The objective of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of the recruitment process, with a focus on its various elements, procedures, and the essential steps required to select the right candidates for organizational roles. The topics covered include recruitment planning, job analysis, and the development of effective pre-employment tests. The significance of recruitment in shaping the success of any business organization cannot be overstated.
Recruitment represents a fundamental aspect of any business organization's journey towards success. The ability to attract, select, and onboard the right talent can significantly impact an organization's capacity to meet its objectives, outperform competitors, and achieve substantial profitability. In today's competitive job market, the art of choosing the best candidates who align with the organizational needs, roles, and working environment is both a challenge and a necessity. This paper explores the intricate world of recruitment, shedding light on the procedure, test requirements, and the step-by-step process of creating empirically tested pre-employment tests.
The recruitment process is a multi-faceted journey that extends from the initial planning stage to the final selection of the right individuals for a given role. To accomplish this successfully, an organization must meticulously assess its needs, design job descriptions and specifications, and, most importantly, employ a rigorous testing methodology to evaluate the abilities and qualifications of potential candidates. After all, the quality an employee brings to the table is a decisive factor in determining an organization's success.
This paper breaks down the recruitment procedure into several key components. The intricacies of recruitment planning are explored, including the critical importance of analyzing job vacancies, job descriptions, and the qualifications, skills, and experience required for each position. A well-structured recruitment plan serves as a beacon, guiding potential candidates and helping them self-select based on their alignment with job requirements.
Recruitment, as will be seen, involves a systematic process that leaves no room for favoritism or arbitrary decision-making. A properly conducted recruitment procedure ensures that organizations secure candidates who can effectively fulfill their roles, satisfy management expectations, and, ultimately, enhance overall profitability.
Content
Recruitment
The Recruitment Procedure
Recruitment Planning
Job Analysis
Job Description
Job Specifications
Job evaluation
Recruitment Strategy
Searching the Right Candidates
Screening / Shortlisting
Evaluation and Control
The choice of Recruitment Tests
Personality Tests
Skills tests
Qualities of a Good Pre-Employment Test
Piloting
Asking questions
Conducting background research
Constructing a testing tool
Testing the effectiveness of the tool (Piloting Test)
Conduct the actual pre-employment test
Analyze your results
Communicate the results in a transparent way
Determination of the true score
List of references
Recruitment
Every business organization focuses on recruiting the best talent in the job market. Having excellent and high performing employees is an assurance that the organizational goals will be met. Most importantly, outstanding employees help an organization to outcompete rivals in the market as well as recording considerable profits in the market (Catano 2009, p. 36). However, the process of selecting the right employees for an organization proves difficult for most companies. To achieve success in the market, companies must learn and adapt to the art of choosing the best candidates who fit in the organizational needs, roles, and working environment (Armstrong 2016, p. 49). To enhance the efficiency in the recruitment of talent, companies outsource the services of recruiting companies to help in selecting individual workers who have the right features to fit in the concerned working environment. The being an employee of a recruiting company, I have been assigned with the task of selecting applicants and developing a test to check the ability to learn. The current discussion addresses the procedure, the choice of test requirements, and the individual steps that are required to create a first empirically tested test version.
Recruitment is an essential process of finding and attracting potential candidates for a vacant position in an organization. It involves the sourcing of candidates whose ability and attitudes match the requirements for achieving the objectives of an organization (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 97). The recruitment process involves the identification of the job vacancies, analysis of the requirements, screening, reviewing the applications, shortlisting the candidates and selects the right individual for the job. The main challenge is how to test the capabilities, qualifications, and attitudes of the candidates to confidently select the right individual. To assemble the best talent, every organization must be able to recruit individuals who match their expectations consistently but also pose excellent capabilities to work with the rest of the team (Goldstein, et al. 2017, p. 56). Most importantly, what matters in an employment candidate is the quality offered which depends on personal capabilities.
The Recruitment Procedure
The process of recruiting employees has five main steps that include: recruitment planning, strategy development, searching, screening, evaluation and control (Goldstein et al. 2017, p. 37). The process moves systematically to ensure that the applicants visualize a fair procedure of selection. In relation to that, there should be no favours granted to the applicants. According to Rao and Sinharay (2017, p. 320), a properly conducted recruitment procedure ensures that the organization gets the right candidate who can execute the destined duties and roles to satisfy the management and the clients. Having a poorly performing team of workers shows a weakness in the recruitment process that should be corrected before it lowers the profitability of the business organization.
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Recruitment Planning
The heart of an organization is recruitment. Every member of an organization must have gone through a screening procedure to measure whether they match the organizational requirements or not (Catano 2009, p. 76). However, no individual employee is picked for a position without proper planning. It is crucial to evaluate the jobs needed to have a right understanding of the number of required candidates, their qualifications, experience, knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The planning phase is the first step of recruitment that involves an analysis of the vacant positions and their descriptions. It includes the job specifications, the nature of the tasks, roles, and responsibilities, the experience needed, qualifications, knowledge and skills required for the vacancy (Irvine 2014, p. 51).
The potential candidates are attracted by an excellently structured recruitment plan that clearly shows why the organization needs to fill such a vacancy. A good recruitment plan determines the people who make applications for the identified positions in the organization. The individuals who see the job but lack the qualifications to apply for the position can opt not to make the application because they do not meet the requirements (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 37). A poorly structured recruitment plan may end up having mountains of irrelevant applications because it is not clear about the qualifications of the individuals needed for the task. A recruitment company gets a clear signal to identify the candidates who can proceed to be shortlisted for the tests and interviews because they have the required qualities based on their level of education, skills, knowledge, and experience among others.
The planning phase involves the identification of the vacancy. The human resource department in collaboration with the recruiting company must assess the organizational needs to come up with the number of posts to be filled, the duties and responsibilities to be performed under each position, and the qualifications and experience required for each vacancy (Armstrong 2016, p. 65). In addition to that, the recruiting agency assesses the scope of the work to determine whether the positions are permanent or temporary, part-time or full time, among others. Having a clear view of the details of the vacancies and nature of the potential candidates helps the recruiting team during the development of the tests that are used to evaluate the attitudes and potentials of the individuals (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 92).
Job Analysis
Job analysis during the recruitment process involves the identification, analysis, and determination of the duties, skills, knowledge needed, responsibilities, and the working environment for a specified job (Goldstein et al. 2017, p. 47). The factors help in the identification of the demands of the vacancy and the qualities that are needed in a candidate to perform excellently in the job. Job analysis is an exercise that unveils the scope and intensity of the tasks associated with a particular job and how to accomplish them. It helps to create a true relation of the employment procedures such as tests, training content and skills, as well as performance appraisal (Carter 2017, p. 301). During job analysis: there must be a recording of the job information; accuracy in the collection of the job information; generation of job description based on the information provided about the job; and the listing of the skills, knowledge, and experience needed for the specified position (Press 2002, p. 96). After job analysis, the recruiting team must come up with the job descriptions and job specifications which are used for advertising the vacancy. Individuals who apply the job must first go through the job specifications and job descriptions to assess the chances of being selected for the post.
Job Description
Job analysis results in the creation of job description, an essential document that is descriptive. It highlights more in-depth information about the scope of the job roles, responsibilities, and the position of the job in the concerned company (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019p. 126). The job description’s purpose during the recruiting process is to offer the employer and the company an idea of what the employee should do to satisfy the requirements of the job responsibilities. According to Goldstein, et al. (2017, p. 124), a standard job description is developed to serve the following purposes:
1. Promotions and transfers
2. Classification and ranking of positions in a company
3. Description of a standard career path
4. The orientation and placement of new resources
5. Highlighting work standards for specified positions
Goldstein et al. (2017, p. 124) add that a standard job description that is resourceful for the recruitment team to select the most appropriate candidate includes the following items:
1. Job title
2. Organization’s position
3. Job location
4. A summary of the job
5. The working conditions
6. The health hazards involved in the job
7. Job duties and responsibilities
8. Materials, technologies, and equipment to use in the post
9. Process of supervision
Job Specifications
During recruitment planning, the recruiter must come up with precise job specifications from the job analysis process (Catano 2009, p. 70). That helps in narrowing down to the type of candidate who fits well for the advertised job position. The job specifications entail the list of all jobs in the company as well as the locations (Goldstein et al. 2017, p. 125). That is followed by specifications about each job in detail in terms of the following:-
1. Behavioural specifications
2. Mental specifications
3. Emotional specifications
4. Physical specifications
5. Qualifications
6. Experiences
7. Work responsibilities
8. Skill requirements
9. Training and development
10. Psychological characteristics needed
Job evaluation
The process of job evaluation during recruitment involves an assessment of the value of a job in relation to other positions in the company. It determines how a job commands the pay for an individual worker. In this phase of planning, the human resource department must accurately compare the scope of the job roles performed in a vacancy to come up with a fair reward for the workers (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 129). In most cases, organizations use job classifications, job ranking, and job grading to provide a base of negotiating the salaries or wages for the job done. Without precise job evaluation, the organization may underpay or overpay an individual worker performing a specified task (Press 2002, p. 37). While testing the capabilities of the candidates, they should demonstrate the worthiness of the amount of work done in relation to the actual payment by the employer.
Recruitment Strategy
After the planning phase of recruitment, the human resource department should consider a strategy that will be used to hire individuals for the identified positions. The recruitment is conducted based on the job descriptions and job specifications to decide the best mechanism of recruiting potential candidates (Rao and Sinharay 2017, p. 90). In the current case, a hiring company is considered as the best to identify the best talent to fill in the designated positions. Before coming up with the right strategy, all strategic alternatives must be evaluated to select the best fit. The most positive thing about the use of a recruiting organization is that it is independent in its operations (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 143). A well known recruiting company has access to the contacts of a significant number of highly qualified individuals who can fill most positions demanded in the market. Therefore, the company has high chances of recruiting the best candidates if assigned the task by both large and small organizations.
Searching the Right Candidates
This is the process of getting in contact with the potential candidates who can fill the positions appropriately. After the recruitment strategy, the searching of the candidates commences. The organization must recognize the existence of the vacancy as a permit to begin the search (Weiner 2003, p. 36). The organization must select a media through which the communication about the vacancies reaches the potential candidates. In the current case, the recruiting company has a popular platform where individuals post their resumes to seek jobs in the market. The organization has to advertise to the willing applicants who will be tested on their potential to hold the identified positions (Armstrong 2016, p. 39). To have a vast pool of applicants, it is essential to use a wide range of communication platforms such as websites, newspapers, LinkedIn, and social media, among others. Other sources that can help in the search include internal sources, especially former employees, current employees, seeking promotions for personnel inside the company, internal advertisements and referrals, among others.
According to Goldstein, et al. (2017, p. 158), the external sources that help in searching the right candidate for a job position include:-
1. Employment agencies
2. Campus recruitments
3. Advertisements
4. Direct recruitment
5. Word of mouth
6. Professional associations
Screening / Shortlisting
Shortlisting is the recruitment phase that involves sourcing the potential candidates. The applicants have already made their applications for the specified job positions. It is up to the recruiting team to filter the applications for further selection procedures. The process involves screening the applications to remove the unqualified individuals whose applications are irrelevant (Storey, Ulrich and Wright 2019, p. 199). The screening addresses the reviewing of the resumes and covers letters of applicants. That involves checking the details of the candidates such as work experience, education level, and the background of the applicant concerning the nature of the job (Irvine 2014, p. 76). For each relevant applicant, Storey, Ulrich and Wright (2019, p. 199) says that the recruiting company must scrutinize the following issues to measure the attitude of the employee towards the working environment:-
1. Job hopping
2. The period an employee has stayed within an organization
3. Reason for the change of working places
4. Any gaps in employment
5. Lack of career progression among the applicants
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