Chapter 6
Recruiting and labor markets
Recruiting is the process of generating a pool of qualified applicants for
organizational jobs
 Cost of unfilled jobs
 Quality of workforce may cost more
 Be strategic when recruiting: know the industry, know your
competitors, CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS, promote THE
COMPANY BRAND
 Train your recruiters and managers: don’t violate EEO rules
Labor market: external pool from which
employers attract employees
 Labor market components:
 Labor force population: all individuals who are available for
selection if all possible recruitment strategies are used
 Applicant population: a subset of the labor force population that
is available for selection using a particular recruiting approach
 Applicant pool: all persons who are actually evaluated for
selection. Use an Applicant tracking system
 Individuals selected
 Note: unemployment rates and applicant population
Considerations for determining
applicant populations
 # and type of recruits needed
 Timing of recruiting to ensure timely placement
 External and internal messages on job details
 Qualifications of competent applicants to be considered
 Sources for obtaining qualified applicants
 Outside and inside recruiting means to be used
 Administrative recruiting and application review activities
Different labor markets and recruiting
 Industry and occupational labor markets: careers: nurses,
home health care, post secondary teachers, truckers and
welders
 Educational and technical labor markets: military, medical,
informational technology (IT)
 Geographic labor markets: local, area or regional, national,
or international
 Global labor markets: overseas jobs and laws
Strategic recruiting decisions
 Recruiting presence and image: continuous efforts to
recruit, keeps employer in labor market and intensive
recruiting when needed (Midland)
 Employment branding and image: the view held by both
employees and outsiders
Organization based versus outsourced
recruiting
 Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO): add to number of
candidates and reduce recruiting costs
 Professional employer organizations (PEO) and employee
leasing: employees are hired and leased to a company
 Regular versus flexible staffing: temporaries, independent
contractors, reducing cost of insurance, vacation, and
benefits pay
Recruiting and EEO: diversity
considerations
 EEO and recruiting efforts: non biased and work to hire
underrepresented protected class members
 Recruiting diversity: race, ethnicity, older, single parents,
disabilities, welfare to work, homeless
 Job previews: advantages, demands, expectations, and
challenges of job
 Recruiting source choices: internal vs. external
Internet recruiting
 E recruiting: internet job boards, professional/career websites,
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employer websites
Social networking sites
Blogs
E video
Twitter
Legal concerns: demographics of applicants, confidentiality,
privacy….
Advantages: saves time and money
Disadvantages: more resumes, less access by lower socioeconomic
applicants
Legal issues in Internet recruiting
 Are rejections really based on the qualifications needed for the job?
 How can data about an individual’s protected characteristics be collected
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and analyzed for reports?
Are too many people being excluded on the basis of unlawful
information?
Do they really want the job, just because they accessed a job board?
How does Internet recruiting relate to confidentiality and privacy
Advantages: may save money, add to the pool, save time
Disadvantages: more work because more applicants, more emails to deal
with
Companies getting away from job boards and here goes: LinkedIn and
Twitter!
Employment agencies
 Headhunters: employment agencies that focus their efforts
on executive, managerial and professional positions
 (1) contingency firms charge a fee to employer after person
is hired
 (2) retainer firms charge a client a set fee whether or not the
contracted search is successful.
External recruiting sources
 Media: newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards
 Job fairs and creative recruiting: SHRM chapter, virtual job
fairs, drive through job fairs
 Educational institutions and recruiting
 Desirable capabilities of college recruits: GPA, leadership
potential, communication skills, professional motivation
 Recruiting for high school and technical schools
Internal recruiting methods
 Internal recruiting databases and internet related sources
 Internal candidates: you know more about them, no real
recruiting costs…
 Job posting system in which the employer provides notices of
job opening and employees respond by applying for specific
openings: how long should an employee stay in a job before
applying for another one, should they tell their current boss,
what if no one applies that qualifies?
Employee focused recruiting
 Current employee referrals
 Rerecruiting of former employees and applicants: former
employees
Recruiting evaluation and metrics
 Quantity and quality
 Time to fill openings
 Costs per recruiting method
 Recruitment satisfaction analyses
 Process metrics yield ratios selection rates: comparison of the
number of applicants at one stage of the recruiting process with
the number at the next stage AND acceptance rate: percent of
applicants hired divided by total number of applicants offered jobs
 Success base rates: compare the number of past applicants who
have become successful employees against the number of
applicants they competed against for their jobs.
Increasing recruiting effectiveness
 Resume mining: software approach
 Applicant tracking: from job listing to performance appraisal
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tracking
Employer career website:
Internal mobility: tracks internal candidates
Realistic job previews: preview of employer and jobs
Responsive recruitment: applicants get timely responses