and obvious; however, it is a very difficult one. For example, most employers share the
opinion that the reason for recruitment is to fill a vacant post. Although this is true, there
is always a danger of underestimating the meaning of vacancy, the indicators for a va-
cant post or the vacancy itself. Most officials in the public service thought that recruit-
ment is done in order to replace former job occupiers who were no longer there due to:
- Deaths
- Retirement
- Transfer
- Promotion
- Dismissals
- Resignations
This is a fair answer for a bureaucrat who has limited time to do critical analytical work.
Even the literature on human resource management in Africa does not seem to suggest
that there are significantly better justifications for why the public office recruits except
in situations where a new office or project is opened. It is important to note that all these
reasons given here are just symptoms of possibilities of the existence of vacancies and
not measures of the presence of vacancies. The need for recruitment should be based on
the quantity and quality of the job and the requirements for the jobholder now and in the
future and not on the number of employees the organisation is supposed to have. Re-
cruitment based on what the establishment indicates, as is practice in the public sector,
can be misleading. When you recruit when you are not supposed to, or recruit a person
for the job which is not there, or you are not sure of the critical competencies required
and worse still, you cannot pay the employee well you find yourself sliding away from
good practices in human resource recruitment and selection. It is time you started nur-
turing the mismatch between employee-employer expectations in employment relation-
ships.
A review of the 17 cases shows that more than seventy five of the job advertisements
have serious limitations in what the jobs aimed to achieve, or should achieve, and criti-
cal knowledge, skills and competencies required. In some cases, the reward part of the
advert creates negative expectations for job seekers because the whole message is ‘ask-
ing a lot but not ready to reward accordingly’. The implication is that since employment
is a contract of give and take, both employers and employees cannot be expected to ask
each other what was not expected in the initial terms and conditions of employment.
This is where the second question comes in - why do people apply for certain jobs?
What are their expectations? Data in Table 12.1 gives a general picture.
Table 12.1 Job seekers expectations
SN Employee recruitment expectations %
1 Relatively fair pay 90
2 Opportunities for career development 60
3 Good working environment 60
4 Security of employment 70
5 Location of the organisation 75
6 Be able to solve family problems 55
Average 69.5