CHAPTER 5
Expanding the Talent Pool:
Recruitment and Careers
Copyright © 2023 by Cengage Canada
5-1
Learning Outcomes
• Make a connection between a firm’s strategy and
recruitment.
• Knowledge of methods by which firms recruit
internally and externally.
• Knowledge of techniques organizations can use to
improve their recruiting efforts.
• Understand how career management programs
integrate the needs of individual employees and
their organizations.
Copyright © 2023 by Cengage Canada
5-2
The Strategic Importance of Recruitment
Recruitment:
− The process of searching out and attracting qualified job
applicants
• begin with the identification of a position that requires staffing
• Complete when résumés (completed application forms) are
received from an adequate number of applicants.
Recruiter:
− A specialist in recruitment, whose job it is to find and
attract capable candidates.
The Big Picture
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
HR PLANNING
JOB ANALYSIS
JOB DESCRIPTION
JOB SPECIFICATION
RECRUITMENT
SELECTION
What are major concerns for recruitment?
1. What is organizational strategy?
2. How much diversity should we aim for?
3. How much should we invest into recruitment?
4. How much should we invest into employee development?
• Employee profiles:
− Profiles of workers developed by studying an organization’s
top performers to recruit similar types of people
Recruitment Process
The most salient organizational attributes influencing applicant’s choice?
• What is your top choice for an organization to receive
an offer for co-op?
• Why is this organization your top choice?
The most salient organizational attributes influencing applicant’s choice?
• Prestige: Social status enhanced by working for a
reputable employer
• Organizational core values: Organization’s
commitment to society and other causes can
influence applicant choice.
• Management style: Management and supervisory
behaviour and assumptions about people can be
powerful influences on an applicant’s decision.
• Overall culture: The culture and personality of the
organization can have significant influence on an
applicant’s decision.
Strategic Aspects of Recruiting
• Predictors of applicant attraction outcomes
− job-organization characteristics, recruiter behaviours,
perceptions of the recruiting process, perceived fit, and
hiring expectancies
− but not recruiter demographics or perceived alternatives
− type of work and organization image were the strongest
predictors of an individual engaging in job pursuit
− Pay, compensation, and advancement predicted job pursuit
intentions much less than other job and organization
characteristics
− Perceptions of the recruiting process (i.e., delays in
responding to applicants or using selection processes) may
result in negative reactions
Branding
• Branding
− a company’s efforts to help existing and prospective workers
understand why it is a desirable place to work
− Instead of just posting jobs on the Internet, firms are creating
options on their social media pages to promote the careers they
have to offer, striking up conversations with potential applicants
on those pages, and giving them a preview of what it is like to
work for their firms - E.g., US Army, Marriott, PwC used online
games
− Recent research on employer branding and CSR found that an
organization’s environmental engagement positively impacts
employer attractiveness
− Firms need to be sure that the brand they promote to
prospective employees truly reflects their internal culture
Who Should Do the Recruiting?
HR recruiters or generalists (large firms)
Managers and/or supervisors (smaller firms)
Work teams
Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO)
outsourcing an organization’s recruiting function
to an outside firm
sometimes use RPO providers when they need to
hire a lot of employees or hire employees quickly
Constraints for Recruitment Process
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Promote-from-within policies
post jobs internally first even if suitable candidates are
lacking.
Compensation policies
influence potential applicants.
Employment equity plan
specify hiring designated group members.
Competition
inducements offered by competition lure candidates
away.
Labour shortages
difficult to recruit suitable candidates.
Labour Markets
High vs. low unemployment
Internal labour markets
labour markets in which workers are hired into entry-level jobs and
higher levels are filled from within
Global sourcing
the business practice of searching for and using goods and services
from around the world
Recruitment Channels
Recruiting Internally (Internal Recruitment)
• Internal job postings
• Identifying talent through performance
appraisals
• 9-box grid: a comparative diagram that
includes appraisal and assessment data to
allow managers to easily see an employee’s
actual and potential performance
• Skill inventories and replacement charts
Recruitment Channels
Advantage of Internal Recruitment
• Largest source of recruits.
• Seen as reward for competence
• Enhances commitment, morale, and
performance.
• Insiders may be more committed to company’s
goals; lower turnover
• Provides longer-term perspective for business
decisions.
• Provides more accurate assessment of skills.
• Require less orientation.
Disadvantage of Internal Recruitment
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Unsuccessful candidates may become discontented;
especially if feedback of failure is not provided.
May waste time and create false hopes when
internal candidates are not genuinely being
considered.
Employees may not readily accept a boss appointed
from within their own ranks.
New leader may have difficulty adjusting to a higher
position and not being “one of the gang.”
Tendency to maintain status quo when news and
innovative direction is needed.
External Recruitment
− Advertisements (e.g., websites, trade journals, social
networking sites)
− Walk-ins and unsolicited applications and résumés
− The Internet, social networking (passive job seekers:
people who are not looking for jobs but could be
persuaded to take new ones given the right opportunity),
and mobile recruiting (the process of recruiting candidates
via their mobile devices)
− Job fairs—can be a good way to cast a wide net for diverse
applicants in a certain region
External Recruitment Cont’d
• Employee referrals—word-of-mouth recommendations
are the way most job positions are filled;
• Nepotism: a preference for hiring relatives of current
employees
• Rerecruiting: the process of keeping track of and
maintaining relationships with former employees to see if
they would be willing to return to the firm
• Executive search firms—CEOs who are promoted from
within their organizations outperform those hired from
the outside (Korn Ferry, N2Growth)
• Educational institutions (e.g., internships)
• Professional associations
• Labour unions
External Recruitment Cont’d
− Public employment agencies: individuals who become
unemployed must register at one of these offices and be
available for “suitable employment” to receive their
weekly employment insurance cheques
− Private employment and temporary agencies
− Employee leasing—professional employer organizations
(PEOs) take over the management of a smaller company’s
HR tasks and become a co-employer to its employees;
employee leasing companies place their employees with
subscribers on a permanent basis
Advantages of External Recruitment
− Access to a larger pool of qualified candidates.
− Availability of more diverse applicant pool.
− Acquisition of skills or knowledge not currently available
in the organization.
− Elimination of rivalry and competition between internal
applicants.
− Potential cost saving from hiring individuals with existing
skills vs. expensive training.
Should Firm Recruit Internally or Externally?
• Most managers try to follow a policy of filling job
vacancies above the entry-level position through
promotions and transfers
• Reaching an employer’s diversity goals is a factor that
can lead a firm to recruit externally
• Managers often hire external candidates rather than
promote their current employees because they tend
to overvalue unfamiliar candidates and undervalue
known ones
Improving Efficiency of Recruitment
Improving the Effectiveness of Recruiting
• Realistic job preview (RJP)
− informing applicants about all aspects of the job, including
both its desirable and undesirable facets
• Surveys
− managers, new hires, and those who did not accept the
firm’s offer
• Employee profiles
− profiles of workers developed by studying an organization’s
top performers to recruit similar types of people
Recruiting Metrics
Improving the Effectiveness of Recruiting
• Quality-of-fill statistics:
Quality of hire = (PR + HP + HR) / N
PR = Average job performance rating of new hires
(e.g. 3.5 out of 5)
HP = % of new hires reaching acceptable productivity
with acceptable time frame (e.g., 75%)
HR = % of new hires retained after one year (20%
percent turnover)
N = number of indicators
Quality of Hire = (70+75+80)/3 = 75%
Recruiting Metrics
Improving the Effectiveness of Recruiting
• Time-to-fill metric
othe number of days from when a job opening is
approved to the date the candidate is selected
• Yield ratio
othe percentage of applicants from a recruitment
source that make it to the next stage of the
selection process
• Costs of recruitment
oaverage source cost per hire
• Acceptance rate
o The percentage of applicants who accept a firm’s jobs
after being offered them
Why do Employees Leave?
Retention: How Do We Keep Our Talent?
• Replacing employees is extremely costly and time
consuming
• What prompt employees to quit?
− pay and benefits (less weight)
− their input isn’t valued
− a poor fit for the job in the first place
− too few growth and advancement opportunities
− leadership is a key reason for turnover
Targeted Recruitment
Targeted Recruitment
• Recruitment strategies
− meet diversity objectives through outreach to underused
groups to maintain diverse representation in an applicant
pool
• Employer branding strategy
− creates a message that an organization is a positive place
to work for traditionally excluded groups
• Some individuals like autism are less likely to apply to
jobs in which they do not meet all the criteria on the
job description
− this finding has also been found in women
Career Management: Developing Talent over Time
• Integrating career development with other HR
programs creates synergies in which all aspects of HR
reinforce one another
• The organization’s goals and needs should be
linked with the individual career needs of its
employees in a way that improves the
effectiveness of workers and their satisfaction
as well as achieves the firm’s strategic
objectives
Identifying Career Opportunities and Requirements
Identifying Career Opportunities and Requirements
• Competency Analysis - Study jobs carefully to identify
and assign weights to the knowledge and skills that
each one requires
• Job progressions
− the hierarchy of jobs a new employee might experience,
ranging from a starting job to jobs that successively require
more knowledge and/or skill
• Career paths
− lines of advancement in an occupational field within an
organization
Identifying Career Opportunities and Requirements
• An organization should study its jobs carefully to
identify and assign weights to the knowledge and
skills that each one requires
• Job progressions: the hierarchy of jobs a new
employee might experience, ranging from a starting
job to jobs that successively require more knowledge
and/or skill
• Career paths: lines of advancement in an
occupational field within an organization
Recognize Different Career Paths
Identifying Career Opportunities and Requirements
− Promotion: A change of assignment to a job at a
higher level in the organization
− Transfer: Placement of an individual in another job for
which the duties, responsibilities, status, and
remuneration are approximately equal to those of the
previous job
− Relocation services: provided to an employee who is
transferred to a new location (help in moving, selling a
home, etc.)
− Outplacement services: provided by organizations to
help terminated employees find a new job
Identifying Career Opportunities and Requirements
• Dual career paths
− provide for progression in specialized technical areas (e.g., IT,
finance, engineering), with compensation that is comparable to
that received by managers at different levels
• Boundaryless careers
− people develop a portfolio of employment opportunities by
proactively moving from employer to employer, simultaneously
developing and using their marketable skills
• Career plateau
− a situation in which, for either organizational or personal
reasons, the probability of moving up the career ladder is low
• Sabbatical
− an extended period of time in which an employee leaves an
organization to pursue other activities and later returns to their
job
Career Development Initiatives
• Career counselling
− the process of discussing with employees their current job activities and
performance, personal and career interests and goals, personal skills, and suitable
career development objectives
• Fast-track program
− a program that encourages new managers with high potential to remain with an
organization by enabling them to advance more rapidly than those with less
potential
• Mentors
− individuals who coach, advise, and encourage individuals of lesser rank
• Reverse mentoring
− a program whereby younger employees are called on to mentor older employees
and executives about social media trends, new technology, and marketplace trends