PPB3243

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
 RECRUITMENT PROCESS
Nurnuha Najwa Binti Shafie
D20142068832
The success of an organization mainly contributed by the successful recruitment process. If
recruitment process is so important, then we should know the meaning of recruitment itself.
Recruitment is the process of filling job vacancies with suitable people. (Maimunah Aminuddin,
1997). In human resource management, recruiting consist of any practice or activity carried on
by the organization with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employee.
(Noe., Hollenbeck., etc.,2009) As recruitment mistakes can’t easily be corrected, its failure to
recruit right people may cause many other problem such as high levels of turnover, large
number of workers being dismissed and increased training cost. An effective recruitment
process will help employer to recognize candidate who will be able to carry his/her duties
adequately with one who can’t’.

Recruitment is all about predicting future performance. Because of differences in

companies’ strategies, they may assign different degrees of importance to recruiting. In general,
all companies have to make decisions in three areas of recruiting; personal policies,
recruitment sources and characteristics and behavior of the recruiter (Noe., Hollenbeck.,
etc.,2009):

Job choice

Personal policies Recruiter traits Recruitment

and behaviors sources

Vacancy Job Applicant

characteristics choice characteristics

Recruitment Influences

Eventually, some of these areas are included in the guideline of The Recruitment
Process modeled by Maimunah Aminuddin in her book; Human Resourse Management with
more specific steps.

Figure below shows The Recruitment Process.

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Job Analysis Job Description

Person Specification
Attract applicants

Collect information on applicant

Offer job to suitable candidate

Hold induction programme

These steps and guidance should be followed to ensure the recruitment process would
run smoothly and perform its functions so that the organization can get the best benefit through
it.

Before deciding to begin the recruitment process, the employer must ensure the vacancy
really exist in the first place. At most situation, heads of department and manager would choose
to have the recruitment to replace the employee dismissed or resigned. But it’s actually not the
best option because it will use more cost to recruit new employer than works smarter and share
the workloads between the available workers. After evaluate the needs and request for new
employer, then only the recruitment process should take place. The recruiting officer plays a
great role to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of recruitment process. Basic to effective
recruitment is a thorough understanding of the nature of the vacancy. So, the first steps of the
process of getting this information is called job analysis.

1.0 PERSONNEL POLICIES

An organization’s personnel policies are its decisions about how it will carry out human resource
management, including how it will fill job vacancies. According to research on recruitment, it is
clear that characteristics of the vacancy are more important than recruiters or recruiting sources
for predicting job choice. (Noe., Hollenbeck., etc.,2009) Several personnel policies are
especially relevant to recruitment:

 Internal versus external recruiting

Organizations with policies to “promote from within” try to fill upper-level vacancies by
recruiting candidates internally by finding candidates who already work for the
organization. Opportunities for advancement make a job more attractive to applicant and
employees.
 Lead-the-market pays strategies

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Organizations have a recruiting advantage if their approach is willing to pay more than
the current market wages for a job. Pay is an important job characteristic for almost all
applicants.
 Employment-at-will policies
Employers have latitudes to set policies about their rights in an employment relationship.
A widespread policy follows the principle of employment at will, which holds that if
there is no specific employment contract saying otherwise, the employer or employee
may end an employment relationship at any time.
 Image advertising
Advertising design to create a generally favorable impression of the organization to
advertise themselves as a good place to work.

2.0 JOB ANALYSIS

Job analysis is a technique of studying a job to identify the skills, knowledge, experience and
other requirements necessary to perform a job. A pro-active human resource department will
ensure all jobs in the organization have been analyzed and documented. This process repeated
from time to time as circumstances and the nature of a job may change so that the data always
updated. Figure below shows the steps in a job analysis (David A. & Stephen P., 2010):

Understand the purpose

of the job analysis
Review draft
with supervisor
Understand the roles of
jobs in the organization
Develop draft

Seek clarification Benchmark positions

Determine how to collect

job analysis information

To get the information for a job analysis, there are two potential sources(Maimunah Aminuddin,
1997):

 The job-holder’s supervisor

 Workers doing the same job

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 RECRUITMENT PROCESS
Nurnuha Najwa Binti Shafie
D20142068832
The basic methods by which HRM can determine job elements and the essential knowledge,
skill, and abilities for successful performance include the following (David A. & Stephen P.,
2010):

 Observation method
A job analysis technique in which data are gathered by watching employees work.
 Individual interview method
Meeting with an employee to determine what his or her job entails.
 Group interview method
Meeting with a number of employees to collectively determine what their jobs entail.
 Structured questionnaire method
A specifically designed questionnaire on which employees rate tasks they perform in
their job.
 Technical Conference method
A job analysis technique that involves extensive input from the employee’s
supervisor.
 Diary method
A job analysis method requiring job incumbents to record their daily activities.

The outcome of this data collection will be used to list the job description and a person
specification for the job vacancy. There are six steps in doing job analysis (Gary Dessler, 2011):

Step One: Decide how you’ll use the information, since this will determine the data you
collect and how you collect them. Some data collection techniques suc as interviewing
the employee and asking what the job entails are good for writing job descriptions and
selecting employees for the job. While others provide numerical ratings for each job can
be used to compare jobs for compensation purpose.
Step Two: Review relevant background information such as organization chats, process
charts, and job description. Organization charts show the organization wide division of
work, how the job in question relates to other job and where the job fits in the overall
organization. A process chart provides a more detailed picture of work flow.
Step Three: Select representative position. There are too many similar jobs to analyze
them all. Therefore, use a sample of 10 out of 200 assembly worker is adequate.
Step Four: Actually analyze the job – by collecting data on job activities, required
employee behaviors, working conditions and human trait and abilities needed to perform
the job.
Step Five: Verify the job analysis information with the worker performing the job and with his
or her supervisor.
Step Six: Develop a job description and job specification.

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2.1 The Job Description

A job description is an invaluable document as its uses go far beyond the recruitment process.
Job descriptions are helpful in identifying unnecessary tasks, overlapping responsibility and
even the existence of functions for which no one has responsibility when exercise to re-design
and restructure the organization is underway. The employer almost uses the job analysis to (at
least) produce a job description. This information will be used in the next step to write a job
specification that includes list of knowledge, abilities, and skill required to perform the job
satisfactorily.

Job descriptions are a written profile of a job. Typical headings include (Maimunah Aminuddin,
1997):

1. Job title, location and grading

2. Relationships
3. Brief statement on the purpose of the job
4. List of duties and responsibilities
5. Terms and conditions to be given to the job-holder
6. Negatives aspects of the job
7. Future prospect

Meanwhile, Gary Dessler wrote in his book that there is no standard format for writing a job
description. But most descriptions contain sections that cover:

1. Job identification
2. Job summary
3. Responsibilities and duties
4. Authority of incumbent
5. Standards of performance
6. Working conditions
7. Job specification

Most of section listed is almost the same as on 1990’s formats. These prove that job description
content still relevant over the century as only some of its changes.

2.2 Person Specification

After the job descriptions is produced, then it is possible to develop a picture of the sort of
person who would best fill the position. In the other words, job specification is used to describe
the type of person who fits the job and will guide the recruitment officer to the best candidate. It
will answer the question of “What human traits and experience are required to do this job
effectively?’.

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Based on the Rodgers Seven-Point Plan, the seven major headings are:

1. Physical factors
2. Attainments/ Achievements
3. Special aptitudes
4. General intelligence
5. Circumstances
6. Interest
7. Disposition

For each of these headings, an item could be listed as either ‘Essential’ or ‘Desirable’. It is
important to be realistic especially for those areas considered essential. Some recruiting officers
may fall into the trap of choosing the best candidate who offers himself rather than the one who
fits the job best. (Maimunah Aminuddin, 1997)

The job specifications may be varies from one with the others because it depends on
several factors. (Gary Dessler, 2011) For example:

 Specification for trained and untrained personnel.

Writing job specifications for trained employees is relatively straightforward. By focusing
mostly on traits like length of previous service, quality of relevant training and previous
job performance, it’s usually not too difficult to determine the human requirement for
placing already trained people on a job. Vice versa, the problems are more complex
when you are filling jobs with untrained people (with the intention of training them on the
job). Here you must specify qualities such as physical traits, personality, interest or
sensory skills that imply some potential for being trained to do the job.
 Specification based on judgement
The basic procedure here is to ask, “What does it take in term of education, intelligence,
training, and the like to do this job well?”
 Job specification based on statistical analysis
Basing job specifications on statistical analysis is more defensible approach, but it’s also
more difficult. The aim here is to determine statistically the relationship between some
predictor (human trait, such as height, intelligence or finger dexterity) and some indicator
or criterion of job effectiveness, such as performance as rated by the supervisor.

3.0 ATTRACTING APPLICANTS

The objective of the recruitment officer at this stage of the process is to attract a group of
applicants, all of whom are at least minimally qualified. Thus, recruiting is more likely to achieve
its objectives if recruiting sources reflect the type of position to be filled. (David A. & Stephen P.,
2010) Potential applicants can be found both inside and outside the organization. As time
passes, nowadays the recruiting source has been opened widely to diverse ways of promoting a
job.

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The internal search (internal applicant)

Many large organizations attempt to develop their own entry-level employees for higher position.
It is standard procedure to post any new job openings and to allow any current employee to
apply for the position. These promotions can occur through an internal search of current
employees who have bid for the job, been identified through the HRM system or even be
referred by a fellow employee. The advantages of this method are:

 Promotes good public relations

 Builds morale
 Encourages individuals who are qualified and ambitious
 Improves the probability of good selection because information on the individual’s
performance is readily available
 Is less costly than going outside to recruit
 Helps with recruiting entry level workers
 Reduces orientation and training cost
 Act as an training device for developing middle and top-level managers

Disadvantages of this methods are:

 Uses less-qualified internal candidates while there are more excellent candidates are
available on the outside
 Generate infighting among rival candidates for promotion
 Decrease morale levels of those not selected
 May not promote a diversity of people or idea

Employee Referrals and Recommendations

Individuals who will most likely perform effectively on the job usually is a recommendation from
a current employee. This is because the employees rarely recommend someone unless they
believe the individual can perform adequately.

External Search (External Applicants)

Organizations often open up recruiting efforts to the external community. There are a number of
different methods of attracting people to apply for vacancies in an organization. These are:

1. Advertisement
2. Employment agencies and consultants
3. Campus recruiting (schools, colleges and universities)
4. Job fairs
5. Professional Organization
6. Unsolicited applicants

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The advantages of external recruitment are avoids inbreeding and possibilities to widen
choice of applicants by having a pool of candidate. Meanwhile, it disadvantages are hugh cost
of recruitment process and frustration amongst existing employees.

Employee Audit

If the organization has a well-developed, up-to-date system of personnel records, the human
resource office can check through employee’s files to identify any potentially suitable people.

Online Recruiting

Most companies, both large and small, use the Internet to recruit new employees by adding a
“career” section to their Web site. Manu job candidates are also using the internet to their
advantage. They set up their own Web pages with online resume to “sell” their job candidacy.
The social networking sites often referred to as Web 2.0 including Facebook and LinkedIn
provide opportunities for contacts with people indicating interest or affiliation with specific
industries or employer. Another advantage of online recruiting is that it provides a low-cost
means for most business to gain unprecedented access to potential employees worldwide.

Recruitment Alternatives

 Temporary help services

 Employee leasing
 Independent contractors

4.0 COLLECT INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS

This is the most crucial step in recruitment process as the HR officers need to collect
information and assess each applicant carefully to choose the most suitable candidate.
Obviously, to avoid a bigger loss in future, it is worthwhile to spend time and money at this stage
to ensure only suitable candidates are employed. To collect the information about applicant, the
techniques that can be used are:

1. The application form

Application forms are universally used and can take on different formats. Properly
prepared, the application form serves four purpose (Gee S. L., et. al, 2010):
 It is record of the applicant’s desire to obtain a position.
 It provides the interviewer with a profile of the applicant that can be used
during the interview.
 It is basic employee record for applicants who are hired.
 It can be used for research on the effectiveness of the selection process.
2. The reference check
The only way to check on the truthfulness of the candidate’s statements about
themselves and to discover other people’s opinions of them is to contact referees
directly.

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3. Test
Testing is an attempt to introduce some objectivity. To be usable, tests must be valid
and reliable. The test that can be carry out to assess the candidates are
(a) Ability tests
(b) Aptitude tests
(c) Personality tests
(d) Honesty/integrity tests
(e) Intelligence tests
4. Interviews
The task of the interviewer is to ask questions and listen to the answers. From the
information gathered, the interviewer should be able to assess the candidates. There are
three types of interview:
 Structured interviews
Interview that uses a set of standardized questions asked of all applicants. It
includes biographical interview, behavioral interview, competency interview
and situational interview.
 Less-structured interviews
Interview that uses questions developed from the answer to previous
questions.
 Stress interview
Interview designed to create anxiety and put pressure on applicants to see
how they respond.

The level of the vacancy and the type of job being offered will decide which combinations of
these techniques will be used.

5.0 JOB OFFER

Once the choice has been made, the selected candidate must be contacted and offered the job.
Sending a letter of offer should not be delayed to forestall the best candidates from being
offered a job elsewhere. A carefully well-written letter of regret should be sent to the rejected
applicant, especially for who reached short-listed stage, as they can be the next options if the
first candidate selected rejected the offer and because they also have relatives and friends that
could be potential recruits.

Contract of employment or contract of service should be given to all employees. The

terms of contract may be stated in the letter of offer or a letter of appointment. For extra
information, there are implied terms which are the items that not normally included in a contract
and yet are still considered part of the contract. When an organization employs a worker, it
takes on certain responsibilities. (Maimunah Aminuddin, 1997) Ream (1984) list these
obligations as care, trust and provision of work. Safe working condition must be provided as
it’s the employer’s responsibility. Equally, the worker who agrees to be employed by an
organization takes on certain obligations too which are care, obedience and fidelity.

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The terms in a contract should cover all the important conditions of service. A contract of
employment must include:

 The job holder’s occupation;

 The wage rates, allowances payable, overtime rates payable;
 All the other benefits including increment and bonus;
 The duration of wage period;
 The normal hours of work per day;
 The holiday and paid annual leave entitlement of the worker;
 The notice period in an event of employment termination.

6.0 INDUCTION

Induction is the process by which the new recruit is familiarized with the working environment.
(Maimunah Aminuddin, 1997) Employee orientation/ onboarding is important as its provides
new employees with the information they need to function and to be emotionally attached to the
firm. These are the purpose of induction program that should be accomplish at the end of the
day:

1. Make the new employee feel welcome and at home and part of the team.
2. Make sure the new employee has the basic information to function effectively such as e-
mail access, personnel policies and benefits and what the employer expects in term of
work behavior.
3. Help the new employee understand the organization in the broad sense (its past,
present, culture and strategies and vision of the future).
4. Start the person on the process of becoming socialized into the firm’s culture, values and
ways of doing things

The orientation program’s duration depend on what you cover. Traditional orientation program
takes several hours. The usual orientation process that would take place are:

 The human resource specialist usually perform the first part of the orientation by
explaining basic matters like working hours, benefits and vacations;
 That person then introduces the new employee to his or her new supervisor;
 The supervisor will continue the orientation by explaining the organization of the
department and by introducing the person to his or her new colleagues, familiarizing the
new employee with the workplace, and helping to reduce first-day jitters;
 Follow up and encourage new employee to engage in activities that will enable each to
“learn the ropes” and be productive.

At minimum, an induction typically includes information on employee benefits, personnel

policies, the daily routine, company organization and operations, safety measures and
regulations, and a facilities tour. New employees should receive (and sign for) print or Internet-
based employee handbooks covering matters like these.

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Nurnuha Najwa Binti Shafie
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7.0 CONCLUSION
A great recruitment process will contribute to a massive success of an organization. The perfect
planning and implementation of each element in recruitment process would ensure the bright
future of the company, employer and employee. Thus it is crucial for HRM to master these keys
to success and play important role in developing secure future for the organization.

8.0 REFERENCES

DeCenzo, D. A., & Robbins, S. P. (2010). Human Resource Management (Tenth ed.). Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd.

Dessler, G. (2011). Human Resource Management (Twelfth ed.). New Jersey, USA: Pearson
Education Inc.

Ghee, S. L., Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human Resource Management (An Asia
ed.). Singapore: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd.

Maimunah, Aminuddin. (1997). Human Resource Management (Second ed.). Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia: Percetakan Direct Art Sdn. Bhd

Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2009). Fundamentals of Human
Resource Management (Third ed.). New York, USA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

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