RECRUITEMENT &

SELECTION
-In General
A brief overview of Recruitment channels. Aims &
Challenges associated with Recruitment and Selection, Aims
and objectives of selection and the challenges and
constraints associated with it.

PREPARED BY:
ROLL NO:
MPA-Previous

SUBMITTED TO:

2015
Contents
DEDICATION .................................................................................................................................................. 3
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................................... 4
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 5
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION .................................................................................................................... 6
AIMS OF RECRUITEMENT .............................................................................................................................. 6
CHALLENGES OF RECRUITEMENT ............................................................................................................. 7
ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES .................................................................................................................. 7
Promotion from within: ........................................................................................................................ 7
Employment status policies: ................................................................................................................. 8
Affirmative Action Plans ........................................................................................................................... 8
Environmental Condition: ......................................................................................................................... 8
Labor Market Conditions ...................................................................................................................... 8
Legal Issues: .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Costs .......................................................................................................................................................... 9
RECRUITEMENT CHANNELS. ......................................................................................................................... 9
INTERNAL RECRUITMENT.......................................................................................................................... 9
Employee Referrals. ............................................................................................................................ 10
EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT ....................................................................................................................... 10
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF SELECTION PROCESS ........................................................................................ 13
COMPETENCY MAPPING: ........................................................................................................................ 13
THE APPLICATION ................................................................................................................................... 13
SELECTION TESTS .................................................................................................................................... 13
CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES IN SELECTION PROCESS. ........................................................................ 14
COST ........................................................................................................................................................ 14
APPLICATION QUESTIONAIRE ................................................................................................................. 15
BACKGROUND CHECKS ....................................................................................................................... 15
FAIRNESS IN PROCESS. ........................................................................................................................ 16
JOB OFFER. .......................................................................................................................................... 16
CONCLUSION. .............................................................................................................................................. 16
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 18
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DEDICATION

I want to dedicate this research paper to my mentor and my TEACHER who has always been

there to help me around.

employment. The candidates are sought via their applications which result in a whole recruits

/talent pool, these people are then shortlisted and selected. Recruitment and selection is pivotal in

the growth and talent acquisition. It is the heart of a company’s growth. People In charge of

recruiting people to posts in an organizations take a crucial role; only those people selected for

employment can be led, managed and developed. So, the decision to employ (or not) reinforces

the whole area of managing people. And it just not only include hiring of the people, it also deals

with the people you want to let go off. It is that attitude of the HR department that ensures a

positive workplace environment which in return helps boosts wok organization’s performance.

In this particular paper, we will research the subject recruitment and selection and we will

discuss the following subjects. Aims of recruitment, Challenges associated with Recruitment

function, Recruitment channels, Aims and objectives of selection and the challenges and

constraints associated with it.

management: namely, the acquisition, development and reward of workers In this competitive

market it’s really difficult to fetch the most appropriate personnel for the firm. Not only does the

hiring matter but the positioning of the recruits also matter a great deal, Right placement ensures

potential and room for further growth and development.

The process of recruitment in an organization starts with the filling up of the manpower

requisition form that contains the details on the job description, skills required, number of

vacancies, experience and qualification requirement. Recruitment of new skilled people instills

new ideas and energy in the organization which in turns helps the progress of an organization.

As Mullins (2010, p 485) notes: ‘If the HRM function is to remain effective, there must be

consistently good levels of teamwork, plus ongoing co-operation and consultation between line

managers and the HR manager.

Recruitment and selection is often presented as a planned rational activity, comprising certain

sequentially-linked phases within a process of employee resourcing, which itself may be located

within a wider HR management strategy. Bratton and Gold (2007, p 239) differentiate the two

terms while establishing a clear link between them in the following way:

‘Recruitment is the process of generating a pool of capable people to apply for employment to an

organization. Selection is the process by which managers and others use specific instruments to

choose from a pool of applicants a person or persons more likely to succeed in the job(s), given

management goals and legal requirements.’

In setting out a similar distinction in which recruitment activities provide a pool of people

eligible for selection, Foot and Hook (2005, p 63) suggest that:

‘Although the two functions are closely connected, each requires a separate range of skills and

expertise, and may in practice be fulfilled by different staff members. The recruitment activity, but not

normally the selection decision, may be outsourced to an agency. It makes sense, therefore, to treat

each activity separately.

AIMS OF RECRUITEMENT

RECRUITMENT: The process of attracting individuals on a timely basis, in

The sole objective of recruitment is to attract maximum pool of eligible candidates for the

position. It is also called as talent acquisition or procurement..

candidates to provide replacements for vacancies in all the various classes of occupation and

skill.

The second aim is to select the best available applicants for each occupation, and to place them

appropriately, which means that they perfectly fit in jobs in which they can serve the

organization well and which will be rewarding to them, both materially and psychologically.

Two further aims are perhaps more particularly characteristic of public service and governmental

employment. One is to base recruitment of all but casual staff on the concept of a continuous

flow of people through what is virtually a lifelong career- in other words. to have a permanent

staff, with a relatively low turnover in employment, and a balanced structure of age-groups to

prevent the “bottle- necking” of career avenues. The other is, at least in countries with any

pretensions to democracy, to ensure that all citizens shall have, so far as possible, equal

opportunities according to their qualifications and aptitude, And that is very important-to win

employment in the public service without fear of favoritism or patronage.

CHALLENGES OF RECRUITEMENT
Recruiters must be sensitive to the constraints on the recruitment process. These limits arise from

the organizations, the recruiter, and the external environment.

ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES
Organizational policies seek to achieve uniformity, economies, PR benefits, or other benefits

regarding recruiting

Promotion from within: The problem with promotion from within is that the promoted person

leaves a staffing gap in his or her former position, so there is still a position to be filled.

However, that gap is likely to be at a lower, less-skilled position, and therefore it may be an

easier position to fill. The disadvantage of promotion from within is that the organization loses
out on the chance for new ideas and the creativity that can come from a new person entering the

organization for the first time.

Employment status policies: Some companies have policies on hiring part time and

temporary employees. Limitation against part time and temporary employees reduces the pool of

potential applicants, especially since this segment of wor force is a fast growing one.

International Hiring policies: the policies may also require job opening to be staffed with local

citizens. The use of foreign nationals reduces relocation expenses, lessens the likelihood of

nationalization and if top slots are held by locals- minimizes the charges of economic

exploitations.

Affirmative Action Plans

Affirmative actins plan may alert a recruiter to recruit more minority or female candisates .

When AA needs suggest a greater balance in the mix of the employees , the recruiter must adjust

their plans accordingly. If not complied, the recruiter may be guilty of discrimination

Environmental Condition:

Labor Market Conditions: The strength of the economy and labor market conditions will

significantly affect your organization’s ability to attract and retain top-level employees. Local

labor market conditions strongly affect non-managerial and supervisory positions, and depending

on your industry, global considerations may affect your labor market for professional and

technical applicants.

Legal Issues: There are a number of laws that will affect your hiring process, particularly in the

area of discrimination. . In the UK, for example, current legislation is intended to make unlawful

discrimination on the grounds of age, race, nationality or ethnic origin, disability, sex, marital
status and sexual orientation. The law identifies both direct discrimination, where an individual

is treated less favorably on the sole grounds of their membership of a group covered in the

relevant legislation, and indirect discrimination which occurs when a provision applied to both

groups disproportionately affects one in reality.

Costs
A concern with effectiveness in recruitment and selection becomes all the more important when

one considers the costs of getting things wrong. We begin with apparent costs, which centre on

the direct costs of recruitment procedures, but one might also consider the so-called opportunity

costs of engaging in repeated recruitment and selection when workers leave an organisation. An

excessive preoccupation with recruitment and selection will divert a manager from other activites

he or she could usefully be engaged in. It is also useful to consider the ‘investment’, including

training resources, lost to the employer when a worker leaves prematurely.

RECRUITEMENT CHANNELS.

INTERNAL RECRUITMENT
The most common method used to find qualified applicants from inside the organization is job

posting.

JOB POSTING: The procedure to inform employees that job openings exist. The traditional

method to announce a job opening was to post notice of the job on the HR bulletin board; no

doubt this is the origin of the term job posting.

e-mails to all employees about the job vacancy. Other employers publish employment

newsletters or distribute job announcement flyers. Whatever the method used, the job

announcement should include information about the position, the required qualifications and

instructions on how to apply. It is important that the job announcement is made available to all

employees. Adequate job posting can ensure that minority workers and other disadvantaged

groups are aware of opportunities within the organization.

Employee Referrals.
Some managers believe that the best method to find top performers is to hire individuals referred

by existing employees. Current employees can play an important role in recruiting new

employees, and some organizations pay a bonus to employees for successful referrals. It sounds

like everyone wins—the organization gets a successful new hire, the new employee has a job,

and the referring employee has a bonus in his or her pocket.

EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT

Applicant pools can be generated in a number of ways. Depending on your organization’s

policies and the size of your hiring budget, you may want to use an employment agency.

Private agencies and executive search firms are usually used for recruiting white-collar

employees, but they can be used for virtually any type of position. Using job criteria provided by

your organization, an agency will generate the applicant pool and do the preliminary interviews,

thereby screening out unqualified candidates and sending you only those who are actually

qualified.
State employment office: If you register your job opening with your state employment office, it

may send you similarly qualified referrals at no charge. Depending on the nature of the position,

you may also get some unsolicited walk-in applicants, but these still may not generate a large

enough applicant pool without further recruitment efforts.

In-house recruiters: large organizations often hire in-house recruiters whose sole focus is to

generate qualified candidates for open positions. Recruiters are generally used in high-tech

industries and focus their efforts on technical schools, community colleges and universities.

Since in-house recruiters are employees of the organization, applicants generally base their

perception of the organization on their interaction with the internal recruiter. Therefore,

recruiters must be made aware of the image they present during the screening interview; it can

significantly influence the applicant’s attitude toward the organization. You may choose to

advertise the open position in local newspapers, trade journals, radio and television.

Advertising: can range from a simple help wanted ad in the classifieds to an extensive

multimedia campaign. Help wanted ads often include a URL for online applications well as more

traditional methods for reply. Some organizations have eliminated traditional methods altogether

and accept only online applications.

Historically, local newspaper advertising was the common recruitment method, particularly for

entry-level positions, because it was low cost and could generate a good number of applicants. If

the job you are hiring for requires technical skills not commonly found in your local labor force,

you will have to broaden your search geographically by advertising in other areas or working

with employment specialists outside of your local area. In general, the more technically specific

the job, the wider the geographic recruitment area.

arrangement in which a student is placed temporarily in a position with no obligation by either

the student or the organization to make the position permanent. The internship may be a summer

or a part-time job while the student is in school, enabling the student to learn the organization

and try out the job before settling into a career. It also enables the organization to try out a

possible future employee before making a job

Online recruiting: The most significant change in recruiting practices has been the rise in the use

of online recruiting. Many organizations post job openings on their web sites or on specialized

sites like Career Builder and Rozee.pk, and some accept only online applications, completely

eliminating the hard-copy application. There are advantages to online recruiting. First, it costs

less than traditional advertising. It’s easy and quick to post an ad; responses arrive faster and in

greater quantity; and a wider range of applicants can be generated. Online processes can also

screen applications and administer some selection tests, thereby significantly reducing the HR

time required to generate a pool of qualified candidates.

There are as many different methods of recruiting as there are organizations, and there is no one

best method for recruiting job applicants. Most organizations use a variety of methods,

depending on the nature of the job to be filled, the time needed to properly fill the position and

the size of their recruiting budget. Your organization may already have a valid track record for

recruiting that will determine what methods work best for your situation.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF SELECTION PROCESS
One of the last stages in recruitment and selection is selection itself, which includes the choice of

methods by which an employer reduces a short-listed group following the recruitment stage,

leading to an employment decision. For most people, this is the only visible stage of the

resourcing cycle because their experience of it is likely to be as a subject – or candidate.

Selection is the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify and hire
those with a greater likelihood of success in a job

COMPETENCY MAPPING:
Aims and objectives of selections can be described by the term Competency mapping as defined

by three different words such as competent (knowledge), competency (skills) and competencies

(attitude) or called a KSA model is an approach to compare the abilities and forte within an

individual to that of the requirement of the opening or vacancy. Competency mapping structure

ascertains measurable standards by which managers can manipulate decision making process in

the areas of recruitment and selection

THE APPLICATION
Asking the candidate to complete an application form is generally done early in the selection

process. Despite the widespread use of application forms for employee selection, research

demonstrates that illegal (or inappropriate) application items are still quite common.

Questionable items are those that request information on gender, race, national origin, education

dates and disabilities

SELECTION TESTS
These are used to identify applicant skills that cannot be determined in an interview process.

Using a variety of testing methods, applicants are rated on aptitude, personality, abilities, honesty
and motivation. Properly designed selection tests are standardized, reliable and valid in

predicting an applicant’s success on the job.

Once you have made your selection decision, you must verify the information provided by the

candidate and check the candidate’s references. Millions of background and reference checks are

done on applicants annually, and unfortunately, much of the information on application forms

and résumés is inaccurate.

CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES IN SELECTION PROCESS.

Recruitment is said to be positive in its approach as it seeks to attract as many candidates as possible.

Selection on the other hand is negative in its application in as much as it seeks to eliminate as many

unqualified applicants as possible in order to identify the right candidates

Even the most valid methods fall some way short of complete predictive validity. Thompson and

McHugh (2009) go further, taking a critical view on the general use and, in particular, the

validity of employee selection methods. In commenting on the use of personality tests in

selection, these authors state that in utilising such tests employers are essentially ‘clutching at

straws’ and on this basis will probably use anything that will help them make some kind of

systematic decision.

COST
A concern with effectiveness in recruitment and selection becomes all the more important when

one considers the costs of getting things wrong. We begin with apparent costs, which centre on

the direct costs of recruitment procedures, but one might also consider the so-called opportunity

costs of engaging in repeated recruitment and selection when workers leave an organisation. An
excessive preoccupation with recruitment and selection will divert a manager from other activites

he or she could usefully be engaged in. It is also useful to consider the ‘investment’, including

training resources, lost to the employer when a worker leaves permanently.

APPLICATION QUESTIONAIRE
The most commonly found inappropriate questions involve past salary levels, age, driver’s

license information, citizenship information and Social Security numbers. Questions about past

salary are considered inadvisable since they can perpetuate lower salaries for women and

minorities as compared with white males. If an employer bases a starting salary on an applicant’s

prior earnings, minorities and women will likely be offered less pay.

BACKGROUND CHECKS
According to ADP Screening and Selection Services, 40 percent of applicants lie about their

work histories and educational backgrounds and about 20 percent present false credentials and

licenses. Nationwide, an estimated 30 percent of job applicants make material misrepresentations

on their résumés

Withholding negative information about former employees may offer protection for the

employer from a defamation lawsuit, but it increases its exposure to a lawsuit based on

negligence if the employer withholds information regarding the volatility of a former employee.

DEFAMATION: The act of harming the reputation of another by making a false statement to
a third person.

NEGLIGENCE: The failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent
person would have exercised in the same situation.
A past employer that fails to warn about an employee’s known propensity to violence may be

guilty of negligent referral, and a potential employer that fails to do proper reference checks that

may have uncovered the potential risk of a new employee may be guilty of negligent hiring

FAIRNESS IN PROCESS.

During the recruitment and selection procedure it is important to treat applicants equally. Equal

employment opportunity legislation outlaws discrimination based on race, color, gender, national

origin, religion, disability and age. Some organizations abide by discrimination law simply to

keep out of court, but most employers recognize the inherent advantage of employee diversity,

including greater creativity and an expanded customer base. Employers who wish to develop a

diverse workforce must ensure the use of recruiting methods that generate applications from a

variety of individuals. It is important that recruiters receive training in the use of objective

JOB OFFER.

When you make the job offer, avoid quoting an annual salary. Quote compensation by the hour

or the month, whichever is appropriate. Annual salary quotes have sometimes been interpreted

by the courts as a contract for employment for a minimum of one year. If the employee is let go

before the completion of that first year, you may be looking at a potential lawsuit—breach of

employment contract.

CONCLUSION.
This chapter indicates the key importance of recruitment and selection in successful people

management and leadership. we learned all about the process of recruitement and selection. In

first part we analyzed recruitement, how its done? First of all they attract a number of appliants.

As there is no sure shot or best recruiting technique . Normally the recruiters follow several
steps. Their methods may vary depending upon the situation , Most organizations use a variety of

methods, depending on the nature of the job to be filled, the time needed to properly fill the

position and the size of their recruiting budget. Your organization may already have a valid track

record for recruiting that will determine what methods work best for your situation.

Equal employment opportunity legislation outlaws discrimination based on race, color, gender,

national origin, religion, disability and age. Some organizations abide by discrimination law

simply to keep out of court.

The pool of candidates then faces the selection tests. Testing helps trim the applicant field by

further eliminating those with inadequate skill levels to be successful in the job.Tests also reduce

any chances of personal bias that an employer can allegedly have against an employee. This

narrows down the list of reasonable candidates for interviewing.

There are several interviewing techniques all vary depending upon the skill set required and the

nature Of the job . The most widely used interview techniques are the structured or patterned

interview, the nondirective interview and the situational/problem-solving interview.

Once selected, the HR department then performs a background check on the information prvided

by the candidate. But it is a sensitive process and may lead u into a legal mess. Though

controversial, these background searches are not illegal if the candidate has given proper

permission.

After the candidate has passed the Background check, u can make a job offer, And

Congratulations! You have a new Employee.

 Myrna L. Gusdorf, MBA, SPHR; Recruitment and Selection: Hiring the Right Person A

two-part learning module for undergraduate students; Alexandria, USA.

 R. S. PARKER; RECRUITMENT-AIMS, METHODS AND PROBLEMS EMERGING,

Department of PA, Australian National University.

 Eunice Doornenbal, Willeke Stitselaar, Linda Jansen; Paper IHRM Recruitment &

Selection; Christian University of applied sciences, June 2012.

 Gary Rees and Ray French; Leading, Managing and Developing People; 3rd edition

Published by the CIPD 2010.

 Michael L. Nieto; An introduction to Human Resource Management- An integrated

approach; Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2014.

 Pooja Khanna; IRACST- International Journal of Research in Management & Technology (IJRMT);

Vol. 4, No.3, June 2014.