Chapter 4

Recruitment and
Selection
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
FA C U LT Y O F B U S I N E S S A D M I N I S T R AT I O N
THE UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS – DANANG UNIVERSITY
Learning Objectives – Part 1
Discuss the strategic decisions covering recruiting image,
outsourcing, and other related areas
Highlight five external recruiting sources
Identify three internal sources for recruiting and issues
associated with their use
Describe three factors to consider when doing recruiting
measurement and metrics
Understand selection and placement, as well as the associated
theory and application of these practices
Discuss the steps of a typical selection process
 PART 1
RECRUITMENT
Recruiting
Process of generating a pool of qualified applicants for
organizational jobs
Considerations
Integral Components for Effective Recruiting
Recruiting Requirements Expected of Employers

Know the industry and where to successfully recruit

Identify keys to success in the labor market
Cultivate relationships with sources of prospective
employees
Promote the company brand
Use recruiting metrics to measure the effectiveness of
recruiting efforts
Considerations for Determining Applicant
Populations

Number and type of recruits needed to fill jobs

Timing of recruiting to ensure effective placement in organization
External and internal messages on the details of jobs to be filled
Qualifications of applicants to be considered by recruiters
Sources for obtaining qualified applicants for jobs to be filled
Outside and inside recruiting means to be used by recruiters
Administrative recruiting and application review activities
Consideration of organization’s strategies to determine recruiting
goals
Strategic Recruiting Decisions
Recruiting Presence and Image
Recruiting image can be:
Continuous - Offers the advantage of keeping the employer in the
recruiting market
Intensive - Vigorous recruiting campaign aimed at hiring a given
number of employees in a short period
Employment brand: Image of the organization that is held
by both employees and outsiders
Company brand can help generate more recruits through
applicant self-selection
Organization-Based versus Outsourced Recruiting

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)

 Improves the number and quality of recruiting candidates
 Reduces recruiting costs
 Professional Employer Organizations (PEO) and employee
leasing
 Employer signs an agreement with the PEO

Staff is hired by the leasing firm and leased back to the company for a fee
 Leasing firm:
◦ Writes the paychecks
◦ Pays taxes
◦ Prepares and implements HR policies
◦ Keeps all the required records for the employer
Regular versus Flexible Staffing
Employers are hesitant to hire full0time employees due to:
 Increased cost
 Economic conditions
 Excessive competition
 Government considerations
Temporary workers - Employers can hire their own staff members or make use of
agencies on a rate-per-day/week basis
 Purpose of hiring temporary workers
◦ Match the firm’s needs with the right workers
◦ Avoid costs associated with benefits
◦ Enhance staffing flexibility
Independent contractors - Workers who perform specific services on a contract basis
Advantageous for the employer as they do not have to pay benefits
Done by individuals who are:
◦ Highly skilled
◦ Highly experienced
◦ Not affected by familial responsibilities
Pros and Cons of Utilizing Flexible Staffing
Pros
• Enable organizations to hire
workers without incurring high
costs
• Reduces time spent on recruiting
efforts, including efforts spent on
the screening and initial training of
workers
• Facilitates a flexible workplace
model in some organizations
• Companies can avoid litigation
associated with the termination of
permanent workers
• Severance benefits not usually
provided to individuals when work
ends
Cons
• Flexible workers can sometimes
exhibit poor job performance in the
workplace
• Low motivation might occur
because of a lack of opportunity for
long-term employment and job
advancement
• Time limits on temporary work
contracts prevent significant
enhancements in individuals skills
and knowledge
• Companies might have to offer
premium wages to attract
individuals working in more
advanced fields.
Recruiting Source Choices: Internal
versus External

Internal recruitment - Promoting from within an

organization
External recruitment - Recruiting from outside an
organization
Possible strategy for organizations that face rapidly
changing competitive environments and conditions might
be to:
Promote from within if a qualified applicant exists
Go to external sources if not
External Recruiting Sources
Media Sources

Competitive Employment
Recruiting Sources Agencies

Job Fairs and

Labor Unions
Creative Recruiting

Educational
Institutions
Advantages and disadvantages of External
Recruiting
External Recruiting Sources
Media sources - Newspapers, magazines, television, radio,
and billboards have been widely used in external recruiting
Internet media sources such as postings, ads, videos, and Webinars
are also used
Effectiveness of evaluating media ads
Easy ways to track responses to ads
◦ Different contact names
◦ E-mail addresses
◦ Phone number codes in each ad
After hiring, follow-up should be done
◦ Shows which sources produced the employees who stay longer and
perform better
External Recruiting Sources
Competitive recruiting sources - Includes professional societies and trade
associations that:
Publish newsletters or magazines and have Web sites containing job ads
Employment agencies - Public and private recruiting source
Public employment agencies - Operate branch offices in cities throughout the
states
◦ Do not charge fees to applicants or employers
Private employment agencies - Operate in most cities for a fee collected from:
◦ Either the employee or the employer
Headhunters: Focus their efforts on executive, managerial, and professional
positions
Executive search firms split into:
◦ Contingency firms - Charge a fee after the candidate is hired
◦ Retainer firms - Charge a fee whether or not the candidate is successfully hired
External Recruiting Sources
Labor unions - Labor pool is available through a union
Workers can be dispatched from the hiring hall to particular jobs to
meet the needs of employers
Job fairs - To help bring employers and potential job candidates
together
Creative recruiting - Can be used to generate a pool of qualified
applicants quickly to fill jobs in a timely manner
Desirable attributes of college recruits
Desirable grade point average (GPA)
Attending elite universities
Internships
College Recruiting: Considerations for Employers
External Recruiting Sources
School recruiting
Cooperative programs
◦ Students work part-time while attending school
Career encouragement
Summer internships
Mentoring programs
Internal Recruiting Sources
Advantages and Disadvantages of Internal
Recruiting
What to include in an Effective Recruiting Ad
Recruiting Evaluation and Metrics
Recruiting Measurement Areas
General Recruiting Process Metrics
Yield Ratios
• Comparison of the number of applicants at one stages of the
recruiting process with the number at the next stage

Selection Rate
• Percentage hired from a given group of candidates

Acceptance Rate
• Percent of applicants hired divided by total number of applicants
offered jobs

Success Base Rate

• Longer-term measure of recruiting effectiveness is the success rate
of applicants
Sample Recruiting Evaluation Pyramid
Increasing Recruiting Effectiveness
Recruiting activities
Résumé mining
Applicant tracking
Employer career Web site
Internal mobility
Realistic job previews
Responsive recruitment
Fair and professional treatment by the recruiters
Emphasis of positive aspects about the jobs and the employer by the recruiters
Recruiting effectiveness can be increased by using the evaluation data to:
 Target different applicant pools
Tap broader labor markets
Change recruiting methods
Improve internal handling and interviewing of applicants
Train recruiters and managers
 Part 2
Selection
Selection
Choosing individuals with qualifications needed to fill jobs
in an organization
Selection of right people for right jobs results in easy
management of employees
Placement
Fitting a person to the right job
Selection and placement activities focus on:
Applicant's knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
Degree to which candidates match situations experienced both on the job and in the
company

Person/job fit: Matching the KSAs of individuals with the characteristics of

jobs
Mismatch - Poor pairing of an individual with that of the job characteristics
Person/organization fit: Congruence between individuals and
organizational factors
Attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory: Job candidates are attracted to and
selected by firms where similar types of individuals are employed
Placement
Other types of fit
Compilational fit - Occurs when a low-level factor like worksite
teamwork prompts an increase in a high level consequence like
organizational performance
Compositional fit - Occurs when the people involved in creating fit are
doing so at different levels of a firm

Factors influencing fit

Spillover - Perceptions of good or bad fit in one area of work spills over
into beliefs about fit in other areas of the organization
Spiraling - Positive or negative perceptions about fit, impacting other
feelings about the workplace
Selection Criterion
Characteristic that a person must possess to successfully
perform work
Predictors: Measurable or visible indicators of selection
criteria
Job Performance, Selection Criteria, and Predictor
Selection Responsibilities
Organizations should meet:
Legal requirements
Inherent strategic implications of the staffing function
Approaches
Each department screens and hires its own personnel
Initial screening done by HR professionals, and the final selection
is made by managers or supervisors
HR Employment Functions
Receiving applications
Interviewing the applicants
Administering tests to applicants
Conducting background investigations
Arranging for physical examinations
Placing and assigning new employees
Coordinating follow-up evaluations of new employees
Conducting exit interviews with departing employees
Maintaining appropriate records and reports
Selection Process
Applicant job interest
Realistic job preview: Process through which a job applicant receives an accurate
picture of a job
Truth-in-hiring lawsuits - Occurs when a potential employee chooses to sue a
company for misrepresenting the job
◦ Candidates should be able understand the positives and negatives of a job in a
company
Pre-employment screening - Before having applicants fill out
application forms, employers conduct a screening to determine if
applicants meet minimum qualifications
Electronic assessment screening - Software used to review résumés and
application forms received
Disqualification and screening questions to understand individual KSAs
Assessment tests and background, drug, and financial screening
Selection Process
Application forms - Basis for prescreening information
Record of the applicant’s desire to obtain a position
Provides the interviewer with an applicant profile
Basic employee record for applicants who are hired
Used for research on the effectiveness of the selection process
Ability Tests
Work Sample Tests
• Require an applicant to perform a simulated task that
is a specified part of the target job

Situational Judgment Tests

• Measure a person’s judgment in work settings

Cognitive Ability Tests

• Measure an individual’s thinking, memory, reasoning,
verbal, and mathematical abilities
Ability Tests
Psychomotor Tests
• Measure dexterity, hand-eye coordination, arm-hand
steadiness, and other factors

Physical Ability Tests

• Measure an individual’s abilities such as strength,
endurance, and muscular movement

Assessment Centers
• Exercise composed of a series of evaluative tests used for
selection and development
Big Five Personality Characteristics
Personality Tests
Types
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Myers-Briggs test
Faking personality tests
Employers include questions that can be used to detect a lie score
Fake warning - Employers instruct applicants that faking results in
negative hiring impression
Honesty/Integrity Tests
Reduces the frequency of lying and theft on the job
Communicates to applicants the intolerance toward
dishonesty
Polygraphs - Mechanical device that measures a person’s
galvanic skin response, heart rate, and breathing rate
Employee Polygraph Protection Act - Prohibits the use of
polygraphs for preemployment screening
Controversies in Selection Testing
Areas in selection testing that generate controversies and
disagreements
Appropriateness of general mental ability testing
Validity of personality testing for selection
Selection Interviewing
Purposes
To obtain additional information
To clarify information gathered throughout the selection process
Conducted at two levels

Assessing the
Initial screening In-depth selection
qualifications of
interview interview
applicants
Inter-Rater Reliability and Validity
Interviewers must be able to pick the same qualities
consistently
Intra-rater reliability - Consistency within one interviewers
Inter-rater reliability - Consistency across different interviewers
Inter-Rater Reliability and Validity
Inter-rater reliability becomes important when:
Each of the several interviewers is selecting employees from a
pool of applicants
Employer uses team or panel interviews with multiple
interviewers
Validity can vary depending on the degree of structure that is
utilized in an interview format
Structured Interviews
Biographical Interview
• Focuses on a chronological assessment of the candidate’s past experiences

Behavioral Interview
• Applicants give specific examples of how they have performed a certain task

Competency Interview
• Questions are designed to provide the interviewer results against which to measure the
applicant’s response
• Competency profile - List of competencies necessary to do a particular job

Situational Interview
• Questions about how applicants might handle specific job situations
Structured Interviews

Benefits of Structured
Interviews

Ensures that a Greater consistency Individual work

given interviewer in the subsequent performance can
has similar evaluation of be better
information on applicants forecasted
each candidate
Less-Structured Interviews
Unstructured Interview
• Occurs when the interviewer improvises by asking questions that are not
predetermined

Semistructured Interview
• Guided conversation in which broad questions are asked and new questions arise as
a result of the discussion

Stress Interview
• Designed to create anxiety and put pressure on applicants to see how they respond

Nondirective Interview
• Uses questions developed from the answers to previous questions
Interviewers
Individuals

Individuals Sequentially

Panel Interview

• Several interviewers meet with the candidate at

the same time

Team Interview

• Applicants are interviewed by the team members

Effective Interviewing

Use Effective
Control the
Plan the Interview Questioning
Interview
Techniques

Questions to avoid
Yes/no questions
Obvious questions
Questions that rarely produce a true answer
Problems in the Interview
Background Investigations

Past job records Social security numbers

Sex offender lists
Credit history
Motor vehicle records
Testing records Military records
Educational and
certification records
Drug tests
Medical Examinations and Inquiries

Used to determine the physical and mental capabilities of

applicants for performing jobs
Reasons for Previous Employment Checks
Making the Job Offer
Given over the telephone
Formalized letter is then sent to the applicant
Offer document should be reviewed by legal counsel
Terms and conditions of employment should be clearly
identified
Making the Job Offer
Selected candidate should:
Sign an acceptance of the offer
Return the signed acceptance to the employer
Employer should place it in the candidate’s personnel files