..
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 5.4c Career Development Initiatives
(slide 2 of 2)

Career Plateau Initiatives

Career plateau – A situation in which for either
organization or personal reasons the probability
of moving up the career ladder is low
Three types of plateaus:
1. Structural plateau – Marks the end of promotions
2. Content plateau – Occurs when a person has learned
a job too well and is bored with day-to-day activities
3. Life plateau – Is more profound and may feel like a
midlife crisis
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 Figure 5.12:
Career Plateau Questions

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5.5 Developing a Diverse Talent Pool
Employers often develop formal EEO/affirmative
action policies to recruit and promote members
of protected classes so that their representation
at all levels within the organization approximates
their proportionate numbers in the labor market.
 Women
 Minorities
 People who are disabled
 Veterans
 Older employees

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 Discussion Starter #3
What barriers to career advancement do women
and minorities face?

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 Video Highlight #2
View recruitment videos for three of most successful U.S.
companies today: Google, Apple, and KPMG.

“Google Recruitment Video”

“Apple’s Employee Recruiting Video”

“Why Choose KPMG”

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