Recruitment and Selection

• Recruitment is the steps undertaken by a business to identify a vacancy and attract suitable candidates; this can be external or internal.
• Internal Recruitment : Occurs when candidates for a position are recruited from within the organisation.
• Benefits of Internal Recruitment:

  -lower recruitment costs

  -improved promotion prospects

  -known abilities of candidates

  -quicker process

  -shorter induction period
• Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment:

  -reduces talent available

  -limits the number of applicants

  -can cause friction between internal candidates
• External Recruitment: Candidates for a position are recruited outside of the organisation.
• Benefits of External Recruitment:

  -increases the talent available

  -increases the number of applicants

  -can provide new sources of ideas to the company
• Disadvantages of External Recruitment:

  -Higher recruitment costs

  -may upset internal candidates that have been overlooked

  -not able to see candidates at work over a period of time
• Job Analysis: The process of gathering all of the available information about a particular job.

  Job Description: This sets out the tasks and responsibilities of a job: job title, duties, tasks.
• Person Specification: A document used within the recruitment process that outlines the characteristics of the person required to do the job: qualifications.
• Interviews: are a question and answer session between an employer and potential employee.
• Work trials: allows an employer to try out a potential employee in the workplace for a specified period of time before deciding whether to offer them a job.
• Testing: is the process of formally assessing the suitability of a candidate.

  Tests include:

  Psychometric Testing involves a mixture of the following:

  Aptitude: measures the ability to develop skills and acquire knowledge.

  Attainment: measuring levels of understanding. e.g. maths.

  Personality: measuring aspects of a candidates behaviour.
• Selection Exercises: are structured activities that help assess the suitability of a candidate for a specific job.

  Telephone/Skype interviews are often preliminary interviews held over the phone prior to inviting a candidate to a face to face interview.

  -helps to reduce the time spent on face to face interview, reduces costs.

  -popular when there are a large number of applicants for a vacancy.