1. Strategic Staffing Chapter 7 – Recruiting

2. Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
Describe the purpose of recruiting.
Explain what recruitment “spillover effects” are.
Understand what makes a recruiter more or less effective.
Describe the various strategies used to attract applicants.
Describe how recruiting guides and the EEOC’s best recruiting practices promote recruiting consistency and quality.

3. Recruiting
Definition: activities that convert the leads generated during sourcing into job applicants, generate interest in a company and its jobs, and persuade candidates to accept extended job offers
Can be done by recruiters, hiring managers, or employees

4. Applicant Reactions
An important goal of recruitment is to give every applicant a positive feeling about the organization
Organizational and individual perspectives are both relevant
Effective recruitment requires considering the applicant’s perspective and needs
Both parties are pursuing a business relationship

5. Three Types of Fairness
Distributive: did you get the job or promotion?
Procedural: beliefs that the policies and procedures that resulted in the hiring or promotion decision were fair
Respect applicants’ privacy, avoid delays, use job-related assessments, give fair opportunity to perform
Interactional: fairness of the interpersonal treatment and amount of information received during the hiring process
Honesty, respect, recruiter warmth, and in formativeness

6. Spillover Effects
Definition: effects that extend beyond the activity itself
Most job candidates do not get the job or promotion – so what happens next?
If they were forced to wait extended periods for pre- scheduled interviews, met unprepared and distracted interviewers, felt that the selection process was unfair, and were not made to feel important or welcome, will they still fly your airline or buy your products? Apply for another job with you in the future? Tell their friends and family how impressed they were with your firm and influence them to become customers or job applicants?

7. Spillover Effects
What if they were greeted by name, given a quick tour of the facility, treated fairly and respectfully, interviewed on time by prepared and enthusiastic employees, and heard from the company when it said it would follow up?
Many firms treat job candidates as if they should feel privileged the firm is even considering them for a position, and treat rejected candidates as if that was the end of their relationship. This is simply not the case.

8. Recruitment Continues
Until either the organization (or the candidate) removes the person from further consideration, or the individual is hired and reports for work, it is the job of recruiting to keep him or her interested in pursuing the opportunity with the organization.
Recruiters should help candidates continually feel excited about the opportunity and ultimately be willing to accept a reasonable job offer.
The effects of an organization’s actions and reputation on applicant attraction begin before an organization ever advertises an open position and continue after the position is filled.

9. Important Recruiter Characteristics
Table 7-1

10. Who Should Recruit? Internal recruiters External recruiters Employees
Hiring managers
Recruiter profiles
The recruiter should be someone who can relate to a targeted recruit and persuade him or her to apply and/or accept a job offer

11. Factors Influencing Recruiter Effectiveness
Figure 7-1

12. Recruiter Training Recruiter knowledge Interpersonal skills
Presentation skills
Cultural skills
Organizational goals and recruiting objectives
Legal issues
Multiple assessments
Applicant attraction

13. Recruiter Goals & Feedback
An organization usually has specific goals for recruiter activities including:
Employer branding
Candidate screening
Generating candidates’ interest
For a recruiter to pursue the organization’s goals:
The organization’s goals must be known by the recruiter and be consistent with the recruiter’s personal goals
The recruiter must receive feedback in relation to these goals

14. Recruiter Incentives
The behaviors and outcomes that are rewarded are the ones most likely to be pursued by recruiters
Align rewards with staffing goals
Balance long-term and short-term goals
Balance team and individual goals

15. Organizational Image
Definition: a general impression based on both feelings and facts.
What comes to mind when you think of Nieman-Marcus, Goldman Sachs, and Tiffany’s?
The more favorable a company’s image, the more people are likely to consider the organization attractive as an employer and state a willingness to respond to its recruitment advertisements.

16. Employer Image
Definition: attitudes toward and perceptions of the organization as an employer
Employer brands reinforce the employer image:
Johnson & Johnson: “Small Company Environment, Big Company Impact”
Eli Lilly: “Innovation Has a Face: Our People”
Medtronic: “Careers with a Passion for Life”
Abbott Labs: “Inspired to Achieve. Make a Difference in Your World”
Sharp: “From Sharp Minds Come Sharp Products”

17. Employer Image
How an organization is reputed to treat applicants and employees is likely to have a particularly strong effect on applicant attraction.
Newer or lesser-known organizations with weak or nonexistent images among job seekers may have greater difficulty attracting recruits using passive recruitment sources such as newspaper advertisements than organizations that are more widely known and favorably thought of.

18. Recruiting Research Findings
Table 7-5

19. Recruiting Research Findings
Table 7-5 (con’t)

20. Realistic Job Previews
Definition: provide both positive and potentially negative information to job candidates.
Rather than trying to sell the job and company by presenting the job opportunity in the most positive light, realistic job previews strive to present an honest and accurate picture.
The goal is not to deter candidates by focusing on factors that might be perceived negatively, but to provide objective information that job candidates can use to self-assess their fit with the job and organization.

21. Self-Assessment Tools
Perceiving a good fit with a company’s culture and job opportunities improves a job seeker’s attraction to the organization
Bad fits self-select out
Self-assessments should be anonymous and not used for selection
On-line self-assessments

22. Timing of Information
Figure 7-2

23. Recruitment Consistency
Recruiting guide
A formal document that details the process to be followed in recruiting for an open position.
Addresses both internal and external recruiting processes.
Clarifies company policies and procedures relating to appropriate budgets, activities, timelines, responsible staff, legal issues, and the specific steps to be taken in recruiting for the position.
Helps to standardize the recruiting procedures used by the organization, clarify which employees are expected to perform what roles during the recruitment process, and helps to ensure that all of the relevant recruiting policies and procedures are followed during the recruitment process.

24. EEOC Best Practices in Recruiting
Establish a policy for recruitment and hiring, including criteria, procedures, responsible individuals, and applicability of diversity and affirmative action.
Engage in short-term and long-term strategic planning.
Identify the applicable barriers to equal employment opportunity.
Delineate aims.
Make a road map for implementing the plan.

25. EEOC Best Practices in Recruiting
Ensure that there is a communication network notifying interested persons of opportunities, including advertising within the organization, with the general media, and with minority, persons with disabilities, older persons, and women-focused media.
Communicate the competencies, skills, and abilities required.
Communicate about family-friendly and work-friendly programs.
Where transportation is an issue, consider arrangements with the local transit authority.
Participate in career and job fairs and open houses.
Work with professional associations, civic associations, and educational institutions with attractive numbers of people with protected characteristics.

26. EEOC Best Practices in Recruiting
Use recruiter, referral, and search firms with instructions to present diverse candidate pools to expand search networks.
Partner with organizations that have missions to serve targeted groups.
Use internships, work/study, co-op, and scholarship programs to attract interested persons and to develop interested and qualified candidates.
Develop and support educational programs and become more involved with educational institutions that can refer a more diverse talent pool.

27. EEOC Best Practices in Recruiting
Ensure that personnel involved in the recruitment and hiring process are well trained in their equal employment opportunity responsibilities.
Explore community involvement options so the company’s higher profile may attract more interested persons.
Eliminate practices which exclude or present barriers to minorities, women, persons with disabilities, older persons, or any individual.
Include progress in equal employment opportunity recruitment and hiring as factors in management evaluation.

28. Discussion Questions
Why is it important that organizations continue to actively recruit job candidates even after they have applied?
If you wanted to request funding from your CEO to evaluate and improve the quality of your company’s recruiters, how would you persuade him that doing so would be a good investment?

29. Discussion Questions
What recruiter characteristics matter to you when you are applying for a job? Why? Which do not matter much or at all? Why not?
Does an organization’s image or its brand as an employer affect its attractiveness to you as an employee or a potential employee? What elements of its brand matter the most to you? Why?
What could a recruiter do to interest you in applying for a company you have never heard of before? What tactics or information might persuade you to apply?

30. Develop Your Skills Exercise
This chapter’s “Develop Your Skills” feature presented four steps for developing a positive employer brand.
Working in a group of 3-5 students, use this process to design an employer branding strategy for a job held by one of your group members.
Describe the brand you would like to create, and outline the activities you would undertake to establish that image among targeted applicants for your chosen job. Be prepared to share your ideas with the class.