Chapter 7
Recruitment and Selection
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the relationships among planning,
recruiting, and selection
2. Identify and discuss the basic sources for recruiting;
discuss realistic job previews and their role in
effective recruiting
3. Describe the steps in the selection process and
identify and summarize basic selection criteria that
organizations use in hiring new employees
4. Discuss popular selection techniques that
organizations use to hire new employees
What is Recruiting?
The process of developing a pool of qualified
applicants who are interested in working for the
organization and from which the organization
might reasonably select the best individual or
individuals to hire for employment.
Goals of Recruiting
A recruiting program has five goals:
Achieve cost
efficiency
Attract highly
qualified
candidates
Assist in efforts to
comply with
nondiscrimination
laws
Ensure those hired
stay with company
Help create a more
culturally diverse
workforce
Goals of Recruiting
Recruiting program goals:
Achieving cost efficiency:
• Reducing recruitment costs
without lowering
productivity can help
enhance competitive
advantage.
Goals of Recruiting
Recruiting program goals:
Attracting highly qualified
candidates
• Sufficient number of
qualified candidates must
be notified of available
opportunities.
• Actions must be taken to
enhance the likelihood that
the best applicants will
accept their job offers
Goals of Recruiting
Goals of Recruiting
Recruiting program goals:
Improving job retention rates
through the use of realistic job
previews (RJPs)
• RJPs can reduce turnover by giving
applicants more realistic information
about the job and the organization.
• Applicants can make a more informed
choice about whether or not to accept
the job offer.
• Reducing turnover rates can result in
substantial savings.
Goals of Recruiting
Recruiting program goals:
Achieving legal compliance and creating a diverse
workforce:
• Organizations can help prevent discrimination
charges by targeting recruitment efforts toward
underutilized groups.
• Extending recruitment practices to disadvantaged
groups can create a more culturally diverse
workforce.
• The manner in which a company treats these
candidates during the recruitment process is vital.
Recruitment Planning
Recruitment Planning
Step 1: Identifying the Job Opening
• Organizations should
attempt to identify job
openings well in advance of
an announced resignation.
• The HRM department should
plan for future openings, thus
providing organizations with
the time needed to plan and
implement recruitment
strategies.
Recruitment Planning
Step 2: Decide How to Fill the Job Opening
• Whether to use core or contingency
personnel.
• If core personnel are to be used, should
the firm recruit them internally or
externally.
Recruitment Planning
Step 2: Decide How to Fill the Job Opening
• Core personnel
– Hired in the “traditional” manner.
– Considered permanent employees.
– Included in the organization’s payroll.
• Contingency personnel
– Employed by a supplier agency, and “loaned” to the
organization.
– Not included in the organization’s payroll.
– Supplier pays the workers’ salaries and benefits.
– Fall into three major categories: temps, outsourcing, and
independent contractors.
Recruitment Planning
Step 2: Decide How to Fill the Job Opening
Internal Recruitment
Advantages of internal recruitment:
• Enhance morale and motivation.
• Qualifications of internal candidates
are well known; openings can be filled
more quickly.
• Less expensive.
• Internal candidates are more familiar
with organizational policies and
practices, requiring less orientation
and training.
Recruitment Planning
Step 2: Decide How to Fill the Job Opening
Internal Recruitment
Disadvantages of internal recruitment:
• Rejected candidates may become
resentful.
• Workers promoted into supervisory
positions may find it difficult
managing former coworkers.
• Can result in stagnation and stifle
creativity
• Creates a ripple effect
Recruitment Planning
Step 2: Decide How to Fill the Job Opening
External Recruitment
• External recruitment is limited primarily to entry-level
jobs.
• External recruitment for jobs above the entry level is
usually restricted to the following situations:
– An outsider is needed to expose the organization to new ideas
and innovations.
– No qualified internal candidates apply.
– The organization needs to increase its percentage of employees
within a particular underutilized group.
Recruitment Planning
Step 3: Identify the Target Population
• Specify worker
requirements.
• Decide whether to target
certain segments of the
applicant population.
Recruitment Planning
Step 4: Notify the Target Population
• Limit the size of the
applicant pool by
attracting only the most
qualified applicants.
– A good way to do this is to
clearly state the job
qualifications in the
vacancy notification.
Recruitment Planning
Step 5: Meet with the Candidates
• Gives the firm a chance to
further assess the candidates’
qualifications.
• Provides candidates an
opportunity to learn more
about the company and the
employment opportunity
Methods of Internal Recruitment
Computerized Progression and Supervisor Selection
Recruitment
Method
Strengths
Weaknesses
Computerized
career
progression
systems
• Candidates can be found
quickly.
• Limited to only objective or
factual information.
• Helps identify a broad
spectrum of candidates.
• Information of a more
subjective nature is excluded.
Supervisor
selection
• Very popular with
supervisors.
• Usually very subjective.
• Supervisor is in a good
position to know the
capabilities of potential
candidates.
• Some qualified employees
may be overlooked.
• Susceptible to bias, leading to
possible discrimination.
Methods of Internal Recruitment
Job Posting
Strengths:
• Enhances the probability that the firm’s most qualified
employees will be considered for the job.
• Gives employees an opportunity to become more
responsible for their career development.
• Enables employees to leave a “bad” work situation.
Methods of Internal Recruitment
Job Posting
Weaknesses:
• Position may remain open for an extended period.
• The system may prevent supervisors from hiring
individuals of their choice.
• Some employees may hop from job to job without any
clear direction.
• Employees whose bids are rejected may become
alienated.
Methods of Internal Recruitment
Career Development Systems
Strengths:
• The firm’s top performers are more likely to remain with the
organization.
• Such systems ensure that someone is always ready to fill a position
when it becomes open.
Weaknesses:
• An employee not selected for grooming may become disenchanted
with the organization and leave.
• Selected employees may become frustrated if the expected
promotion does not materialize because the position never becomes
vacant.
Methods of External Recruitment
Employee Referrals
Strengths
• Is effective, quite popular, and cost
efficient.
• Employees accurately judge the ‘‘fit’’
between the job being filled and the
individual, and refer only the highest
quality applicants.
• Applicants referred by employees tend to
perform better and stay longer.
Weaknesses
• May serve as a barrier to equal
employment opportunity.
Methods of External Recruitment
Applicant-Initiated and Help-Wanted Ads
Recruitment
Method
Strengths
Weaknesses
Applicantinitiated
recruitment
• Efficient and low cost.
• There may be no jobs
available when the applicants
come in or by the time a job
becomes vacant, many of these
individuals may have already
found other jobs.
Help-wanted
advertisements
• Large audience can be
reached in a relatively short
period of time.
•Candidates are likely to be
highly motivated.
• Aids in ensuring equal
opportunity to apply for job
openings.
• Often ineffective.
• May attract too many
applicants, making the
screening process cumbersome.
Methods of External Recruitment
Employment Agencies - Public
• Most frequently provide personnel
for clerical and blue-collar jobs.
• Cost is low as the agency does
not charge employers a fee.
• The method is efficient as jobs
can be filled fairly quickly.
• Applicants may lack motivation.
Methods of External Recruitment
Employment Agencies - Private
• Have the resources to fill a wide
variety of jobs.
• Candidates register with the
agency voluntarily – thus they
may be more committed.
• Agency charges a fee for its
service.
• They are especially useful when
many individuals are expected to
apply for a job or when qualified
candidates are hard to find.
Methods of External Recruitment
Executive Search Firms
• Specialize in the recruitment of
mid- and senior-level managers.
• Charge the employer a large fee
for their services.
• Can be unsuccessful – only 50 to
60 percent of all executive
searches result in the selection of
the type of individual initially
specified.
Methods of External Recruitment
Campus Recruiting
• Used to fill specialized
entry-level jobs.
• Is costly and time
consuming.
• Recruitment process can be
rather slow.
Methods of External Recruitment
Online Recruiting
• Is becoming quite popular.
• Is much faster and reaches
a much larger audience
compared to newspaper
advertising.
• Can be inexpensive.
• Not the best approach for
reaching external
candidates.
Methods of External Recruitment
Choosing the Right Method
The type of job being filled.
How quickly the job needs to be filled.
The geographic region of recruitment.
The cost of implementing the recruitment method.
Whether the method will attract the right mix of
candidates from an EEO perspective.
What is the Selection Process?
• Selection Process
Is concerned with identifying the best
candidate or candidates for jobs from among
the pool of qualified applicants developed
during the recruiting process.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Validity, the technical term for effectiveness,
refers to the appropriateness, meaningfulness,
and usefulness of selection inferences.
• Extent to which scores on a test, interview or
other selection process correspond to actual job
performance
• The closer the actual job performances match
the expected performances, the greater the
validity of the selection process.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• To determine expected performance and validity:
– Manager must have a clear notion of the needed job
qualifications, and must use selection methods that
reliably and accurately measure these qualifications.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Determining job qualifications
– Job qualifications refer to the personal qualities an
employer seeks when filling a position.
– Some qualifications, such as technical KSAs and
nontechnical skills are job-specific; other
qualifications are universal.
– By basing qualifications on job analysis information, a
company ensures that the qualities being assessed
are important for the job.
– Job analyses are also needed for legal reasons.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Choosing selection
methods
– The choice of selection
methods should reliably and
accurately measure the
needed qualifications.
– Reliability is the degree of
self-consistency among the
scores earned by an
individual.
– Reliable evaluations are
consistent across both
people and time.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity
Content-oriented
strategy
• Demonstrate that it followed “proper”
procedures in the development and use of its
selection devices. Degree to which the content
of the selection method (test) is representative
of the job content
Criterion-related
strategy
• Provide statistical evidence showing a
relationship between applicant selection scores
and subsequent job performance levels.
Validity
generalization
strategy
• Demonstrate that other companies have
already demonstrated the validity of the
selection instruments.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity
• Content-oriented strategy
– Evidence would show that the selection devices
were properly designed and were accurate
measures of the needed worker requirements.
– The employer must demonstrate that:
• The selection devices were chosen on the basis of an
acceptable job analysis.
• They measured a representative sample of the KSAs
identified.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity
• Criterion-related strategy
– Attempts to demonstrate statistically that
someone who does well on a selection
instrument is more likely to be a good job
performer than someone who does poorly.
– To gather criterion-related evidence, two
pieces of information are required : a
predictor score and a criterion score.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity
• A criterion-related validation study may
be conducted in one of two ways:
– Predictive validation study: Information is
gathered on actual job applicants.
– Concurrent validation study:
• Information is gathered on current employees.
• More commonly used as they can be conducted
more quickly.
Technical Standards for Selection
Practices
• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity
• Validity generalization strategy
– Established by demonstrating that a
selection device has been consistently
found to be valid in many other similar
settings.
Selection Methods
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•
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Application blanks
Biodata inventories
Background investigations
Reference checks
Employment interviews
Employment tests
Assessment centers
Screening for dysfunctional behavior
Selection Methods
Application Blanks
Purpose:
• To determine whether candidates meet the
minimum qualifications for the job.
• Help employers judge the presence (or
absence) of certain job-related attributes.
• Used to “red flag” any potential problem areas
concerning the applicant.
Selection Methods
Examples of Potentially Unlawful Questions
Selection Methods
Biodata Inventory
• Responses are objectively evaluated.
• The two types of biodata inventories are
weighted application blanks and biographical
information blanks.
• Weighted application blank: A biodata inventory
containing the same questions as an application
blank.
• Biographical information blank: A biodata inventory
consisting of a set of questions designed to cover a
broad array of background information.
Selection Methods
Biodata Inventory
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Used as a prescreening device to predict tenure.
Excellent predictors of job success.
Few companies use this method.
Have some legal concerns that may be justified.
Selection Methods
Background Investigations
• Serve two purposes – Screen applicants for:
• Positions of trust in occupations such as law enforcement,
private security, and nuclear power.
• “Special duty of care” positions in order to satisfy requirements
imposed by negligent hiring law.
• Employers must avoid violating the legal rights of
applicants; the primary law being Fair Credit Reporting
Act.
• This law is designed to protect applicants’ rights in the event of a
background investigation conducted by an investigative agency.
Selection Methods
Reference Checks
• Involve collecting information from applicants’ previous
employers.
• Provide another potentially useful means of assessment.
• Serve two important purposes:
– Verify information provided by applicants to ensure that they
have not fabricated their qualifications or work history.
– Provide additional information about applicants, which may be
predictive of job performance.
Selection Methods
Employment Interviews
A selection technique that uses a face-to-face
conversation between the job applicant and a
representative of the organization as part of the
selection process.
Selection Methods
Employment Interviews
Structured
Situational
Types of
Interviews
Unstructured
Semistructured
Selection Methods
Employment Tests – Mental Ability Tests
• Designed to measure intelligence or aptitude.
• Used primarily for assessing entry-level applicants for
jobs that do not require specific job-related skills.
• Determine whether applicants have the capacity to learn
job skills successfully.
• Often have a disparate impact on certain protected
groups; some employers are thus reluctant to use mental
ability tests.
Selection Methods
Employment Tests – Personality Tests
• Provide a more objective
way to gauge personality.
• The validity of a personality
test is situation specific; a
well-designed test can be a
valid predictor of job
performance for some jobs,
but not for others.
• There are few legal
problems associated with
their use.
Selection Methods
The “Big Five” Personality Types
Selection Methods
Employment Tests – Work Sample Tests
• Require applicants to perform some of the actual (or
simulated) duties of the vacant position.
• Used to assess manual skills, clerical skills, and
managerial skills.
• The tests are quite valid, if properly constructed and
implemented, as they provide direct measures of job
performance.
• Are quite expensive.
• Could have possible safety problems.
Selection Methods
Assessment Centers
• A selection technique that consists of work samples and other
assessment techniques.
• Is primarily used to select managers.
• Work sample tests are often administered as part of an assessment
center.
• The most commonly used work sample tests are:
– Leaderless group discussion
– Management games
– In-basket
• Have been found to be quite valid when appropriately developed
and used.
Selection Methods
Screening for Dysfunctional Behavior
• Employers do not want to hire applicants with
dysfunctional tendencies such as drug addiction and
dishonesty
• Organizations can minimize drug abuse costs by
administering drug tests to applicants
Selection Methods
Screening for Dysfunctional Behavior
• Polygraph tests: Designed to ascertain truthfulness of
the information given by the examinee.
– The Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) of 1988 bans
most private-sector employers from using polygraph tests in the
selection of candidates.
• Paper-and-pencil honesty tests: Written tests that
employers use to estimate an applicant’s propensity to
steal from an employer.
– Paper-and-pencil honesty tests may either be overt or
personality-based measures.
Legal Constraints on Employee Selection
Tort Law Constraints on Selection
• Refers to civil laws designed to discourage individuals
from subjecting others to unreasonable risks and to
compensate those who have been injured by
unreasonably risky behavior.
• Two areas that bear the most influence on employee
selection are negligent hiring and defamation.
• Defamation
– The unprivileged publication of a false oral or written statement
that harms the reputation of another person.
– Claims often arise when giving reference information.
Legal Constraints on Employee Selection
Tort Law Constraints on Selection
Negligent hiring:
• Refers to situations in which employers hire an applicant who is
somehow unfit for the job, and because of this unfitness,
commits an act that causes harm to another.
• An individual would be considered unfit in a negligent hiring case
if he or she:
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Lacked the necessary training and experience.
Had a physical or mental infirmity.
Was frequently intoxicated.
Experienced constant forgetfulness.
Liked to engage in horseplay or was reckless or malicious.
Poor Alice…