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Recruitment

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For other uses, see Recruitment (disambiguation).

Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting a qualified person for a job. All companies in any industry can benefit from contingency or retain professional recruiters or outsourcing the process to recruitment agencies.

The recruitment industry exists basically in four forms:

1). Employment agencies deal with clerical, trades, temporary and temporary to hire employment opportunities.

2). Recruitment websites and job search engines used to gather as many candidates as possible by advertising a position over a wide geographic area. Although thought to be a cost effective alternative, a human resource (HR) department or department manager will spend time outside their normal duties reading and screening resumes. A professional recruiter has the ability to read and screen resumes, talk to potential candidates and deliver a selective group in a timely manner.

3). "headhunters" for executive and professional positions. These firms are either contingency or retained. Although advertising is used to keep a flow of candidates these firms rely on networking as their main source of candidates.

4). Niche agencies specialize in a particular industrial area of staffing.

Some organizations prefer to utilize employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment instead of recruiting firms. The difference, a recruiting firm is always looking for talent whereas an internal department is focused on filling a single opening. The advantage associated with utilizing a third-party recruiting firm is their ability to know where to find a qualified candidate. Talent Management is a key component to the services a professional recruiting firm can provide.

The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by networking, advertising or other methods. Utilizing professional interviewing techniques to understand the candidate’s skills but motivations to make a move, screening potential candidates using testing (skills or personality) is also a popular part of the process. The process is meant to not only evaluate the candidate but also evaluate how the candidate will fit into the organization. The recruiter will meet with the hiring manager to obtain specific position and type information before beginning the process. After the recruiter understands the type of person the company needs, they begin the process of informing their network of the opportunity. Recruiters play an important role by preparing the candidate and company for the interview, providing feedback to both parties and handling salary/benefits negotiations.

Agency types

The recruitment industry is based on the goal of providing a candidate to a client for a price. On one end of the spectrum there are agencies that are paid only if they deliver a candidate that successfully stays with the client beyond the agreed probationary period. On the other end of the spectrum there are agencies that are paid a retainer to focus on a client's needs and achieve milestones in the search for the right candidate, and then again are paid a percentage of the candidate's salary when a candidate is placed and stays with the organization beyond the probationary period. Today's (march 2011) recruitment industry is fairly competitive, therefore agencies have sought out ways to differentiate themselves and add value by focusing on some area of the recruitment life cycle. Here are five types of typical agencies.

Traditional agency

Also known as employment agencies, recruitment agencies have historically had a physical location. A candidate visits a local branch for a short interview and an assessment before being taken onto the agency’s books. Recruitment consultants then work to match their pool of candidates to their clients' open positions. Suitable candidates are short-listed and put forward for an interview with potential employers on a contract or direct basis.

Compensation to agencies take several forms, the most popular are:

  • A contingency fee paid by the company when an agency introduced candidate accepts a job with the client company. Typical fees range from 15% to 25% based on the candidates first-year base salary (fees as low as 12.5% can be found online). This type of recruitment usually has a rebate guarantee should the candidate fail to perform or leave within a set period of time (often up to a 3 month period and as much as a 100% rebate).
  • An advance payment that serves as a retainer, also paid by the company, non-refundable paid in full depending on outcome and success (e.g. 40% up front, 30% in 90 days and the remainder once a search is completed). This form of compensation is generally reserved for high level executive search/headhunters
  • Hourly Compensation for temporary workers and projects. A pre-negotiated hourly fee, in which the agency is paid and pays the applicant as a consultant for services as a third party. Many contracts allow a consultant to transition to a full-time status upon completion of a certain number of hours with or without a conversion fee.

Headhunters

A "headhunter" is an industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have pre-existing industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles but more often will generate their own lists. They may arrange a meeting or a formal interview between their client and the candidate and will usually prepare the candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers.

Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will attract both candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists and cold call prospective recruits.

Headhunters are increasingly using social media to find and research candidates. This approach is often called social recruiting.

Niche recruiters

'Specialized recruiters' exist to seek staff with a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers. Niche firms also develop knowledge on specific employment trends within their industry of focus (e.g. The energy industry) and are able to identify demographic shifts such as aging and its impact on the industry.[1]

Social recruiting

Further information: Social recruiting

Social recruiting is the use of social media for recruiting [2]

Employee referral

Further information: employee referral

An employee referral program is a system where existing employees recommend prospective candidates for the job offered, and if the suggested candidate is hired, the employee who referred receives a cash bonus.[3]

In some cases the Organization provides the Employee referral bonus only if the referred employee stays with the organization for stipulated time duration (most cases 3 - 6 months). Referral bonus depends on the grade of the referred employee, higher the grade higher the bonus however the method is not used for senior level hiring.

In-house recruitment

Under pressure to reduce costs, both large- and medium-sized employers tend to undertake their own in-house recruitment, using their human resources department, front-line hiring managers and recruitment personnel who handle targeted functions and populations. In addition to coordinating with the agencies mentioned above, in-house recruiters may advertise job vacancies on their own websites, coordinate internal employee referrals, work with external associations, trade groups and/or focus on campus graduate recruitment. Some large employers choose to outsource all or some of their recruitment process (recruitment process outsourcing) however a much more common approach is for employers to introduce referral schemes where employees are encouraged to source new staff from within their own network.

Executive research firms and passive candidate sourcing firms

These firms are the new hybrid firms in the recruitment world able to combine the research aspects (discovering passive candidates) of recruiting and combine them with the ability to make hires for their clients. These firms provide competitive passive candidate intelligence to support companies' recruiting efforts. Normally they will generate varying degrees of candidate information from those people currently engaged in the position a company is looking to fill. These firms usually charge a daily rate or fixed fee. Executive research can help companies uncover names that cannot be found through traditional recruitment methods and will allow human resource managers and internal recruiters more time to deal with face to face interviews.

Process

Job analysis

The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search. Often a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description ensures the recruitment process effort starts off on a proper track for success.

Sourcing

Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs; and 2) recruitment research, which is the proactive identification of passive candidates who are happy in their current positions and are not actively looking to move companies. This initial research for so-called passive candidates, also called name generation, results in a contact information of potential candidates who can then be contacted discreetly to be screened and approached on behalf of an executive search firm or corporate client (see below).

Screening and selection

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through résumés, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for software knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological tests or employment testing. Other resume screening criteria may include length of service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.

In recent years, the focus of hiring is increasingly shifted from solely the immediate hard skills such as engineering, finances, or accounting, to the longer term soft skills such as communication, team leadership, brand building.[4]

One major challenge for recruiters is to ensure new hires fit into the company culture, or, at an even more basic level, have rudimentary awareness of basic etiquette skills in a business environment. This soft skills requirement is especially critical for multinationals, where expatriates, local employees, customers, and vendors would need to work together. To ease the situation, recruiters are beginning to adopt the IITTI (pronounced as "ET") standardized image and etiquette certification tool to measure the background soft skills of job-seekers.[5]

A British Army etc. recruitment centre in Oxford.

Lateral hiring

"Lateral hiring" refers to a form of recruiting; the term is used with two different, almost opposite meanings. In one meaning, the hiring organization targets employees of another, similar organization, possibly luring them with a better salary and the promise of better career opportunities. An example is the recruiting of a partner of a law firm by another law firm. The new lateral hire then has specific applicable expertise and can make a running start in the new job. In some professional branches such lateral hiring was traditionally frowned upon, but the practice has become increasingly more common. An employee's contract may have a non-compete clause preventing such lateral hiring.

In another meaning, a lateral hire is a newly hired employee who has no prior specific applicable expertise for the new job, and for whom this job move is a radical change of career. An example is the recruiting of a university professor to become chairman of the board of a company.

Onboarding

"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization. A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. Onboarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.

Internet recruitment and websites

Such sites have two main features: job boards and a résumé/curriculum vitae (CV) database. Job boards allow member companies to post job vacancies. Alternatively, candidates can upload a résumé to be included in searches by member companies. Fees are charged for job postings and access to search resumes. Since the late 1990s, the recruitment website has evolved to encompass end-to-end recruitment. Websites capture candidate details and then pool them in client accessed candidate management interfaces (also online). Key players in this sector provide e-recruitment software and services to organizations of all sizes and within numerous industry sectors, who want to e-enable entirely or partly their recruitment process in order to improve business performance.

The online software provided by those who specialize in online recruitment helps organizations attract, test, recruit, employ and retain quality staff with a minimal amount of administration. Online recruitment websites can be very helpful to find candidates that are very actively looking for work and post their resumes online, but they will not attract the "passive" candidates who might respond favorably to an opportunity that is presented to them through other means. Also, some candidates who are actively looking to change jobs are hesitant to put their resumes on the job boards, for fear that their companies, co-workers, customers or others might see their resumes.

Job search engines

The emergence of meta-search engines allows job-seekers to search across multiple websites. Some of these new search engines index and list the advertisements of traditional job boards. These sites tend to aim for providing a "one-stop shop" for job-seekers. However, there are many other job search engines which index solely from employers' websites, choosing to bypass traditional job boards entirely. These vertical search engines allow job-seekers to find new positions that may not be advertised on traditional job boards, and online recruitment websites.

Recruitment Theories

According to Behling and others, an individuals decision to join a firm may depend on any of the three factors viz. objective factor, subjective factor and critical contact.

Objective Factor Theory

It assumes that the applicants are rational. The choice, therefore, is exercised after an objective assessment of the tangible benefits of the job. The factors helping him choose may be the salary, other benefits, location, opportunities for career advancement etc.

Subjective Factor Theory

The decision making is dominated by social and psychological factors. The status of the job, reputation of the organization and other similar factors plays an important role.

Critical Contact Theory

The critical factors observed by the candidate during his interaction with the organization plays a vital role in decision making. Recruiter being in touch with the candidate, promptness of response and similar factors are important. This theory is more valid with the experienced professionals.

See also

Recruiting Companies

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Recruitment.
  1. ^ http://www.uc.edu/News/NR.aspx?ID=4226
  2. ^ http://www.itnews.com.au/News/167381,atlassians-social-hiring-spree-pays-off.aspx
  3. ^ http://www.recruiter.co.uk/the-rise-of-the-internal-recruiter/1006847.article
  4. ^ Hays Quarterly Report Sharing our recruiting know-how, Nick Deligiannis, April - June 2012
  5. ^ IITTI website "About Us"
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