Recruitment is the development and maintenance of adequate and efficient manpower sources. It is a very important process of attracting candidates who have required skills, abilities, qualities etc. to meet the job vacancies in an organisation.
The function of recruitment is to locate the sources of manpower to meet job requirements.
Recruitment is concerned with listing the candidates for consideration of selection to various jobs. It enables the management to select suitable employees for different jobs.
Recruitment is done before selection or employment of workers. Recruitment is a positive process of searching the prospective employees and attracting them to apply for vacancies.
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William B. Werther and Keith Davis – “Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected”.
The prime objective is to fill the position with the best talents available either within the organization or in the market. Firstly, it offers the unique opportunity of internal employees to the current workforce (to leverage existing talent), and secondly, by recruiting top external talents. This philosophy is common and is followed in principle by all organizations.
Recruitment policy spells out the objectives and principles of recruitment and provides a framework for implementation of the recruitment programme. Unless an organization adopts a suitable recruitment policy, it may not be possible to select the right candidate for the right job.
Learn about:- 1. Meaning of Recruitment 2. Definition of Recruitment 3. Objectives 4. Features 5. Main Principles 6. Factors Affecting 7. Strategy 8. Recruiter Traits and Behaviours 9. Sources 10. Process 11. Techniques 12. E-Recruiting 13. Policy 14. Difference between Recruitment and Selection 15. Advantages and Disadvantages 16. Strategic Issues 17. Challenges 18. Practices in India.
Recruitment: Meaning, Definitions, Features, Principles, Sources, Process, Methods, Policy and Challenges
Contents:
- Meaning of Recruitment
- Definitions of Recruitment
- Objectives of Recruitment
- Features of Recruitment
- Main Principles of Recruitment
- Factors Affecting Recruitment
- Recruitment Strategy
- Recruiter Traits and Behaviours
- Sources of Recruitment
- Process of Recruitment
- Methods of Recruitment
- E-Recruiting
- Recruitment Policy
- Difference between Recruitment and Selection
- Advantages and Disadvantages of Recruitment
- Strategic Issues in Recruitment
- Challenges of Recruitment
- Recruitment Practices in India
Recruitment – Meaning
The process of identification of different sources of personnel is known as recruitment. Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organisation. When more persons apply for jobs then there will be a scope for recruiting better persons. The job seekers too, on the other hand are in search of organisation offering them employment.
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It should be noted that recruitment is distinct from employment and selection. Some people use the term recruitment for employment. These two are not one and the same. Recruitment is only one of the steps in the entire employment process. Some others use the term recruitment for selection. These two terms are not one and same either.
Technically speaking, the function of recruitment precedes the selection function and it includes only finding, developing the sources of prospective employees and attracting them to apply for job in an organisation whereas the selection is the process of finding out most suitable candidates attracted.
Recruitment is a positive process as it attracts suitable applicants to apply for available jobs.
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Recruitment is the development and maintenance of adequate and efficient manpower sources. It is a very important process of attracting candidates who have required skills, abilities, qualities etc. to meet the job vacancies in an organisation. The function of recruitment is to locate the sources of manpower to meet job requirements.
In simple words, the term ‘recruitment’ implies the services of certain required persons for certain jobs. It is a process of obtaining information about the people who are willing to offer their services to the organisation for performing the jobs available in the organisation and it helps to develop and maintain adequate manpower sources.
As a matter of fact, the first stage in the selection process is to make the available vacancies known to the people and the opportunities that the organisation offers. In response to this knowledge, potential applicants apply for the jobs and from among them; most suitable ones are then selected.
Recruitment – Definitions by Eminent Authors
Recruitment is the process of identifying the sources for prospective candidates to stimulate them to apply for jobs in the organisation. It includes seeking and attracting a pool of people from which qualified candidates for job vacancies can be chosen.
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Recruitment is concerned with listing the candidates for consideration of selection to various jobs. It enables the management to select suitable employees for different jobs. Recruitment is done before selection or employment of workers. Recruitment is a positive process of searching the prospective employees and attracting them to apply for vacancies.
The organization develops a pool of job candidates from which to select qualified employees. Information gathered through job analysis can guide recruitment to fill skill and personnel gaps. The local labor market, the type or level of position and the size of the organization determine which source is to be used to find potential job candidates.
Recruitment efforts include running newspaper ads, contacting employment agencies, and visiting colleges. To create a more diverse workforce, supervisors can recruit from sources such as women’s job networks, ethnic newspapers and urban job banks. Many organizations are turning to the Internet to recruit a workforce.
Benefits of online recruitment include reduced cost-per-hire, less time-to-fill, and a larger pool of quality candidates. De-recruitment is a reduction in the organization’s labor force through firing, layoffs, attrition, and early retirement, or maintaining employees through transfers, reduced workweeks or job sharing.
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Recruitment can also be defined as, “A process to discover the sources of manpower to meet the requirements of the staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate number to facilitate effective selection of an efficient workforce.”
Some of the definitions of ‘Recruitment’ are as follows:
Edwin B. Flippo – “Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating to apply for jobs in the organisation”.
Dale Yoder – “Recruitment is a process to discover the sources of manpower to meet the requirements of the staffing schedule and employ effective measures for attracting the manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective selection of an effective working force”.
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William B. Werther and Keith Davis – “Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected”.
S. Lord – “Recruitment is a form of competition. Just as corporations compete to develop, manufacture, and market the best product or service, they must also compete to identify, attract and hire the most qualified people. Recruitment is a business, and it is a big business”.
This definition takes into consideration the competitive nature of finding out most qualified people. The recruitment is important and a big business activity. It is concerned with the identification of possible sources of recruiting the most qualified employees.
Dale S. Beach – “Recruitment is the development and maintenance of adequate manpower resources and it involves the creation of a pool of available labour upon whom the organisation can depend when it needs additional employees”.
William F. Glueck – “Recruitment is that set of activities which an enterprise uses to attract job candidates who have the abilities and attitudes needed to help the enterprise achieve the objectives”.
Plumbley – “Recruitment is a matching process and the capacities and inclinations of the candidates have to be matched against the demands and rewards inherent in a given job or career pattern”.
Recruitment – 11 Primary Objectives
An organization’s values and beliefs are reflected through its philosophy. Often, an organization circulates its ‘philosophy’ in the form of a statement.
Recruitment is not an exception and also has its philosophy. The main slogan of recruitment philosophy is to, ‘Hire the right people, for the right job, in the right time.’ Most multinational organizations use this philosophy to strengthen themselves. It helps in filling up the vacant positions by duly considering the job-related competencies and values.
The prime objective is to fill the position with the best talents available either within the organization or in the market. Firstly, it offers the unique opportunity of internal employees to the current workforce (to leverage existing talent), and secondly, by recruiting top external talents. This philosophy is common and is followed in principle by all organizations.
An organization must develop its recruitment objectives.
The primary recruitment objectives are as follows:
1. To maximize the pool of applicants so as to provide sufficient choice at the time of selection. However care should be taken to enlarge the pool justifiably and to a feasible level. The pool size should be determined keeping in mind the human resource planning and job-analysis data.
2. To create this pool of applicants at a minimum cost possible. This is not to suggest cutting corners but keeping the cost under control, always keeping an eye on cost per hire.
3. To create a pool of applicants who are ‘right’ and ‘retainable.’
4. To ensure that all recruitment procedure adhere to the policy of ‘no discrimination’ against caste, creed, ethnicity, colour of skin, language, gender etc., and provide an equal opportunity to all.
5. To ensure that the recruitment procedures and steps have clarity, validity and consistency in application.
6. To ensure that the recruitment policy is in line with the legal requirements of the land and also meets the various social obligations of the firm.
7. To train the pool of applicants so as to maximize their chances of selection and hence improve the success rate of the selection process.
8. To retain enough flexibility in the recruitment process so as to take care of the sudden contingent needs arising in the firm due to temporary or permanent unavailability of an employee within the firm.
9. To retain only efficient sources of recruitment and have some way to determine the same.
10. Creating, updating and maintaining a database of all those candidates who applied, solicited or unsolicited in the firm. This helps in present as well and future recruitments as well as to meet contingent human resource needs of the firm.
11. To ensure that recruitment personnel are properly trained and do due diligence in achieving the various recruitment objectives.
Recruitment – 7 Important Features
The following important points so far as the recruitment is concerned are:
(1) Recruitment is an important process of attracting applicants with certain capabilities, skills, attitudes etc., to job vacancies in an organisation.
(2) Recruitment helps to develop and maintain adequate manpower resources.
(3) Recruitment helps to create a pool of applicants from which new employees can be selected.
(4) Recruitment is a matching process.
(5) Recruitment lays foundation for selection of employees.
(6) Recruitment is a two-way process. It helps both i.e., a recruiter and a recruitee. A recruiter gets a choice as to whom to recruit from among the pool. While a recruitee also can decide whether he should apply for the job in the organisation considering his abilities, future prospects and his expectations.
(7) Recruitment helps to identify, attract and hire the most qualified people for an organisation.
Recruitment – 8 Main Principle of Recruitment in a Big Industrial Enterprise
The success of an Industrial Enterprise depends upon the fact whether the recruitment has been made properly and according to the principles of recruitment or not. If proper recruitment of best workers and employees has been made, the enterprise may be successful in achieving its objectives. If proper recruitment and selection has not been made, the enterprise may not be successful in achieving its objects.
Therefore, the recruitment in a big industrial enterprise must be based on certain principles as follows:
1. Clear Policy of Recruitment – The policy of recruitment must be definite and clear so that it may be easy to implement the same.
2. Observation of Government Rules and Regulations – Before formulating the policy of recruitment and selection for the enterprise, Government rules and regulations of selection must be carefully understood and followed, specially with reference to the rules of reservation so that no legal complication may arise at later stage.
3. Impartiality – The Recruitment policy must be such that the fair selection may be assured. Only the best and capable candidate must be selected on the basis of merit.
4. Policy of Recruitment in Accordance With the Objects of Enterprise – The recruitment policy of the enterprise must be in accordance with the pre-determined objectives of the enterprise so that it may help in the achievement of objectives of the enterprise.
5. Flexibility – The recruitment policy must be flexible so that necessary changes may be made in it according to the need of the enterprise.
6. Job Security – Security of job must be assured to every worker and employee of the enterprise at the time of his appointment so that he may contribute his efforts to the achievement of organisational objectives.
7. Recruitment by a Committee – The right to recruit the , workers and employees must be assigned to a committee of capable, efficient, experienced, senior and responsible officers of the company. Entire work of the process of recruitment must be performed by a committee and not by any individual officer so that fair selection may be assured.
8. Opportunity of Development to the Employees – The selection policy of the enterprise must be prepared in the manner that it may provide challenging opportunities to the employees of the enterprise based on their ability and performance. It will always pursue them to do more and better work.
Recruitment – 5 Major Factors Affecting Recruitment: Economic Factors, Social Factors, Technological Factors, Political Factors and Legal Factors
The various factor affecting recruitment are:
1. The Economic Factors:
Economic factors of a country influence the recruitment process in all the organisations. The globalisation and liberalisation of Indian economy has resulted in boom in financial services in India. As a result of new economic policy demand for MBA/CA/ICWA/CFA students have grown tremendously. People with specific fund management skills were in great demand. Companies had to resort to extensive advertising to hire suitable people. As a result companies had to cut down their recruitment costs.
2. The Social Factors:
The social factors also affect the recruitment policy of an organisation. Social changes in the past two decades in India, have forced organisations to place increased emphasis on recruitment. The mentality of modern employees has changed from ‘just any job’ to satisfying career. If they are not satisfied they do not hesitate to leave the organisation and go in search of greener pastures outside. The organisations have to be aware of and sensitive to the prevailing social values and norms, otherwise their recruitment efforts could go off the track.
3. The Technological Factors:
The globalisation and liberalisation of economy has brought about rapid changes in the field of banking, electronics, telecommunications, automobiles, and software and pharma industries. New technologies have created new jobs and existing jobs have undergone rapid changes. Several old jobs have disappeared from the scene. Technological changes have led to a chronic storage of people with requisite skills and knowledge.
4. The Political Factors:
The late 1980’s brought the concept of ‘equal employment opportunities’ in the corporate circles. Companies at last, realised that employment should be defined in terms of ability to perform the job, rather than in terms of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
However political compulsions and constitutional provision covering observation for social groups, come in the way of recruiting people, based solely on qualifications, skills and experience. Influence of unions, recommendations of friends and relatives of management, political leaders etc. also play an important role in recruiting/recruitment policies followed by a concern.
5. The Legal Factors:
The different legislative policies governing child labour, night shifts, bonded labour etc. have brought the legal environment to be a major factor to be looked into carefully by all companies intending to recruit people for various positions.
Some of the legislations affecting recruitment are:
(i) The Factories Act 1948
(ii) The Apprenticeship Act 1961
(iii) The Employment Exchanges Act 1959
(iv) The Contract Labour Act 1970
(v) Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976
(vi) The Child Labour Act 1986
Recruitment – Strategy for Recruiting Employees
The recruitment process needs adequate care with regard to the use of selection tools to avoid ‘select error’. An organization must develop its recruitment strategy after addressing certain elements.
The elements of the strategy must include the primary goals of the recruitment, priority of the positions, expected levels of performance, targeted experience levels, category of candidates such as previously unemployed or employed, time of beginning the search for candidates, the source of HR, recruitment agency primary sourcing tool, priority skills, methods of recruitment, and principal attracting methods.
Based on the mission and policies of a corporate house, it formulates its strategy to achieve the, business goals.
In view of acute competition, a corporate may decide to merge with similar businesses to enhance each other’s strengths or acquire some other business. Again, in the changing environment, a corporate may strategize for fast growth and change. A company launching a new product might adopt the loss leadership pricing policy to penetrate in the market. Differentiation and integration might also be planned. Above all, customer focus and orientation by way of super customer service may be used as a strategy.
When a corporate intends to expand business by way of diversification, it needs human resources with a variety of skills. At this point of time, the corporate needs to recruit persons having multiple skills. A corporate may naturally be interested and find it imperative to increase its market share by overseas ventures. But the culture differs widely from one country to another.
Thus, a candidate with an understanding of multi-cultural backgrounds is quite suitable. Mergers and acquisitions are common phenomena. In such cases, while recruiting candidates, one should look to hire multi-skilled personnel with a multicultural background.
If a corporate strategies to grow fast, then outsourcing of select activities becomes essential. Corporates need highly skilled and smart candidates if they opt for a ‘low cost leadership’ marketing strategy to grab more market share. A differentiated corporate strategy needs candidates with entrepreneurial skills. Candidates’ positive attitude towards customers and emotional feelings enables a corporate to understand the intrinsic needs of the customers and, as such, provide excellent customer service.
Business process reengineering (BPR) is used to initiate radical business process change focused upon the use of information technology to facilitate a shift away from linear/sequential work organization towards parallel processing and multidisciplinary team working.
It is important for the HR managers to be able to identify and react to the complexities associated with BPR. The leaders need to be always ready to take on the responsibilities of being change agents. They should possess transformational leadership skills in addition to transactional and visionary leadership.
A company planning to enter into foreign markets needs senior executives capable of handling cross-cultural issues.
Obviously then, corporate strategy is a major determinant behind formulating recruitment strategies. Whatever be the corporate strategy, it must develop its corresponding recruitment strategy aimed at achieving the corporate strategy. Corporate strategy and recruitment strategy must be compatible to one another.
The recruitment strategy connects all important recruitment components and HR components, as the organisation realises its strategic goals.
The recruitment strategy defines the unique mix of:
i. Position of the organisation on the job market
ii. Recruitment Channels to be used for attracting candidates
iii. Recruitment Style of the Organisation
iv. Differentiators from Competitors on the job market
v. Recruitment Processes and Procedures
vi. Recruitment Metrics Visit Creative HRM for more information.
There are two approaches used in business today:
i. Broad scope, which represents a set of work skills that a lot of people have.
ii. Targeted scope, which represents a set of skills that only a few people have.
i. Broad skill scope strategy focuses on attracting a large number of applicants. This approach makes sense when a lot of people have the characteristics needed to succeed in the job. Organisations using the Bargain Labourer HR strategy would use this approach to hire a large number of non-specialised employees, who often stay with the company for only short periods of time. Organisations with the Loyal Soldier HR strategy seek to keep employees for longer periods, but, the employees do not need specialised skills to succeed.
ii. Targeted skill scope strategy seeks to attract a small group of applicants who have a high probability of possessing the characteristics that are needed to perform that specific job. This approach is used when you are looking for a very limited number of applicants with a very specific or rare set of skills.
The business strategy is a key document, which drives everything in the organisation.
The recruitment strategy has to reflect:
i. Strategic growth areas.
ii. Plans for new products and services introduction.
iii. Estimated development of the workforce.
iv. Geography and future plans of the company.
v. Costs allocated to employees and the growth of employee related costs.
The recruitment strategy has to analyse the current organisation and all gaps in the staffing area. Most organisations do not have the optimum composition of the workforce; the recruitment strategy has to address this issue.
The gap analysis in the recruitment strategy:
i. Identifies critical and missing roles in the organisation.
ii. Formulates the tactics for the recruitment of critical roles for the company.
The recruitment strategy defines the basic recruitment processes and procedures. The strategy defines the recruitment metrics to be used for the measurement of the performance of recruiters and other employees involved.
Recruitment – Recruiter: Characteristics, Behaviour and Impact of Recruiters on Candidates
The third influence on recruitment outcomes is the recruiter, including this person’s characteristics and the way he or she behaves. The recruiter affects the nature of both the job vacancy and the applicants generated. However, the recruiter often becomes involved late in the recruitment process.
In many cases, by the time a recruiter meets some applicants, they have already made up their minds about what they desire in a job, what the vacant job has to offer, and their likelihood of receiving a job offer.
Many applicants approach the recruiter with some skepticism. Knowing it is the recruiter’s job to sell them on a vacancy, some applicants discount what the recruiter says, in light of what they have heard from other sources, such as friends, magazine articles, and professors.
When candidates are already familiar with the company through knowing about its products, the recruiter’s impact is especially weak. For these and other reasons, recruiters’ characteristics and behaviors seem to have limited impact on applicants’ job choices.
Characteristics of the Recruiter:
Most organizations must choose whether their recruiters are specialists in human resources or are experts at particular jobs (that is, those who currently hold the same kinds of jobs or supervise people who hold the jobs). According to some studies, applicants perceive HR specialists as less credible and are less attracted to jobs when recruiters are HR specialists.
The evidence does not completely discount a positive role for personnel specialists in recruiting. It does indicate, however, that these specialists need to take extra steps to ensure that applicants perceive them as knowledgeable and credible.
In general, applicants respond positively to recruiters whom they perceive as warm and informative. “Warm” means the recruiter seems to care about the applicant and to be enthusiastic about the applicant’s potential to contribute to the organization.
“Informative” means the recruiter provides the kind of information the applicant is seeking. The evidence of impact of other characteristics of recruiters—including their age, sex, and race—is complex and inconsistent.
Behaviour of the Recruiter:
Recruiters affect results not only by providing plenty of information, but by providing the right kind of information. Perhaps the most-researched aspect of recruiting is the level of realism in the recruiter’s message. Because the recruiter’s job is to attract candidates, recruiters may feel pressure to exaggerate the positive qualities of the vacancy and to downplay its negative qualities.
Applicants are highly sensitive to negative information. The highest-quality applicants may be less willing to pursue jobs when this type of information comes out. But if the recruiter goes too far in a positive direction, the candidate can be misled and lured into taking a job that has been misrepresented.
Then unmet expectations can contribute to a high turnover rate. When recruiters describe jobs unrealistically, people who take those jobs may come to believe that the employer is deceitful.
Many studies have looked at how well realistic job previews—background information about jobs’ positive and negative qualities—can get around this problem and help organizations minimize turnover among new employees. On the whole, the research suggests that realistic job previews have a weak and inconsistent effect on turnover.
Although recruiters can go overboard in selling applicants on the desirability of a job vacancy, there is little support for the belief that informing people about the negative characteristics of a job will “inoculate” them so that the negative features don’t cause them to quit.
Finally, for affecting whether people choose to take a job, but even more so, whether they stick with a job, the recruiter seems less important than an organization’s personnel policies that directly affect the job’s features (pay, security, advancement opportunities, and so on).
Enhancing the Recruiter’s Impact:
Nevertheless, although recruiters are probably not the most important influence on people’s job choices, this does not mean recruiters cannot have an impact. Most recruiters receive little training. If we were to determine what does matter to job candidates, perhaps recruiters could be trained in those areas.
Researchers have tried to find the conditions in which recruiters do make a difference.
Such research suggests that an organization can take several steps to increase the positive impact that recruiters have on job candidates:
1. Recruiters should provide timely feedback. Applicants dislike delays in feedback. They may draw negative conclusions about the organization (for starters, that the organization doesn’t care about their application).
2. Recruiters should avoid offensive behavior. They should avoid behaving in ways that might convey the wrong impression about the organization.
3. The organization can recruit with teams rather than individual recruiters. Applicants view job experts as more credible than HR specialists, and a team can include both kinds of recruiters. HR specialists on the team provide knowledge about company policies and procedures.
Through such positive behavior, recruiters can give organizations a better chance of competing for talented human resources.
Recruitment – 2 Main Sources: Internal and External Sources
There are mainly two sources of recruitment:
1. Internal Sources.
1. Internal Sources of Recruitment:
Recruitment from within the organization is generally termed as internal source of recruitment. Those who are already on the pay roll of the organization i.e., present permanent, temporary and casual employees form the important internal sources of recruitment and includes the following- promotion, transfer, and lay off. Vacancies in the organization may be filled up through any one of these measures.
i. Promotion – Promotion implies shifting of an employee from lower position to higher status, with enhanced duties, responsibilities and pay.
ii. Transfer – Shifting of an employee from one job to another job of same rank and status is called transfer.
iii. Lay-off – Lay-off implies temporary separation of employees from employer due to lack of work. As soon as work is available, laid off employees may be called back to fill up the vacant post.
Merits or Advantages of Internal Sources of Recruitment:
Internal sources of recruitment offers the following advantages:
(i) Promotion within the organization creates good human relation in the organization.
(ii) It improves morale of employees.
(iii) It promotes loyalty among the employees and creates a sense of belongingness to the organization.
(iv) Easy recognition of good and faithful employees.
(v) Minimization of cost of selection and advertisements.
(vi) It is a source of motivation and inspiration to the present employees to show better performance and to hope for better prospects.
(vii) No need to arrange orientation or training programme for the employees as they are already familiar to the organization.
(viii) Trade union can be satisfied by recruiting from within the organization.
An internal source of recruitment suffers from the following demerits:
(i) If employees from within the organization are only recruited, it may lead to a problem of inbreeding and it may discourage new blood from entering an organization.
(ii) Organizations cannot make use of talented persons from outside the organization.
(iii) Talented persons within the organization are left out if promotion is given on seniority basis.
(iv) Internal sources may “dry up” if recruitment is made only from within the organization.
(v) Newly established organization cannot depend upon internal source of recruitment.
(vi) For filling certain important post, internal source may not be useful.
2. External Sources of Recruitment:
Recruitment from outside the organization is generally termed as external source of recruitment and includes the following:
i. Advertisement in Newspapers and Journals:
Advertisement in newspapers and journals is most widely used external source of recruitment as it attracts and appeals different class of people and it reaches different part of the country. Comparatively it is cheap and conveys message at the earliest. Even lengthy information can be covered in newspaper advertisement. For recruiting clerical, technical and managing staff, newspaper advertisement is very much convenient.
ii. Employment Exchanges:
Employment exchange offices established by Government provide information about job vacancies to the job seekers and help employers in identifying suitable candidates. They keep a list of qualified candidates for different types of job and when they receive requisition from employers, the concerned candidates are informed to contact such organizations or are informed to attend the interview. Thus, employment exchange offices are acting as an important source of recruitment.
iii. Educational Institutes and Training Centers:
Educational institutions are very useful source of employment for a full range of jobs. Now a days they provide facilities for campus interviews and placement and provide opportunities to students to get employed in national and multinational companies in different cadres. Some of the Colleges and Universities have placement cells and officers who act as a liaison officer between students and employers.
iv. Labour Contractors:
Labour contractors who have a link or contact with the potential labourers in the villages will supply the required labourers to the industries and factories and thus act as an important source of recruitment.
v. Personnel Consultants:
There are private agencies who act as a source of recruitment for many companies. They perform recruiting functions on behalf of client companies by charging fees. They perform all the functions of recruitment and selection and supply the potential, willing and able candidates to the organisation. Thus, organizations are relieved from the botheration of searching a suitable candidates.
vi. Recommendation by the Present Employees:
Present employees who are already on the payroll may recommend their own candidates while filling the vacancies in the organization, if present employees are found good and reliable they are encouraged to recommend their friends relatives and well-wishers for filling the vacant post in which case present employees may also be a good source of recruitment.
vii. Factory Gate:
To fill the unskilled and casual job vacancies, many factories follow the system of recruitment of employees at their factory gate. This method is specially followed to recruit unskilled labourers. For this purpose, notice is put either on the notice board of the factory or near the main gate indicating the available vacancy and method of recruitment. On the basis of number of vacancy and available workers at the main gate recruitment will be made.
Merits or Advantages of External Sources of Recruitment:
(i) This system helps to get talented, qualified and interested candidates.
(ii) Experienced workers working in other organizations can be brought by offering higher remuneration.
(iii) Suitable candidates can be selected without making bias with regard to caste, creed or religion.
(iv) It helps to bring new blood and innovative ideas into the organization.
(v) Present employees become more alert and try to over shine in the organization.
(vi) When suitable employees within the organization are not available to fill up the vacant post, then, external source is the only alternative available to the organization.
(i) It is expensive and time consuming as detailed procedure is required to be followed while selecting the employees.
(ii) This system involves arrangement of training and orientation to the newly recruited employees.
(iii) Newly recruited employees need time to become familiar with the working conditions rules and regulations of the organization.
(iv) Present employees may lack interest in the work of the organization.
(v) Organizations may have to offer incentives to motivate the existing staff for better performance.
Recruitment – 6 Step Process of Recruitment
Recruitment is positive as it aims at increasing the number of applicants and selection is somewhat negative as it selects the suitable candidates in which process the unsuitable candidates are automatically eliminated. Though, the function of recruitment seems to be easy, a number of factors make performance of recruitment a complex one.
Process of recruitment involves various steps which are as follows:
1. Finding out and developing the sources where the required number and kinds of employees will be available. Locating and developing the sources of required number and types of employees.
2. Identifying the prospective employees with required characteristics.
3. Developing suitable techniques to attract the desirable candidates and employing the techniques to attract candidates. The goodwill of an organisation in the market may be one technique. The publicity about the company being a good employer may also help in stimulating candidates to apply.
4. Employing of techniques to attract candidates.
5. Stimulating as many as candidates as possible and asking them to apply for jobs irrespective of number of candidates required. Management has to attract some candidates in order to increase selection ratio, (i.e. number of applications per one job vacancy)
6. Evaluating the effectiveness of recruitment process.
Recruitment – 3 Types of Methods According to Dunn and Stephens: Direct Method, Indirect Method and Third Party Method
According to Dunn and Stephens recruitment methods are of three types:
1. Direct method,
2. Indirect method,
3. Third party method.
1. Direct Method:
Under this method, representatives of the organisations are sent to schools, colleges and university department and in close co-operation with recruitment cells and officers; these representatives will carry out the task of recruitment. These representatives will hold the discussion with the students, clarify their doubts and stimulate them to apply for the jobs.
Sometimes they conduct campus interview and short list the candidates for final selection and sometimes these representatives arrange job fair, arrange mobile job camp, visit industrial training institute to canvass and attract potential candidates for the purpose of recruitment.
2. Indirect Method:
Under indirect method of recruitment, advertisement is made in newspapers, journals, trade magazines, radio, television etc., to tap the prospective employees. When large number of employees is to be recruited indirect method is preferred by the organizations.
This method covers wide area and conveys message to mass irrespective of caste, creed, sex, religion etc., and appeals all class of people. Advertisement should be clear, specific and should not be vague with regard to name of the company, number of vacancies, nature of appointment, pay- package etc.
3. Third Party Method:
Under this method of recruitment private and public employment agencies are used to recruit the employees. Management consultant, labour contractors, government employment exchange offices, trade unions are the major agencies who help in the process of recruitment of employees.
Other Methods:
Nowadays modern methods like on line recruitment and recruitment through internet are also followed by the companies. For this purpose companies create their own website for the convenience of job seekers. Job seekers may directly open the company’s website through internet and apply for the job without following direct, indirect or third party methods.
Recruitment – E-Recruitment: Meaning, Definition and Types
E-recruitment is a rapidly growing trend that is being adopted by a wide range of organisations. HR teams globally are trying to achieve the same goal – to simplify all recruitment related tasks.
E-recruitment or online recruitment makes use of technology to carry out the various recruitment processes. It helps enhance and streamline workflow of the hiring process, enabling a more automated and efficient process. The strongest candidates become more apparent, and the HR team can then concentrate their efforts on these individuals.
Definition of E-Recruitment:
E-recruitment includes those practices and activities carried on by the organisation through internet with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees.
E-recruitment eliminates most of the manual recruitment processes that are time consuming and hamper productivity of recruiters. Recruiter’s time is spent on the candidates that have the best fit for both the company and the particular role that they are applying for.
Types of E-Recruitment:
There are various types of e-recruitment that can be implemented for the purpose of recruitment automation.
The following are the most common and popular:
1. E-Recruitment Software:
E-recruitment software is currently the most popular method that can be used to automate recruitment. The main features are that it automates the recruitment process, eliminating the manual administration, e.g. screening of candidates that do not need the basic criteria required, ranking of candidates to highlight the strongest applicants, automatic communication at each stage of the process, tracking of each applicant’s progress, reporting etc.
The recruiters are now able to concentrate on the strongest candidates, and the mundane, administrative tasks are automated, such as emailing successful and unsuccessful candidates, sifting through each application, informing the relevant managers etc. Communication lines are improved hugely.
2. Online Recruitment through Social Networking:
Recruitment through social networking is the latest development in e-recruitment. Recruiters are increasingly leaning towards this with the type of use of social media. It has helped leverage communication between candidates and recruiters that was otherwise limited to just interviews and formal discussions.
MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are some of the most commonly used networking sites where recruiters can find a pool of prospective candidates, especially passive ones. LinkedIn in particular is seen as a highly credible forum for recruiting as it used by professionals for networking, and provides a great opportunity for organisations to advertise roles.
The growth in the internet has led both employers and employees to use internet recruiting tools. Of the many recruiting sites using special software, the most common ones are internet job boards, professional / career websites and employer websites.
3. Internet Job Boards:
Numerous internet boards such as monster and Naukri provide places for employers to post jobs or search for candidates. Job boards offer access to numerous candidates. Some internet locations allow recruiters to search for one website to obtain search links to many other major job sites. Applicants can also use these websites to do one match and then send their resumes to all jobs they are interested.
4. Professional/Career Website:
Many professional associations have employment sections at their websites. A number of private corporations maintain a specialised career or industry website to focus on IT, engineering, medicines and other areas. Use of these websites may limit somewhat recruiters search time and efforts.
5. Employer Website:
Despite the popularity of job boards and association job sites, many employers have learned that their own websites can be effective and efficient when recruiting candidates. Employers include employment and career information on their websites. IT is important for the recruiting and employment portions of an employer website to be seen as part of the marketing efforts of the firm.
Recruitment – Recruitment Policy: Meaning, Dimensions, Characteristics, Elements and Pre-Requisites
Recruitment policy spells out the objectives and principles of recruitment and provides a framework for implementation of the recruitment programme. Unless an organization adopts a suitable recruitment policy, it may not be possible to select the right candidate for the right job.
A sound recruitment policy may cover the following dimensions:
(1) Identification of the recruitment needs of the organization – The organization should prepare profiles for each category of employees and accordingly work out the man specifications, decide the sections, departments, or branches where they should be placed, and identify the responsibilities which would be immediately assigned to them.
(2) Decision on the manner of recruitment – Should the recruitment be centralized or decentralized? This becomes important for organizations which have more than one unit, located at different places.
(3) Identification of the preferred sources of recruitment – The degree of emphasis that would be placed on different sources and methods of internal and external recruitment.
(4) The degree of flexibility with regard to age, sex, qualifications, compensation structure, and other service conditions.
(5) The people who would be involved in recruitment activity and the role of personnel/HR department in this regard.
(6) The budget for meeting expenditure incurred while carrying out the recruitment process.
(7) Evaluation of the recruitment process – e.g., return rate of applications sent out, number of suitable candidates for selection, retention, and performance of the candidate selected, cost of the recruitment, and so on.
The recruitment policy states the objectives and provides a framework for implementation of the recruitment programme in the form of procedures. The policy may include several issues such as promotion and transfer from within the organization, the ratio between internal and external sources of recruitment, the role of line responsibility, etc.
The hiring process starts with the release of authority to fill existing or expected vacancies. Who will take the initiative of creating job positions differs from organization to organization. Similarly, at what level of authority would such a creation be approved also differs with organizations.
In its simplest form, where the company is small and there is a military-type structure, each executive decides for himself, what position should be created and when. In the case of relatively larger organizations, the release of authority is clothed in formalized records and systems.
Usually, a form called the ‘hiring requisition’ is forwarded to the employment office or the HR department by the executive in need of people. The employment office then proceeds to arrange for recruitment. Creation and approval of job positions may take place at different levels.
Characteristics of a Good Recruitment Policy:
Recruitment policy specifies the objectives of recruitment and provides a frame work for the implementation of the recruitment programme.
According to Yoder and other, “A recruitment policy may involve commitment to broad principles such as filing vacancies with best qualified personnel. It may embrace several issues such as extent of promotion from within, attitudes of enterprise in recruiting its old employees, handicaps, minority groups, women, employees, part time employees, friends and relatives of present employees etc. It may also involve the organisational system to be developed for implementing recruitment programme and procedures to be employed”.
Elements of Good Recruitment Policy:
A good recruitment policy must contain the following elements:
1. Organisational Objectives – Both short term and long term organisational objectives must be taken into consideration as a basic parameter for recruitment decisions.
2. Identification of the Recruitment Needs – The recruiters should prepare profiles for each category of workers and accordingly work out the man specifications, decide the sections, departments or branches where they should be placed and identify the particulars responsibilities which may be immediately assigned to them.
3. Preferred sources of Recruitment – Preferred sources of recruitment which would be tapped by the organisation for different classes of employees must be identified.
4. Criteria for selection and Preferences – Selection and preferences should be based on conscious thought and serious deliberations.
5. Monetary Aspects – The cost of recruitment and financial implications of the same have to be kept in mind also.
Recruitment policy involves employer’s commitment to such general principles as:
a. To find and employ the best qualified persons for each job.
b. To retain the most promising of those hired.
c. To offer promising opportunities for life time working careers.
d. To provide job facilities and opportunities for personnel growth on the job.
Pre-Requisite of Good Recruitment Policy:
A recruitment policy must satisfy the following conditions:
1. It should be in confirmity with the general personnel policies.
2. It should be flexible enough to meet the changing needs of an organisation.
3. It should provide employees with job security and continuous employment.
4. It should integrate organisational needs and employee needs.
5. It should match the qualities of the employees with requirement of work for which they are employed.
6. It should highlight the necessity of establishing job analysis.
Recruitment – Difference between Recruitment and Selection
Difference # Recruitment:
1. Meaning – It is the process of searching candidates for vacant jobs and making them apply for the same.
2. Nature – It is a positive process.
3. Aim – Its aim is to attract more and more candidates for vacant jobs.
4. Procedure – The firm notifies the vacancies through various sources and distributer application forms to candidates.
5. Contract of Service – No contractual relation is created recruitment implies communication of vacancies only.
Difference # Selection:
1. Meaning – It is the process of selection of right types of candidates and offering them jobs.
2. Nature – It is a negative process.
3. Aim – Its aim is to reject unsuitable candidates and pick up the most suitable people for the vacant jobs.
4. Procedure – The firm asks the candidates to pass through a number of stages such as filling of form, employment tests, interview, medical exam etc.
5. Contract of Service – Selection follows recruitment and it leads to a contract of service between the employer and the employee.
Recruitment – Advantages and Disadvantages
The following advantages exist for the recruitment from within:
(a) Experienced persons are promoted to upward positions. Through the experience they are able to discharge their responsibilities to upward positions nicely.
(b) Employees have got enough chance to advancement and promotion.
(c) Those personnel appointed in lower grades work most conscientiously so that they will be promoted soon to higher positions. Here their working efficiency, holds them good in their higher officer’s opinion.
(d) Public Service Commissions are relieved from the unnecessary botherations are recruiting authorities.
(e) This method of recruitment from within renders the public service more attractive. Personnel are attracted to such services with a future hope of promotion. People from ‘without’ know that there is promotion from low to high posts and hence they do not hesitate to join at lower ranks low grades.
(f) Recruitment from within or promotions will allow the workers to work with contentment. This will boost the morale of the employees.
(g) Recruitment from within or promotions is an unavoidable ingredient of career service. It can be said that career exists only ‘if top positions are filled from within and not from outside, and if it is filled from outside, it can be said that there is a bar on the advancement of the employees for promotion.’
(h) If the recruitment is from without government will have to impart special prolonged training to such persons and to avoid such botherations they will adopt the promotion method of appointment from ‘within’.
Advantages of Recruitment from Without:
The following are the advantages from the direct recruitment or recruitment from without:
(a) This method of recruitment is a direct the most modern democratic method as everybody has a chance on equal footing to enter a public office.
(b) The best talented person can be appointed to the posts as area is too wide and open to all contestants throughout the country. But if the area is limited to the upgrading of the juniors to the senior office, then it is not possible to requisition the services of the best talent from the open market.
(c) Those new come ups of universities after their completion of the education would be jobless and feel utter frustration if these direct recruitments do not absorb them.
(d) The direct recruitment generates latest thinking in the personnel staff and effects the dynamic changes in the outlook of the service. Hence new ideas with changing situations come to rescue of the old traditional feelings in the field.
(e) The youth world is aware of the competitions and hence they know the current events up-to-date, while they enter the personnel staff, they act according to the existing environment.
(f) In the field of technical knowledge, outside or direct recruitment is found more useful because the newcomers bring new ideas, new techniques, new methods, and above all short cut expenses with development anew and hence they prove to be the best leaders of the day.
(g) As the public services absorb the newcomers directly, the services are always in tune with the tide of the time and know the tendencies of the present and so they try to mould the personnel to work accordingly.
Disadvantages of Recruitment from Within:
The recruitment from within or through promotion has the following disadvantages:
(a) The sphere of selection becomes narrower through the recruitment from within as this recruitment is limited to the persons already appointed in the services.
(b) Experience gains and brilliance goes out which was the result from the outside personnel appointment and we lose it as new energy becomes useless. To speak truly the mediocre get the place they do not deserve.
(c) Those in office prove to be most incapable and inefficient persons and their selection to the higher officers results in the continuing of the same things. This could be avoided if the recruitment is open to all. This will lead to the selection of efficient persons from the outside and more persons will be attracted to the post.
(d) If the recruitment is only open to the promotions or it from within then the public service is as such ‘closed’ to the new entrants in the line. It means no infusion fresh blood hence there comes the absence of new talents and new outlooks with fresh attitudes.
(e) Public services become based on conventions. They are not progressive. A person once occupying a junior office will march on his legs to the new office with the same attitudes and outlook and thus he becomes conservative and displays conservative outlook.
Demerits of the Recruitment from Without:
(a) Personnel of new recruitment have no experience. They are quite fresh to the job. So it was thought over that they do not cover the ability to hold higher assignments of officers and if they are to be fit to the jobs they will be required to go on a long, expensive and intensive training. Hence, this will means a drain on state finances.
(b) If it is a decision that new recruitment is to be done from ‘without’, the employees ‘within’ the service feel no chance of promotion and they are averse to it and lose interest in the job and display inefficiency which impares the administrative capacity.
(c) If there is competition between inside and outside recruitments, it is conceived that new personnel will acquire more advantage over the older personnel due to fresh knowledge of the environment and current affairs. The older people within service do not get such opportunities for the studies of the latest material on the subjects concerned. Hence they lag behind.
(d) Direct or recruitment from without brings the younger and inexperienced persons over the already working personnel in junior capacity though experienced. This arouses the feelings of hatred and jealousy among the older generation towards the new arrivals of personnel.
(e) Direct recruitment is taken through examinations and interviews which are full of defects. Marking is subjective. Likewise interview is a matter of chance. A brilliant student may fail in viva if trend of interview disfavours him.
(f) Direct recruitment involves great number of candidates for the examinations while the posts are few. This adds to the problem of the U.P.S.C. to examine them. This causes in the end the delays in their results.
While elucidating the advantages and disadvantages of both these methods of recruitment, it is clear that both the methods do not fulfil the conditions satisfactorily required best for the services. Practically, both the methods are employed during recruitment. Neither of them could be left out completely. In our country we rely on both the methods. The proportion taken by each method varies according to the services. Some posts give weight to direct recruitment while other posts take recourse to inside recruitment.
So also while filling the posts class wise and department wise selections are made while recruiting. Here, we may quote an observer who pointed out that, “An extensive outside recruitment at the highest grades is a reflection on the ability and talent available within the service and undermines the career idea, while complete absence of the direct recruitment for the higher positions is also a reflection on the service because it might be a symptom of self-complacency.”
Recruitment – Strategic Issues in Recruitment
Recruitment has always been an important function of HRM. Human resource plays the most important role in ensuring success of an organization. Procurement and retention of human resource has become a major challenge for the organization. At present, employees show more willingness to change their jobs than they did in the past. This, coupled with the flattening of organizational structures, presents the challenge of retaining talented employees and providing them a rewarding career path and growth.
One of the important issues of an organization’s recruitment strategy is the way it plans to attract potential candidates. The organization should determine what inducements (incentives or stimulus) it has to offer to its potential candidates to strengthen and increase the probability of the success of its recruitment efforts. For instance, the organization can use its strengths as incentives to stimulate candidates.
An organization should identify its strongest selling point and publicize those points that would appeal to the candidates. Organization image, reputation, working conditions, compensation package, career growth opportunities, job content, job security, and performance-based rewards are important factors that attract talented and competent candidates towards any organization.
Recruitment involves a lot of time, money, and effort by any organization; therefore, the channels or sources of recruitment should be selected carefully. Care should be taken that the recruitment process does not exceed the budget already set by the organization. In addition, recruitment poses a big challenge for the HR managers when demand of employees is more than their supply.
The choice of a particular recruitment source should be made after analyzing the situation and the type of personnel needed. Various recruitment media, such as TV, newspapers, and consultancies, should be selected depending on the budget available.
The effectiveness of the recruitment process can be evaluated by comparing the number of applicants per method or ratio of applicants to interviews or cost per applicant per hire.
The strategic issues discussed aforesaid are no doubt the most crucial for the recruitment process. Besides these issues, an organization needs to consider one more issue, known as Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) while recruiting the employees.
Recruitment – 5 Major Challenges Faced by Recruitment
The various challenges faced by recruitment are:
1. Image of the Organisation – The suitable candidates may not be interested in applying for the job in a particular organisation due to the poor organisation in his eyes.
The image of the organisation can be low due to:
(i) Not too good or bad goodwill
(ii) Unsafe working conditions
(iii) Indifferent towards needs of the community
(iv) Poor quality products
(v) Unclean image of the promoters etc.
As these and many more factors reduce the likelihood of attracting large number of qualified applicants.
2. Unattractive Job – The image of the organisation may be good, buy if the concerned job itself is not attractive, it would not attract suitable and qualified candidates. The job may be unattractive if it is boring, monotonous, hazardous anxiety creating, lacking in promotional potential having unsuitable rewarding system etc.
3. Internal Policies of the Organisation – If an organisation follows a policy of filling vacancies through internal promotions, if may often come in the way of searching for qualified hands in the broader job market in an unbiased way. However in case of new jobs people will be attracted towards this organisation because of future growth purpose.
4. Budgetary Support – Recruitment of candidates from outside requires money. Sometimes because of limited budget available, the organisations may not carry out the recruitment efforts for longer period of time.
5. Government Interferences – Govt. can interfere in the working of organisation particularly in the govt. local bodies and quasi government of organisations.
Recruitment – Recruitment Practices in India
Some of recruitment practices in India are the following:
1. Our industrial labour force consists almost entirely of persons with little or no experience of industrial life and work and who are still strongly influenced by the tradition and values of their rural or pre-industrial background.
Often the new recruits to the industrial labour force have great difficulty in adjusting themselves to the rhythm, discipline and social relationship in the industrial undertaking, and to the new way of life in the community of which the undertaking forms a part. Their acceptance of the new environment proceeds at a slow place, and this is often expressed through absenteeism, high labour turnover stoppages of work and other acts of protest. Such factors generally become more important when more advanced technology is introduced and new problems of manpower replacement are created by the higher skills required.
2. There is a great disproportion between the number of positions available and the number of aspirants. Sometimes, the ratio in as much as 1:100 or even more. Not only is the expenditure, and inconvenience involved in examining a large number of candidates for a few positions great, but the spectacle of so many persons making applications and getting disappointed is a dismal one.
Furthermore, the large number of applications that need to be processed and the equally large number of candidates who need to be examined and evaluated is an important source of delays. On account of the present conditions of acute unemployment the chances of incorrect matching of the job and the individual are higher here than in the developed Western countries.
3. Under the existing statutes dismissal of an employee is very difficult because it requires certain elaborate procedure involving considerable time and money to be followed by a manager. No manager likes to follow this procedure. This means a person once recruited is going to be around longer on any given job and it is not possible to rely on replacement to improve the quality of the work group. The management must count more on utilising the skills and abilities of the employees that are already present than on replacing them by more able ones.
The above features make systematic manpower planning and well-understood, fair and objective criteria for recruitment of special significance to us. But manpower planning has not yet become popular and is practiced only by a few big companies in the public and private sectors. Public undertakings are believed to be generally overstaffed and have frequently been criticised by the Parliamentary Committees for this.
In a study, it was found that only 20% of the American subsidiaries and 7% of the local firms undertake manpower planning. Those few companies which do undertake manpower planning utilise not only historical data on manpower but also various forecasting methods to evaluate their future manpower requirements in terms of both quantity and quality.
A brief description of how Hindustan Lever – a private undertaking performs his functions is given below:
First, an audit of internal resources is carried out. This indicates the number of persons who possess different or higher levels of responsibilities. It also reveals the overall deficit or surplus of personnel for different levels during the planning period.
Second, with the help of a detailed organisation chart it is determined that how many people, at what level, at what positions and with what kind of experience and training would be needed to meet the business objectives during the – optimum planning period of 5 years.
Finally, taking into account the actual retirements and estimated loss due to death, ill-health and turnover, based on past experience and future outlook in relation to company’s expansion and future growth pattern the final figures are arrived at.
The planning is done every year for the coming 5 years. For instance, a plan is made from the beginning of 1990 to the end of 1994 and the next year the plan covers from the beginning of 1991 to the end of 1995. This reduces inaccuracy in forecasting.