Human Resources: Recruitment and Selection Process

Perhaps you’ve wondered how employers decide, “Who gets the job” when the company places an ad for such?  Well, it’s not as simple as you might suspect.  It could take weeks and sometimes months to find the right person for an open job an organization is seeking to fill.

Recruitment and selection is where strategic employment practices begin.  Recruitment and selection is one of several functions of Human Resources.  This function is very vital to an organization in that hiring the right individuals to fill job vacancies can save the company thousands of dollars in advertising, recruiting, orientation, and training expenses.  In contrast, hiring the wrong individuals can cost the company thousands. Good hiring decisions are a reflection of careful planning and good business strategy. An organization must have key HR staff in place that have extensive knowledge of Human Resources employment laws and can effectively perform full-cycle recruiting. It’s imperative that the HR recruitment team hire competent employees that will help the company achieve its goals and objectives. The recruitment team must also be familiar with the organization’s culture and uphold its mission.


Filling a job vacancy
Human Resources generally receive a requisition from a department manager in the company to fill a job vacancy when the need arises. The vacancy can be the result of a termination, promotion, or a newly created position. The department manager collaborates with Human Resources to fill the request. After discussing the specifics of the job with the department manager, HR must create an accurate job description for the positions they are seeking to fill.  In the case of newly created positions, HR will need to do a job analysis to determine what duties and responsibilities should be included in the description, along with the job title, qualifications, interpersonal skills, hours, salary, grade, and other pertinent information.


Recruitment
The Human Resource recruiter must first identify the technical skills and job traits needed to effectively perform the jobs he/she is seeking to fill.  She will also need to determine if the job should be posted for internal candidates, external candidates, or both.  The company can attract qualified prospects by posting the position internally, in the newspaper, advertising electronically on the company’s website, Monster.com, Career Builder.com, Indeed.com, and Simply Hired.com, LinkedIn.com or other social sites.  Interested job seekers will need to have the qualifications displayed in the job description and respond in a timely manner to be considered for the job.

The recruiter can manually browse through resumes or use an electronic scanning system to search for resumes online that best match the job description for the position she is seeking to fill.  Thanks to modern technology, recruiters can fortunately rely upon applicant tracking software (ATS) that can track and identify resumes that contain relevant keywords that pertain to an individual’s job skills, job knowledge, and qualifications within a matter of seconds. Adding pertinent keywords will increase an individual’s chance of getting an interview. After the recruiter finds the best resumes of candidates from the pool of applicants who’ve applied for the job, she must then arrange and conduct interviews for the candidates she is interested in.


Preliminary interview
Nowadays, employers conduct preliminary telephone interviews to narrow the search for the job they are seeking to fill.  Telephone interviews allow the recruiter to thoroughly screen the prospects and thus, enable her to schedule only the best candidates for a face-to-face interview.


Selection criteria
After conducting face-to- face interviews with interested job candidates, the recruiter will need to make a hiring decision. But before a recruiter can make a job offer he/she must administer appropriate testing, perform background checks, and obtain references for the candidate who skills best match the job the company is seeking to fill.  She must also forward qualified applicant’s resume to the department manager and arrange for the prospect to meet (interview) with the manger. Actually, the department manager gives his input and has the final say in the selection process. However, the recruiter can make recommendations, but if the manager is not satisfied with the candidate the recruiter has recommended, HR cannot move forward with the selection process, but must continue the search for other candidates.   Also, second and third interviews are the norm in the interview process.  Some companies even conduct panel interviews as part of the interview process. This is when several members of the company who has say in the hiring decision will interview a candidate collectively.


Extending a job offer
Lastly, once the recruiter and the hiring manager decide on a candidate, the recruiter will need to contact the individual to extend a job offer. If the individuals accept, the recruiter will then schedule a date for him/her to return to Human resources. During this meeting, the candidate can negotiate a salary; learn when new hire orientation and start date is, and collect relevant items such as employee handbook, time sheet, company information packet, etc.