Effects of the Recruitment and Selection Process Research Proposal

HR strategies differ at times from management strategies. One study conducted in the early 90's highlighted the dominant HR strategies of one company. " ... a cost reduction strategy and an employee commitment strategy. These strategies were distinguished from one another on the basis of five realms of HR policy and practice: work organization, employee relations, staffing, training, and compensation" (Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014. P. 56). Cost reduction strategies aim to augment efficiency through enforcement of employee compliance with detailed procedures and rules as well as basing things like employee rewards on some assessable criteria.

Commitment strategy on the other hand is meant to develop a team of dedicated employees that can be trusted to use their discretion in order to perform job tasks in ways consistent with the goals and aims of the organization. The study established that the organization's commitment strategy is a collection of practices categorized by "higher levels of employee involvement in decision making, enhanced employee training in problem solving, a stronger emphasis on socialization-oriented development activities, selection methods aimed at maintaining higher ration of skilled to unskilled employees, and a higher average wage rate" (Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014, p. 56). By maintaining a higher ration of skilled to unskilled employees, companies have a lesser turnover rate since the skilled employees are a valuable resource to the company. Unskilled workers are easily and quickly replaced leading to a lack of connection, communication, and socialization among employees of the company.

In essence, these main HR strategies cultivate a sense of belonging in the company, especially with the higher wage rates, and a sense of cohesion and stability. Companies need consistency in order to enable growth within employees and growth of the company itself. When there are too many people coming and going into the company, it erases any chance for employees to bond leading to constant changes and decreased productivity.

2. The recruitment and selection process can have a serious impact on the turnover rates and cohesion of an organization. Researchers have found a direct correlation between the ability of an organization to recruit worthwhile candidates and the organization's ability to retain and hire employees. When a company has more tenured employees, it allows that organization to have less structure and control and grants more freedom to the people of the organization. When a company or organization has an effective and solid recruitment and selection process, the chances of hiring the right employees for the right job are higher, leading to an overall best fit for the organizational structure, lesser turnover rates, more stability in the organization or company, and overall improved productivity.

When a company is small, recruitment and selection are typically left to the hiring manager. However, in bigger companies or organizations, recruiters are enlisted to screen resumes as well as conduct initial interviews, passing the most qualified of applicants to the hiring manager who then conducts the final interview and makes the hiring decision. By retaining good employees, there is a correlative reduction in turnover and the need to constantly recruit, select, and hire new employees decreases.

While some companies rely on non-intuitive practices for recruitment and selection, a 2014 qualitative study noted the desire for the recruitment and selection process to include intuition-based decision making. "Intuition was used an indicator for performance, personality and person-environment fit. Intuition tended to be used with requisite caution; participants were aware of its limits, the potential for bias and the difficulties in justifying its use; several participants used their intuitions in concert with more structured, non-intuition based approaches" (Miles and Sadler-Smith, 2014, p. 606). Sometimes people make their decisions based on how their feel lending to the notion that what 'doesn't feel right' may not be right for the company or organization. Either intuition-based decision making could be helping or hurting the recruitment and selection process because it may rely on things that cannot be easily assessed or quantified. This study makes reveals an interesting notion that based on how someone 'feels' about someone, they may or may not hire them.

3. Recruitment and selection process can have their limitations. Even if someone performs all the necessary procedures and assesses the prospective employee to their best of the ability, trying to screen out any 'bad eggs', there are always going to be problems in the screening process. This is because as humans, recruiters have limits to how well they can perceive and analyze a person and situation, leading to hiring bad employees and making errors. The previous qualitative study shared how sometimes recruiters can rely on their 'intuition' to help in their decision making.

In a 2013 Harvard Business School article, Anna Secino examines the phenomenon of businesses and organizations hiring unqualified candidates or 'fundamental attribution error'. What fundamental attribution error is, is when a person makes an instant assessment of someone or something, attributing an individual's behavior to inborn characteristics instead of external circumstances. This kind of assessment happens so often because no one can know every aspect of a stranger's backstory while also needing to make a decision whether that individual is friend or foe. Therefore, surface cues like an expensive suit or a high GPA will sometimes be enough to make a snap judgment and decision.

This means that such decisions can spell trouble for an organization/company wanting to find quality recruits. Because easy tasks that are done well are examined, excluding difficult tasks that are done somewhat well, when recruits are selected and given difficult tasks, their performance ability diminishes, leading to a downturn in performance and productivity. " ... consistently favored employees whose performance had benefitted from the easier situation -- can be disastrous on a companywide scale. When executives promote employees based primarily on their performance in a specific environment, a drop in that employee's success can be expected under different conditions" (Secino, 2013).

4. The recruitment and selection process can be transformed into an easier task by including certain theories to help in the screening and decision-making process. MAUT or multiattribute utility theory has been used due to MAUT methodology being based on preference assumptions characterized by classes of utility models under an assumed valid SEU framework (Edwards, 1992, p. 74). However, because there is strong indication in contradiction of the descriptive validity of SEU theory, it may have some parts that are invalid assuming strategies involving MAUT analysis are SEU-based, leading to the use of MAUT in conjunction with other approaches like constraint-based approaches. "Pareto and constraint-based approaches could be used as part of a successful decision process; but a tradeoff-based approach, like multiattribute utility theory, is required to identify the true best system in all but a few special cases" (Merrick, Morrice and Butler, 2015, p. 238). This shows that while one theory can help in the decision-making process, several approaches need to be combined in order to reach the end goal of selecting a worthwhile candidate for the company/organization.

Understanding the theoretical process of decision-making is an integral part of the recruitment and selection process. What is also important is understanding the recruitment and selection process itself and the various steps one has to undertake to hire qualified candidate.

1. The first step recognizing the need to determine whether a vacancy exists and if there is a need to recruit.

2. Updating job profiles, specification, and descriptions are imperative in order to get the right kind of candidate interested in applying.

3. Determining key performance areas for the recruitment planning/job help narrow the pool of candidates to those that are qualified versus unqualified.

4. Consulting the recruitment procedure and policy allows the recruiter to understand the objectives of the company along with what is expected of the potential employee and the overall process of recruiting.

5. Considering the sources of recruitment, which involves searching places where qualified candidates may be located.

6. Electing the suitable recruitment approach leads to effective recruiting.

7. Development of a recruitment strategy/advertisement to get candidates interested.

8. Placing advertisement in the most suitable and appropriate communication medium allows for fast and extensive access to worthwhile candidates.

9. Guaranteeing availability of application blanks and allowing enough time for responses.

10. Screening responses so unqualified candidates' resumes are discarded.

11. Recruitment control and assessment leading to a streamlined conclusion to the overall process (Kumar, 2011).

Knowing these steps ensures less errors and better selection of qualified candidates, decreasing time spent on unqualified candidates as well as reducing waste of company resources.

5. Aside from the plethora of research available to help in understanding the R&S process, the consensus appears to be that recruitment is an important way for a company to retain skilled and qualified employees, improve work productivity, and decrease turnover rates. While steps and theories sometimes differ in interpretation, many agree that certain steps are needed in order to remove potentially bad employees from the company and hiring those that will aid the company in the long run create a stable and productive work environment. That includes identifying what is…