Free «Recruitment and Selection» Essay Sample

Own Thoughts

I believe that employees are the most important assets of any organization. Regardless of the resources the organization might have, it is unlikely to succeed if it has incompetent employees. It is therefore necessary that every organization makes good use of its employees in order to maintain a competitive advantage over its rivals. If the existing human labor is not enough, the organization should consider hiring more employees. Currently, there is so much competition, and every organization is coming up with new ways of doing business to obtain more profits. It is therefore necessary that every organization embraces change and plans for the future. For instance, the world has become a global village thanks to the information technology. Through the Internet, an organization in the US can communicate to its affiliate employees in Rwanda. Similarly, I agree with the sentiments of Piotrowski and Armstrong (2006) that the Internet is currently one of the most effective means of advertising vacancies and recruiting employees.

The checks and balances in the recruitment procedure are very important in ensuring that the organization gets the best staff. However, there are so many graduates searching for employment yet the chances of employment are few. Everyone has to standout from the rest and show something extra from the education qualifications. It is also important to use recruitment measures that would benefit the organization. For instance, companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers visit universities, especially in third world countries like Kenya, and pick out the best students in their final year. This ensures that the company gets the best new skills on the market before rival organizations. Other organizations like banks offer graduate trainee programs to fresh graduates so that they could train and allocate them in the departments where their abilities can be of importance.

To get the best talent, organization should be very careful and specific in their advertisements. Piotrowski and Armstrong (2006) argue that if the advertisement is too broad and open, the organization might get many irrelevant applicants, and this would waste too much time for the organization in trying to find the best applicant. The qualifications and experiences required should therefore be well stated to limit complications during the interview stage. It is also important to analyze applicants’ resumes carefully. In most cases, applicants use common formats to present their resumes. It would be better to give priority to applicants with unique formats of resumes. The creativity of an applicant in the presentation of resume would indicate how good his/her skills are. Even though this might not guarantee creativity, it serves as a good measure for the organization to get creative applicants.

Nonetheless, organizations should bridge the gap between the younger and older generations. For instance, the needs and behaviors of a fresh graduate are different from those of an elderly employee. When recruiting young staff, it is necessary that an organization maintains a good strategy of human resource planning so that the two groups can be integrated to work best. When recruiting new staff, I believe that the human resource team should not only consider how much one talks or defends oneself during an interview. There is a need to consider one’s experience to understand whether he/she is best suited for the job. Some people are good at talking, but they have very little to show to backup their talks. Additionally, the manner in which one presents oneself for an interview tells much about one’s conduct and character (Chatman, 1991). However, this should not guarantee his abilities to take up a job. Some people might show up for an interview well dressed, but they are not competent enough for the position. It is therefore important that the entire recruitment procedure considers various factors such as the experience, education and comments from the referees before hiring new employees.

There is also a need to recruit young and dynamic graduates to maintain the success of the organization. If an organization has only older employees, it might end up losing the experience upon their retirement. If there are no young professionals to pick up from where the experienced employees left, the recruitment process would fail. It is necessary that the organization molds and shapes young employees so that the legacy of the organization could be maintained as echoed by Chatman (1991). The experienced employees should guide and train the young employees to maintain the success of the organization.

Gender equality is a very important factor that should be considered when hiring new staff. In fact, this is one of the Millennium Development goals that every country should strive to achieve before the year 2015. Both men and women should have equal chances for employment. Most organizations especially in the third world countries are notorious for violating this rule. For an organization to make a good reputation in the society, it should avoid any kind of gender discrimination. Equality should be maintained across the leadership structure. For instance, women should also have the opportunity to take up managerial positions like their male counterparts.

Occasionally, applicants exaggerate their qualifications. Some even go ahead to craft some certificates to back up their applications when in real sense they do not have the experience. Consequently, when looking at such a resume, the recruitment team could be deceived to believe they have found the right applicant for the job only to find that the information was false. It is therefore necessary to scrutinize the documents presented by the applicants to ensure that they are genuine for a person to be employed. This also calls for the organization to give practical exercises to the applicants to determine their skills (Chatman, 1991). While some might have the education qualification, they could be lagging behind in handling practical tasks. It is very unfortunate to employ the wrong person. This would be a waste of time and resources. In addition, the employee might lack the commitment that the organization needs.

The recruitment process does not end by selecting the best personnel. It also entails maintaining the employees within the organization. No matter how good the employees might be, if they are not treated well and appreciated, they might not offer the best services. Employees should be considered as part of the organization rather than as tools to be used by the organization. For instance, their views and skills should be considered in decision making. There should be a link between the employees and the management so that their issues can be addressed. It is therefore up to the management to make good use of the staff.

Several strategies can be used to motivate employees and make them work harder. For instance, rewarding best employees will make them feel appreciated and encourage others to work harder to get rewarded next time (Piotrowski & Armstrong, 2006). Although money is always a good incentive, there are other more important ways to reward employees. One way is through promotions. Employees who continuously show improvement in their performance can be promoted to enable them maintain their good spirits for the organization. Since there are various privileges of climbing up the leadership ladder, they would feel motivated.

In order to keep employees, it is always good to give them a reasonable salary that matches the kind of work they do. For instance, if an organization pays its employees “peanuts”, they might be poached by rival companies that have a better pay. The organization might therefore end up losing its experienced staff. Employees should feel comfortable and well rewarded for their work. It an organization does not make so much money, it might be understandable if it has slightly lower salaries than its competitors. However, there are organizations that might want to exploit its employees to make extraordinary profits. For instance, it has been said that China’s information technology industries and textile industries exploit desperate citizens to obtain huge profits. Recently, Apple Corps Ltd was accused of poor working conditions. I believe it is against the human rights for people to work without a protective gear or to exploit human labor. Governments and civil societies should join forces to ensure that such cases are addressed and any kind of injustices against human beings are stopped.

Additionally, it is necessary to organize team building exercises for the employees to bond and get some rest from work. This would help them to relate on a personal level and to understand one another better. Working under the same routine everyday can sometimes be boring. Employees need to take some time off work to relax and regroup. When they come back to work, they will be more refreshed and psyched up to work.

To avoid all the hiccups in recruitment of best employees, the organization should have enough time to conduct the entire recruitment exercise. Working under pressure could lead to picking second best employees when the best applicant might have been found if the organization took an extra day to look at more applications. The exercise therefore requires a lot of consultations and decision making. Alternatively, the organization could outsource from organization that are specialized in recruitment of employees for various industries. This process could also help an organization to save a lot of time and money. The only problem with such a process is that the best qualified applicant for the outsourcing companies might not turn out to be the best for the organization. If there are enough resources, organizations should stick to making their own recruitments instead of outsourcing.

 Recruitment and Selection (Human Resources)

The main goal of the recruitment process is to employ right people for the right job. Any manager would agree that this is one of the most critical and most difficult tasks in his/her career. Some scholars argue that recruiting the best employees is the most important task that can be performed by any manager because his appointments will determine his abilities to achieve the organizations goals and the quality of services delivered to the customers. Dale (2004) asserts that recruitment exercises are very common as reflected in the amounts of money spend on advertisement every year. In spite of the complexity of the exercise, Dale (2004) alleges that most managers only learn about the process through their own experiences or by watching the actions of other managers. The only training they receive is on conducting interviews. However, he argues that the recruitment process implicates much more than conducting interviews.

Recruitment theories have mainly concentrated on the environmental and psychological variables that are believed to dictate the outcome of the process. To achieve success, organizations should maintain a good link between the available jobs and the kind of people undertaking the jobs. People choose to join an organization based on formed characteristics. The organizational culture would therefore either attract or repel employees to an organization. It is necessary that the reputation of the organization is well maintained. The values of the organization and employees would determine its reputation. Similarly, organizations employ people based on their values and experience.

Making a wrong appointment can have significant adverse effects on the individual manager and on the organization as a whole. Even at the lowest position such as a poor trainee, if he is not in tune with the aims and ethics of the organization, he could damage the relationship between the stakeholders in the organization. Wrong appointments can have negative effects on the commitment and morale of co-workers. This would negate any efforts for team work. For instance, since the performance of managers is frequently assessed, wrong appointment could affect their subsequent achievements. Additionally, it might be very costly to correct these decisions. Even if the manager can easily dismiss a member and hire another one, the company will have already incurred a loss in terms of money and time.

On the other hand, it is not easy for an individual to work in a wrong place because it could affect his/her self esteem. Some employees could blame themselves believing that they are inadequate. In fact, Dale (2004) argues that it might be more difficult for a wrong employee to find his/her way out than it would be for the manager to replace a wrong employee. To avoid any of these, he suggests that managers should treat the recruitment process as a risk and find ways to reduce their chances of resulting to wrong decisions. This can be done by looking at the appointment as at a long term investment. Any entrepreneur would ensure that he avoids the risk of losing huge sums of money.

Deciding on the best appointee should follow a clear cut criterion on the skills and abilities of the applicant. The job, which must be done, should also be described in such a way that every applicant will be aware of what is expected of him/her. For a long time, organizations used to advertise jobs with a list of qualifications and vague personal characteristics that should be met. However, the more recent approach calls for flexibility and the ability to multitask. Moreover, the experience in the field can be acquired through many other ways other than years of work in the industry. Nonetheless, any job advertisement should be presented in such a way that the candidates comparatively and factually assessed.

According to Piotrowski and Armstrong (2006), the primary goal of conducting a recruitment exercise is to generate a pool of applicants interested in a certain job. The most common methods of job recruitment are print media, networking and through recruitment agencies. Currently, organizations have embraced the use of Internet-based methods. The Internet has turned out to be the most effective means. The employer posts a vacancy on the website and describes the skills needed. Most sites allow job seekers to post their resumes and apply for the jobs they are interested in free of charge. The two assert that the recruitment exercise can be conducted internally or externally. In internal recruitment, the job is only advertised to the employees of the organization. Usually, internal advertisement is considered as a form of transfer or promotion of employees. External recruitment on the other hand keeps the appointment open to any member of public with relevant qualifications.

Roberts (1997) alleges that the selection process is supposed to match an individual to a specific job depending on his/her qualifications. This is s very important aspect in human resource because its effectiveness cannot be optimized. Without a proper match of the employees’ skills and work, it would be very difficult to achieve proper returns on the investment in human resource. He asserts that the workplace is more than a list of tasks that should be fulfilled by an employee every day. There are other factors such as economic, physical as well as social environment where the activities take place. The selection process is usually strategic, in that there is a range of activities that have to be undertaken to find the best person for a specific role. All the activities of the strategy have to be orchestrated in such a way that they play a major role in the overall decision. Some of the key elements of selection include clear and precise job specification, adequate use of several techniques, getting rid of redundant processes, evaluation and measurement of the output of human resource.

Roberts (1997) affirms that the selection process should begin with clear specification on what exactly is needed. A good selection process will not only get the best applicant but also recognize applicants with other skills that the organization might require someday. One way of determining the best applicant is by looking at his/her competencies. This comprises of the knowledge, skills, personal experience, and values that enable an individual to perform a certain job to the best of his/her abilities. Determining an applicant’s competence is more than measuring his/her abilities. The manager should match the candidate with the roles of the job. Interview processes should therefore focus on a set of questions to obtain specific relevant information from the interviewee. All the answers provided should be analyzed for relevance and evidence of abilities.

Despite the significance of interviews, Roberts claims that they are marked by various problems. For instance, the interviewee can hardly sustain attention during the interview session: he/she is likely to remember questions addressed at the start and end of the process. Furthermore, the judgment can be compromised by prejudices or stereotypes against a candidate.

Psychometric have gained popularity especially selecting applicants for clerical positions. They are more accurate in determining the abilities than personal traits. Applicants with hire scores are considered to be the best suited for the job. All the information that is collected in the recruitment exercise is normally stored in a file so that a follow up on the abilities of the new employee can be conducted. This information can also be used to train the new employee on areas that are lacking in the description of his abilities. On many occasions, organizations work within very short time frames. Planning for human resource is therefore a key step in maintaining a competitive advantage.

After recruitment, there is a need to hold frequent training seminars for the employees to keep them updated on the changes within the industry (Roberts, 1997). Additionally, organizations should consider the legal issues related to hiring human labor. For instance, the eligibility of an individual to work in the country should be considered. Age is also an important factor because hiring an underage would amount to child labor, which is an offence according to the labor laws. To avoid such cases, the advertisement should clearly indicate the age brackets for the required applicants. Moreover, some positions require mature people of above thirty years. For instance, when hiring the director of a big organization like the United Nations, it is necessary to have an older employee with enough experience to coordinate people of various age brackets.

As the discussion has demonstrated, human resource planning is very important in recruiting employees. However, this process faces a number of constraints including lack of sufficient resources or employing unqualified people for the job. In such a scenario, the organization would lose so much money while trying to replace the employee. Similarly, it would affect the reputation of the managers and hinder them from fulfilling the goals of the organization. The success of any organization depends on the competencies of the employees. It is therefore necessary to be very strict during the entire process to ensure that you get the best applicants for the job. However, to retain the best employees, the organization has to appreciate their efforts by paying them reasonable salaries.