RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND PLACEMENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES • Differentiate recruitment, selection and placement to one another. • Explain job description and specification as recruitment device. • Give the importance of screening interview and its ruling. • Identify different scopes of recruitment policy. • Explain how employees are being selected. • Enumerate and explain the different test administered in worker selection. 6.1 Introduction Human Resource Management is most concerned with recruitment in the provision of manpower for the organization. Unless good applicants make themselves available for probable employment, the quality of the workforce will be mediocre. Recruitment is the human resources management function that involves finding and attracting prospective employees to apply for vacancies for which they can be hired. Selection is the process of choosing the best qualified for the vacancies considering their education, experience, potential and personality through their written application, interview, skill and mental ability tests and health examination. Placement is the assignment of the worker to the job for which he or she applied after the worker characteristics have been found to be what are needed for the job. 6.2 Job Description and Specification as Recruitment Device A pre-recruitment step that must be made by the HR staff is the preparation of the job description pointing out the tasks, duties and responsibilities of the worker and the job specific action that clarify the qualifications that the applicant should possess. 6.3 Vacancy and Recruitment List The various levels of management of the whole organization must continuously relay to the HR staff the vacancies that need to be filled, the new positions that have been created to support an expanded operation and the positions that need to be filled in the near future due to notice of intention to retire or resign on the part of the incumbents. 6.4 Scouting and Inviting Recruits to Apply Actual recruitment begins when the HR staff have identified the source of applicants. Since there must be a sufficient number of applicants to choose from, the personnel office should be sent out information about the vacancies as a way to invite the applicants. The common causes of applicants being disqualified from the initial interview could be lack of the minimum educational qualification or necessary professional license; being overqualified educationally; lack of relevant experience; being too young or too old for the job; being too short or too obese for the job; lack of competence in a critically needed skill in language or technology; and non-acceptance of the negative aspect of the job. 6.5 The Screening Interview The initial interview is used to check on the entries in the application form in order to find out whether the applicant should move on to take the different tests that are integral to the selection process. In the screening interview, the applicant is appraised for personality traits like grooming and manner of speaking; family and community background; relevance of the experience to the job applied for; and the entries in the application which need first hand verification from the applicant. The rule of three may be employed in the interview process meaning that the HR Recruitment Officer, the immediate supervisor, and the Head of HR or the Head of the Company, in case of small organizations, must be involved in the interview process to ensure quality of recruits. Mental Ability and Skills Test Once the screening interview has determined the inclusion of the applicant in the list of those to take the employment test, he or she is told to report for a mental ability test which will determine ability to cope with the mental processes involved in the job. Another kind of test involves the measurement of skill, usually in the use of equipment. In some organizations, aptitude and other psychological test are given to find out how the applicant will behave under varied situations. These psychological tests are, however, only predictive and cannot be conclusive bases to disqualify a person from employment. IQ tests have in fact have challenged because their predictive value in school is not matched by their predictive value in employment or business. Emotional quotient (EQ) and Computer Quotient (CQ) are also considered nowadays. The Selection Interview Another kind of employment interview is the selection interview which is done after the applicant has passed the mental ability and skill examination. This interview is sometimes done to deepen the background check on the applicant and to find out how the applicant views working in the organization. Physical and Medical Examination Once management is satisfied with the qualification and personality of the applicant, the next step is to require passing the physical and medical examination. This requirement is to preclude the hiring of an individual who will not have the same stamina for work, who has inherent physical disability, who is prone to have bad reactions to conditions in the workplace or who is already sick but may not appear as such. 6.6 Appointment to a Position After going through the selection process, the applicant can who has been found suited to fill a job or position is hired by the organization by way of an appointment. 6.7 Job Placement of the New Worker The final stage in the entry process for the new worker is placement in the specific job or position for which he or she has been hired. This stage attests to the fitness of the worker to the job. It is here that characteristics as revealed during the selection will be tested. 6.8 Scope of Recruitment Policy 1. Intra-organization recruitment. In some organizations, there is written policy that preferential action is placed on recruitment from within so that before applications from external sources are accepted the vacancies are announced to those already working in the enterprise or government agency. 2. Recruitment of workers’ relatives. Organizations may have two highly polarized policies regarding relatives of incumbent workers. One is to extend to them some preference in recruitment while the other is to discourage recruitment of their workers’ relatives. 3. Recruitment with age limit. In some organizations, the applicants are not supposed to be beyond a certain age level. The reason with the chance to be employed longer and to grow with the organization with lesser chance of illnesses and stress. 4. Recruitment of applicants with experience. Experience is emphasized by companies and offices that would not want to spend much time, effort and money in the training of personnel. 5. Recruitment from competition. Competitors can be a source of applicants. Some organizations make it a policy to lure workers of other companies to transfer to them. 6. Campus recruitment. The institutions of higher learning and the technical schools are the arena for recruitment by organizations that have the policy to tap the new graduates as applicants to their vacancies. 7. Recruitment through placement offices. Schools and government manpower training centers generally have placement offices. 8. Open recruitment. The policy to recruit from all sources of applicants indicates the absence of a management contemplated recruitment program. This policy merely opens the door for entry of all applicants. 6.9 Rationale for Employee Selection Employee selection is given much attention and effort by the employer for many reasons other than the exercise of the prerogative to choose the workers to be hired to do the job. Selection has far reaching implications to the interest of the enterprise or the bureaucracy which are as follows: 1. The employer must avoid employing the mediocre. Mediocre which is the possession of inferior skills and characteristics can be found in the worker only after he has been hired unless the employer applies very careful measures of selection. 2. The employer must seek workers with potential. The hiring of employee is not merely to fill present requirements in the workplace but also to have personnel who can be made to fit the requirement of higher technology in the future. 3. The employer must preclude the hiring of problem workers. Applicants for jobs may have the skills for the job but they may also have personal characteristics that may bring problems to the organization. 4. The employer must get the best out of the pay scale for the job. The applicants and the employer are in the free market for labor. The applicants prefer to be hired by high paying organizations which in turn would like to get the best qualified for the salary level that they offer. 5. The employer has preference in employee personality. Selection is not purely a matter of measurement of intelligence, skills, and physical attributes. It is a search for the personality that will fit into the job and the management style of the organization. 6.10 Consequences of Poor Selection of New Workers When the selection process is not properly performed, the employer has to face some negative consequences. The new worker from whom much may be expected may turn out to be a bundle of problems, which may include lack of aptitude for the job; poor work habits like being careless, tardy, absentee, and idling on the job; poor human behavior like aggression, rumor mongering, mooching, back-biting and envy in relation to others in the organization and etc. 6.11 Principles in Employee Selection The use of pure discretion and personal impression can be disadvantageous to the organization, thus, the following principle must be applied: 1. Have more than one tentative choice for each job. The selection process should produce a number of prospects for a final choice up to the time of decision to appoint who is best for the job. 2. Choose the worker for present and future technology. The entry of new workers should be in response to the needs of existing vacancies and level of operation. 3. Choose the worker with a career plan. Workers who merely want to be employed but who have no definite goal within the organization that he is joining rarely make good as workers due to lack of commitment. 4. Choose the worker who likes working with others. In selecting the worker to be hired, the factor or personality is vital because working in an organization means working with other people. 5. Choose the worker with a pleasant job history. Workers who move from one employment to another are either easily dissatisfied with their jobs or are simply so underserving to be kept by their previous employers. 6.12 Test Administered in Worker Selection The HR staff of business and government organizations have developed or adopted various types of tests to find out about the applicants’ mental ability, psychological conditions, skill, performance, store of knowledge, and potential. Tests are given to enable the personnel staff in determining the fitness of the applicant to the job in a way that would take less time for the HR staff than it would if applicants were examined on a case to case basis. The following are the commonly used types of tests in the selection of employees: 1. Intelligence test. This test is to find out how well the mind of the applicant functions in regard to such mental processes as proportions, relatives, comparisons, contracts, inversion, association, deduction, distinction and classification. 2. Language proficiency test. Language is basic to performance of work where communication must flow in the course of performing the job and in rendering reports. 3. Arithmetic ability test. The test of ability to solve computational and problem type questions is administered to applicants to find out if they are number literate. 4. Aptitude tests. How the worker will perform on the job can be influenced by his psychological frame and inclination to do a particular line of work. 5. Personality tests. Although the validity of personality tests has often been questioned as to their capacity to measure personality characteristics that determine success in managerial and supervisory position for which they are applied, they continue to be widely applied. 6. Skills and manipulative tests. In some organizations the applicant for operative and clerical jobs are given practical trade tests in the absence of trade test certification from a recognized center. 6.13 The Interview as a Selection Process In the effort to hire the best worker for the job, the HR staff lines up interviews of the applicants by members of the selection committee who are often made up of a HR specialist, the supervisor and a middle or top management officer. The committee may conduct structured interview. This is with the use of a questionnaire.
