To what extent is it important to include the applicant\'s perspective in the process of recruitment and selection - Essay PDF

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An essay discussing and analysing the importance of considering the applicant's perspective in the recruitment and selection process...

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To what extent is it important to include the applicant's perspective in the process of recruitment and selection? It has long been suggested by a number of researchers that it is important to include the applicants perspective when considering the process of recruitment and selection. While an employer is looking to hire the best person for the job, it is quite common for the applicants perspective to get ignored (Rynes, 1993). This essay will consider how the recruitment and selection process is carried out by employers, and how it is used to attract potential employees. It will also consider the fact that certain areas of the market may have skill shortages that will increase an applicants negotiating power, increasing the need to consider the perspectives of this party. It will suggest that workers are looking for a balance between their work and their personal lives, which is something that must be considered. It will critically examine any implications associated with an employer not considering the perspective of the applicant during the recruitment and selection process, including the idea that providing a poor first impression of the company will likely cause applicant to exit the process (Searle, 2003). It will then establish what an employer is likely to gain through including the applicants perspective; It will conclude by suggesting that the applicants perspective during the recruitment and selection process must be considered if an employer wants to end up with an employee who best fits the organisation. Recruitment is identified by Barber (1998) as 'practises and activities carried out by an organisation with the purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees'. It's main purpose is to identify a wide diversity of skilled applicants who have the potential to fill the role of the job offered. The recruitment methods used should increase an applicants interest in the company in order to increase the likelihood of them accepting a job offer (Saks, 2005). There are a number of methods that are used, with the most popular being social media and online recruitment due to the large platform that can attain this information. An example of how this was used to successfully attract applicants was in a report by Smethurst (2004), where British Gas successfully developed its online recruitment site to attract candidates from ethnic minorities, women and elderly people. One thing that must be considered is that recruitment doesn't take place in a vacuum; There are a number of internal and external factors that have an impact on the organisations methods of recruitment and the applicants response to them. The state of the labour market is a factor that an organisation must consider when taking the applicants perspective into account, mainly due to the fact that potential applicants will have a lot of power in a market where their skills are in high demand (such as a computer technician). It is also worth noting that the applicants perspective wouldn't have to be considered as much in low skilled job such as Mcdonald's. The selection process is defined as 'The process by which managers use instruments to choose from a pool of applicants the person or people most likely to succeed in the job' (Bratton & Gold, 2007). It is one of the last stages of recruitment and is focused on selecting the applicant who they predict will perform the job as well as expected. An employer should use a range of selection tools to ensure that they make the most

valid selection possible (French & Rumbles, 2011). In order to do this a psychometric model is normally employed that looks at an applicants characteristics, including their cognitive abilities and personality to establish whether or not they'd be a good fit in the organisation. Recruitment and selection is used and designed to 'select the right jigsaw piece to fill a gap in the organisation' (Newell, 2006). It is paramount for organisations to hire competent and efficient workers, which thus means that the organisation may focus a lot more on the employer perspective of the recruitment and selection process, rather than the applicants perspective. Studies by the 1992 National Survey of Employers Recruitment Practises (Hales, 1993) have shown that low skilled and low paid jobs (such as a member of staff in a local Tesco) are generally filled using cheaper and more informal recruitment methods such as online job applications. Employers would be more likely to use these methods for lower skilled jobs due to the fact that there is less of an emphasis on the quality of the applicant pool attracted due to the simple nature of the job; Thus this means that the applicant would have less power and leverage in this situation, allowing employers to focus more on a one way process of recruitment and selection that doesn't focus a lot on the applicants perspective (Collins & Han, 2004). However, the opposite is to be expected within a market where there is a skill shortage, thus providing potential applicants with a lot of autonomy and power. Charities within the voluntary sector are an example of this, as they will be competing with the public and private sector over skilled employees; This means that they will have to heavily focus on what perspectives potential applicants have in order to attract them (such as appealing to their emotions). Employers have to be aware of the fact that there are other considerations to make when attracting potential applicants to the recruitment and selection process. In this day and age, it is becoming more and more visible that money isn't the only thing that attracts and motivates people to join a company (Furnham, 2006). The issues of people attaining a good work life balance is something that will have a direct influence over an applicants perceptions of a company. A company that is seen to not provide a good balance between an employees work role as well as their family role is likely to turn off a lot of potential applicants (Greenhaus & Singh, 2003); For example, an applicant may be unwilling to accept an initially appealing job role, after discovering that the long commute time would have an impact on their family role. It is important for a employer to ensure that its organisational culture has as little impact on an employees individual choices as possible. There will be a number of implications for an employer that doesn't include the applicants perspective during the recruitment and selection process. An implication and side effect of an organisation not paying much attention to the applicants perspective in regards to recruitment and selection is that it is likely to have a negative impact on the selected candidates in the future; This will likely be due to a conflict of interest between what managers want and what employees want. This can lead to issues such as employee dissatisfaction and thus a high labour turnover. This is a phenomenon highlighted in a journal by Callaghan and Thompson (2002) who carried out an investigation into the recruitment and selection processes of a call centre called Telebank. It was identified that the recruitment and selection process that took place here involved a focus on an applicants attitudes towards flexibility and customer service, rather than skill and qualifications (Redman & Matthews, 1998).

The main skill identified was a form of intangible 'social skills' that was identified through a rigorous selection and training process. Telebanks psychometric selection techniques (such as person specifications) were used to identify applicants with a high sociability who would thrive in an environment where they had autonomy over how they communicated with the customer. However, this led to a 'double paradox' as the applicants selected who expected to be able to communicate the company message to the customer in their own way ended up becoming constrained by the close controls put on them (Callaghan and Thompson, 2002). There was also pressure to keep each call as short as possible to reach the required number of phone calls. This has led to a high level of employee dissatisfaction, which has manifested itself in the form of a high labour turnover. This is something that could have been prevented if the employer was more willing to tailor its recruitment, selection and training process towards what the applicants would really want out of the job. The employer must also be aware that poor focus on the applicants perspective can lead to an inaccurate impression of the company by the applicant, as well as an inaccurate impression of the applicant by the company. It is very important that the employer considers the recruitment and selection process as a two-way role, in which both parties are gaining their first impressions of one another. Face to face interviews are generally the first time both parties interact with each other on an interpersonal level. It is thus the first chance for the development of a psychological contract, meaning it is vital for both parties to give off a good impression (Searle, 2003). It is necessary for a company to ensure that the applicants first impression of the company is in a positive light; This can be done by ensuring that they are treated well at an interpersonal level and by providing the applicant with the opportunity to perform well (Gilliland, 1993). The employer can further carry out its method of impression management by being aware that the applicant may be nervous. Providing warmth and humour towards the applicant has been shown to help with this (Carless and Imber, 2007) and will help with getting the applicant to associate the employer with feeling relaxed. If an employer was to not focus on the applicants perspective during this process, it is likely that the applicant would be left feeling unhappy with their first impression of the company, making them less inclined to accept a job role there. There are a lot of advantages for an organisation that includes the applicant perspective during the recruitment and selection process. Once an employer identifies that recruitment and selection is a social process that involves both the employer and the applicant, it can properly identify the best way to attract potential employees. It is worth noting that the applicant may have a basic perception of the company gained through mediums such as the employment experience of friends; This perception will likely be altered during the recruitment and selection process, allowing a more confident perception and opinion to be made (Herriot, 2002). Once this perception is made, the applicant should have an idea of what identity traits are expected out of an employee in this job role, which would encourage them to further highlight and develop these traits within themselves, which Schneider (1987) argued would lead to a more suitable pool of applicants. An example of this would be an applicants response and reaction to a job offering that emphasised a good level of skill with computer software; It is likely that the applicant would ensure that they had a good level of competency with this software in order to demonstrate that they would be a good fit for the organisation. This shows how an employer working with the applicant in order to build a good level of understanding between them can maximise the quality of the applicants.

An employer who pays attention to the social processes within the selection process (such as the interview process) would help establish a proper idea of whether or not the applicant would be a good 'fit' for the organisation and whether or not they would be satisfied with the job (Anderson, 2001). It would also give off the impression that the company places a lot of focus on its employees, which would further encourage applicants to participate in the recruitment and selection process. This is something that Telebank should have considered (Callaghan & Thompson, 2002), as the ideals and traits that were looked for and encouraged within the recruitment and selection process (sociability, creativity and customer service skills) were contradicted by the strict controls and time scales that the employees had to adhere to. If Telebank were to change this process so that the skills and attitudes emphasised during the recruitment and selection process actually mirrored what was expected in the job, the applicants that would be attracted to the job would fit better within the company. This would lead to an increase in employee satisfaction and thus lower labour turnover and an increase in overall productivity. Looking at the evidence, it is clear that it is very important for an employer to consider the applicants perspective in the process of recruitment and selection. There are many issues that can be a direct result of not including this perspective, as shown in Telebank where the double paradox of recruiting sociable people but then forcing them to adhere to strict guidelines has led to a high rate of labour turnover (Callaghan and Thompson, 2002). Proper communication with and consideration of the applicants perspectives and perceptions is something that likely would increase the likelihood of the eventual selectee being the correct fit for the job and the organisation....