Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and Selection

Words of Wisdom
‘They do psychometric testing. I got in before all that
mumbo-jumbo.’

‘HR directors are largely dissatisfied with the quality of

their employees … they would re-hire less than 60% of
current employees.’

‘Testing is a human interaction, and if you take this

element away you’ll soon lose the real customers: the
candidates themselves.’
 Recruitment and Selection

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 most likely to succeed in the job(s), given
management goals and legal requirements.
Fig. 7.1 Recruitment and Selection
 Recruitment and Selection
• Recruitment and selection are vital to the formation of a
positive psychological contract, which provides the basis
of organizational commitment and motivation.

• The attraction and retention of employees is part of the

evolving employment relationship, based on a mutual and
reciprocal understanding of expectations.

• There are wide variations in recruitment and selection

practices, reflecting an organization’s strategy and its
philosophy towards the management of people.

• Progressive HR practices are crucial to a positive

psychological contract – this includes attention to effective
recruitment and selection practices.
 Recruitment and Attraction
• A key role for HR is to align performance within roles with
the strategy, so recruiting for the ‘right’ people for a role
depends on how it is defined in terms relating to
performance to achieve the strategy.

• Criterion-related behaviours or standards of performance

are referred to as competencies.

• Competencies can be used to provide the behaviours

needed at work to achieve the business strategy, and
enable organizations to form a model of the kinds of
employee it wishes to attract through recruitment.
Recruitment and Attraction
Recruitment and Attraction
The main approaches to attracting applicants
can be summarized as follows:
• Walk-ins
• Employee referrals
• Advertising
• Websites
• Professional associations
• Educational associations
• Professional agencies
• E-recruitment (general recruitment agents/
companies’ own sites)
• Word-of-mouth
 Recruitment and Attraction
An organization will take account of a number of factors
when forming its recruitment plans and choice of media.
These might include:
• Cost
• Time taken to recruit and select
• Labour market focus, for example: skills, profession or
occupation
• Mobility of labour – geographic and occupational
• Legislation on sex discrimination, race discrimination and
disability
Recruitment and Attraction

Fig. 7.3 Job description format

Recruitment and Attraction

Fig. 7.4 Seven-point plan

Recruitment and Attraction

Job Specification

Fig. 7.5 Five-fold grading system

 Recruitment and Attraction
Personnel specifications versus competencies

• Personnel specifications may contain stereotypes of the

‘ideal’ person and so organizations may be reinforcing the
stereotype in their recruitment practices.
• The use of competencies allows organizations to free
themselves from traditional stereotypes in order to attract
applicants from a variety of sources.
• Competencies appear to be more objective, have a variety
of uses in attracting applicants and allow an organization to
use more reliable and valid selection techniques.
 Selection: Costs

Organizations have become increasingly aware of

making good selection decisions, since it involves a
number of costs:

• The cost of the selection process itself, including the use

of various selection instruments

• The future costs of inducting and training new staff

• The cost of labour turnover if the selected staff are not

retained
 Selection: Principles
Underlying the process of selection and the choice of
techniques are two key principles:

1. Individual differences: Attracting a wide choice of

applicants will be of little use unless there is a way of
measuring how people differ, i.e. intelligence, attitudes,
social skills, psychological and physical characteristics,
experience etc.

2. Prediction: A recognition of the way in which people

differ must be extended to a prediction of performance
in the workplace.
 Selection
Reliability and Validity Issues

Reliability refers to the extent to which a selection

technique achieves consistency in what it is measuring
over repeated use.

Validity refers to the extent to which a selection technique

actually measures what it sets out to measure.
 Selection Interviews

• Information elicited – interviews have a specific focus, i.e.

facts, subjective information, underlying attitudes.

• Structure – ranging from the completely structured to the

unstructured. A compromise between the two enables the
interviewer to maintain control yet allowing the interviewee
free expression.

• Order and involvement – the need to obtain different kinds

of information may mean the involvement of more than one
interviewer. Applicants may be interviewed serially or in a
panel.
Selection
Selection
 Psychometric Testing

Personality research has lent support to the use of

sophisticated selection techniques such as psychometric
tests that have a good record of reliability and validity.

• Ability tests: these focus on mental abilities

(verbal/numerical) and physical skills testing. Right/wrong
answers allow applicants to be placed in ranked order.

• Inventories: self-report questionnaires indicating traits,

intelligence, values, interests, attitudes and preferences. No
right/wrong answers but a range of choices between
possible answers.
 E-assessment

On-line testing, or e-assessment, is also used for

selection and other HR purposes.

Benefits:
Online testing enables organizations to test at any
time and anywhere in the world.
It enables the quick processing of applicants.

Drawback:
Loss of control over the administration of the tests –
anyone can be called on to help
 Assessment Centres
• Assessment centres are designed to yield information
that can be used to make decisions concerning
suitability for a job.

• They provide a fuller picture by combining a range of

techniques.

• General methods used include group discussions, role

plays and simulations, interviews and tests.

• Candidates attending an assessment centre will be

observed by assessors who should be trained to judge
candidates’ performance against criteria contained
within the competency framework.
Chapter Summary