Recruitment

Introduction

This blog demonstrates the definition of elements in CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) recruitment process and illustrate the importance of include all elements in a recruitment campaign. Furthermore it displays complications that could be occurring if any element of the process is not demonstrated. Therefore this blog demonstrate advantages and disadvantages of Facebook as a method of recruitment tool.

Recruitment

According to the CIPD definition Recruitment is the process of having the right person, in the right place, at the right time. It consists with 6 steps of Job specification, Job description or personal specification, Attracting and managing applications, selecting candidates, Making the appointment and joining the organisation. All these elements must be including in to success recruitment campaign hence they are interconnect to each other elements.

Before starting the process of recruitment HR department must be spend time on defining the vacancy, nature of the role and purposes of the role.

• Job Specification

The first step of the process is Job specification. It describes knowledge, skills, experiences, qualifications and characteristics which are required to specific job. Job specification is developed from the job description. In brief Job specification describes the person who need for the particular job.

• Job Description

Job description or personal specification is similar to the job specification as it helps to find the right candidate to the available position. Job description or person specification detailed the list of duties, job context ( job title, department, location, responsible to and for ) educational and professional qualifications that required for the right person.

Person specification defines who the right person for the position is while job description defines what the ideal is for the position

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• Attracting and Managing Application

It is very important to decide whether it is internal recruitment or external recruitment. If it is external recruitment there are many methods to attract candidates to the particular position. The methods depend on whether it is internal or external recruitment.

Internal recruitment is filling vacancies from within organisation’s existing workforce. Promotions and transfers, job posting on intranet or any other source within the organisation, meetings and employee referrals are some internal recruitment methods.

External recruitment is filling vacancies from applicants outside the organisation. Job centers  advertisements, database search on websites, free online advertisements, employee referrals, and job agencies are some of the most popular external recruitment methods.

The advertisements are must be guided the basic information about the organisation, position and the main requirements, job tenure, reward systems, location and how to respond. Nevertheless advertisement must be avoiding discrimination to attract more candidates.                

Responds for advertisements can be received in two ways. Those are applications and Curricular Vitae. Applications would help to capture individual data which would from the basis of employee’s personnel records. Traditionally application include educational background, work related training, work experiences and basic biographical information. However applications make easier to collect information of applicants in a methodical way.

For most of the senior positions, Curricular Vitae are acceptable instead of application forms. Some organisations are specifying the areas that they would hear in a CV which would help to clarify selections.

All applications must be treated confidentially. Bad experience in recruitment process will be a failure to attract candidates in future. It is an opportunity enhanced the brand image towards outside the organisation.

• Selection

In the step of the selection there are two main activities. Those are short listing and assessment. Shortlisting is a list of candidates organisation wish to carry out to the next step in selection process. To assess them, there are many ways which will depend on the position, nature of the business and competition to the particular position.

An interview following from CV and application forms is the most popular selection method. (92%) Panel interviews (88%) competency interviews (86%) are the second and third highest selection methods. Additionally specific skills test, general tests, telephone interviews, assessment centers  group activities and online test are some of the other selection methods.

Using any selection method best candidate for the particular role can be select. 

• Making the Appointment

Before offering the job employer must be check that candidate has legal right to work, medical tests that required references for the employment policy.

Offering employment should be in written and should be defines legal aspects of employment contract.

• Joining to the induction

 Every organisation has an induction programmes. But good induction would help to make an effectiveness of new employees in all aspects. An induction will guided candidates about key requirements of role, terms and conditions, orientations, health and safety conditions, meeting key staff members and description of organisation. This type of induction programmes helps employees to fit with the organisation efficiently.

All the documentations relevant to the recruitment process should be kept at least 6 month after the process that will help to handle any complaints which might be occurring. 

Why all the element should be include in a recruitment campaign

All the 6 elements in the recruitment process are interconnected to each other. If one element will miss in the process it would affect whole process and will make failures in recruitment. The first step of process is job specification. This is the starting point hence organisation should understand the particular role which they would consider for a vacancy. If this step would miss management could be unable to continue the process.

Job description or person specification step will help to find out the ideal candidate to the vacancy as it define what and who is the right person by clarifying the role, duties, qualifications, skills and personal characteristics. If this element is not carried out management will unable to have the right person for the right job and could not continue to attract the candidates.

Attracting and managing application is essential element to makes interests in talented pool of candidates. In this step it is very important to make sure that organisation is attracting both internal and external resources.  If sometimes, the ideal character to the role should be in the organisation with his/her sills, experiences and qualifications rather than find out a new employee to the particular post. However the methods would use for the attract candidates must be clear and should have high effectiveness. Nevertheless after receiving an adequate amount of responds management should be able to manage applications efficient manner. If this element is not carried out HR department will unable to continue the process to selections. Thus this is a very important element in the process.

 Selection is the most important element in the recruitment process as it is the objective for elects the right and ideal person to the post. The methods of selection could be depending on the role, organisational culture and the competition to the role. However selection must be clear, fair, and relevant to the role which has a vacant. If the element of selection will not carried out definitely management could not choose the right person.

Making the appointment is the step of transition from applicant to employee.  If this element is not carried out the right person who has already selected unable to start his career in the organisation and that person has right to acknowledge about the legal aspects of the job will offered.

The last step of the process is inviting the new employee for the induction sessions. It is the basement of employee’s career as he can get a picture of his role and about the organisation culture, terms and condition. If a company will unable to arrange an induction it will effects to make lots of failures in the particular role.

However all the 6 elements should be include in to recruitment campaign to make it as an effective, successful campaign. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Facebook using as a recruitment method

Facebook is the most popular social networking services which has founded in 2004. By September 2012 it has over 1 billion users who are actively using Facebook. Today most of the reputed business organisations have attempted to use Facebook as a method of recruitment. There are both advantages and disadvantages of Facebook as using methods of recruitment tool.

Advantages

As a first step of advertise the vacancy business organisation can create a profile or a group to introduce the business, brand or products and services. People who are interested to the particular business or brand become fans and then management can carried the next step to advertise hence it helps to find out the people who are interested in the field.

•  And also it is a perfect online space to advertise as it can reach much wider audience at once
• It takes very low cost comparing to other advertising tools and gives better effectiveness and responds immediately. Recruiters have options to choose whether the advertisement is traditional, cost per click or cost per impression model.
• Facebook allow everyone to make respond, feedback, queries quickly.
• It consists with network of wide range of people who are seeking various job patterns.
• Feature of filtering is an advantage when publishing the advertisement. It allows to select the particular location which you are target to get responds from users. Particular country, province, town or can target multiple locations.
• When an organisation looking for particular educational skills or levels for the current vacant post it is easy to target the advertisement thus it can search the people who are in particular secondary colleges, universities or any other relevant institutions.
• If the organisation would like to have a candidate with work experiences in the field could find the current employees in similar companies by searching the users on Facebook.
• Advertisements can be published on company group, fan page to find out the candidates who are interested in company.
• It is an easy way to upload videos that can effect to attract more candidates by increasing their enthusiasm. 

Disadvantages

• Facebook usually use to share personnel contact with family and friends. It is not much wider use of professional contacts or business purposes as LinkedIn.
• Facebook allows make privacy settings and it will be an issue which make difficulty to contact more users.
• Sometimes accuracy in data use will be an issue if the genuine candidates would not familiar with Facebook.

Conclusion

According to CIPD definitions Recruitment process has 6 elements and they are interconnect with each other elements. To meet the success in recruitment process there should be include all the elements in a recruitment campaign without mislaying any of them. Today Facebook has become a popular recruitment tool. But the Facebook has both advantages and disadvantages using as a tool of recruitment. 

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