Recruitment and Selection Process on Job

“If you want to be successful in this world, you have to follow your passion, not a paycheck.” by Jen Welter. It is important that applicants apply for jobs that they are interested in and can see themselves there for a long time. There is many ways that employers can recruit and select new employees when needed.

The recruitment process is for employers to advertise current job positions that are open for their company/organization and it can be done externally and internally. (Kulik, 2004) It gives them a chance to get new/fresh minds and ideas to help make it a better work environment and to be more productive. After receiving applications from possible candidates for the position, employers will go through a process to select who they think is best for the position, this is known as the selection process. The selection process can be lengthy and done in a few different ways, although it varies from company to company.

With have been hired for two new jobs within the last six months both of these processes are very familiar to me. Being on the side that is getting hired and being put on the line, it can be very stressful and anxious to many. You constantly are waiting to hear back from an employer and then going through multiple interview sessions to be hired. At one job, there was multiple interviews (phone and in-person) and at the other it was a one quick fifteen minute interview. But as mentioned above every company has a different process in which they recruit and select someone for the position.

Advertising for the position is important because that is where you give the criteria of the persons duties. (The Open University, 2018) When it comes to recruiting candidates for an open position there is two ways that it can be handled. There is external recruitment that aims at finding someone that is not already, nor has ever been employed through the company. Or there is internal recruitment, where the position is looked to be filled by someone that is already an employee, has been a previous employee, or is someone that is referred by a current employee. (Kulik, 2004) Although both types of recruitment has there own advantages and disadvantages involved.

Beginning with the external recruitment, this way gives employers a way to reach more potential candidates. Examples of external recruitment are; print advertisement, social media, internet job sites, campus recruitment, job fairs, and many more ways. An advantage to external recruitment is that it does allow a company to add diversity into the workplace. (Human Resources, 2015) A disadvantages that come with recruiting outside the company is the cost that it takes, it can get kind of expensive. Having to pay for an ad in a newspapers or online, or paying other people to go find candidates are all ways that can eventually become very costly. (Kulik, 2004) External recruitment offers the company a way to get new talent and fresh ideas but that does not always mean that it is the best way to fill a vacancy.

Companies also tend to use internal recruitment when looking to fill vacant positions. Internal recruitment can include; employee referrals, job postings within the organization, and even rehiring former employees. (Kulik, 2004) Some advantages of internal recruitment are that the employer already knows the employee, so they know whether they are right for the position, how they work, and what their goals are. It also saves the company money from having to post the vacancy for outside candidates and having lower productivity while there is no one in the position. Some disadvantages of internal recruitment include a low diversity rate. Or sometimes with referrals the employer will offer the employee that referred someone, a bonus, and with that it can cause some issues. (Kulik, 2004) Once a company goes through the recruitment process and post their openings they move on to the selection process.

Once the job position has been posted and applications get submitted the company can begin their selection process. The selection process can include many different aspects and be done in a few different ways, it can include having a committee to review all the applicants, a single person review them, test performed, and even interviews. (Kulik, 2004) This is where they determine which candidate is the best fit for the position and who can perform the best there. If a committee is reviewing all the applicants it gives them a chance to look them all over and provide their comments on each one regarding the qualification of each. (Human Resources, 2015) They can also have the applicants take a number of test to get further information on who would be best fit for the position. These test include; the cognitive ability test (general intelligence), work sample test (hands-on, related job task), next is a personality test (determines one's personality), and finally there is the integrity test or also known as the honesty test (participate in a polygraph test). All of these test help further screen the applicants, although some of the test can be a bit costly so they are not frequently done. (Kulik, 2004) Besides the test there is other things that employers can look at to help them determine the better candidate.

Along with the pre-screening that can happen without contact with the candidate, some companies prefer to go through multiple interview processes to see as well. One way is a phone interview, this is commonly used for the employer to ask simple questions and check to see if the information on the application is accurate. Some questions that are commonly include in a phone interview may be; “What do you expect to get paid?” or “What is your availability and how when are you able to start?”. All questions asked and the responses should be recorded and kept on file for each applicant along with any other documentation throughout the process. (Human Resources, 2015) Next, comes an in-person interview, a list of questions should be developed and recorded so that it is the same throughout each candidate. There is also different ways that interviews can be conducted, they can be one-on-one, done in front of a panel, or done over a webcam to save on travel cost. (Human Resources, 2015) It is very important that no matter what interview format is chosen that someone is recording/ taking notes of the responses so that they can be later assessed. Notes can be not only on what they respond with but, also how they act or how they appear. (The Open University, 2018) Finally, after all of the test and interviews have been conducted, it is time for the panel or a human resource representative to sit down and decided which candidate is best fit for not only the position but the organization as a whole.

Although there is the traditional way of recruiting and selecting employees, times are changing and are become more technologically advanced and making it easier on employers. An article posted to HR Trends Institute, talked about the new trends that are happening during the recruiting and selection process. One of the new trends is that employers can now go online and put in the criteria that they are looking for in a candidate and that website then generates a list of candidates that best match the criteria. There is also the increase in the use of chatbots that can communicate with candidates. They are often used to ask simple questions, similar to the ones in a phone interview. (Haak, 2017) Many of these trends are often used in order to save the company time and from having to adapt around a long vacancy.

The recruitment and selection process is very much connected to human resources, it is a big part of what they do. This is the first part of introducing someone to the inside of the company, although one may be familiar with the company this is where they get the first glimpse of what it is like to work for a particular company. Typically when someone is trying to get hired for a job they are in contact the the human resource manager and/ or the head manager of the certain department. But even after being hired, the human resource representative is who employees most commonly go to with any concerns about their job. For instance if someone feels that they are performing task outside of their duties listed when hired they may go to their human resource representative to discuss the issue.

Although some companies are small and do not have that many employees, that they do not have an official human resource representative. When getting hired at one job, it was a franchise and the people that owned my store owned a few in the area, so there may have been a human resource representative for the owners but, the store manager was the one that conducted the interview and chose people to hire for the position. So in this case, the manager took on the role of being a human resource manager as well as a store manager, including having to deal with the firing of an employee or any disputes that had developed.

Overall, the human resource management team plays an important role in many aspects of a business. There are there through it all, from the very beginning to the end. They are not only there to help make their company/organization better, but are there to help and support their employees in any way possible. 

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