Recruitment and selection
Introduction
In chapter 4 we saw that the main objective of human resource planning in organisations
is to ensure that we have the right people doing the right jobs at the right time. HRP
helps to develop plans for matching demand with supply. Such plans include recruit-
ment and selection. If managers are not careful in developing the best strategies for re-
cruiting and selecting staff, it is likely that the organisation will fail to perform because
the available jobs are being carried out by the wrong people and whose removal would
be costly. At the end of the chapter learners should be able to:
- Develop appropriate job descriptions and specifications for specific jobs,
- Develop an appropriate strategy for recruitment and selection,
- Conduct effective employment interviews, and
- Establish an effective induction programme.
The basis for recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection is the process of getting human resources into organisations’
departments, sections and jobs (McKenna & Beach 2008). Venkatesh & Jyothi (2009:
83) use what might be an even more useful definition of recruitment that is about the art
of discovering and procuring potential applicants for actual and anticipated vacancies in
the organisation. This definition has introduced the concept of ‘art’ which is about the
soft skills of management, some of which might be a natural talent of some managers or
acquired through specialised training. The use of the word ‘discover’ emphasises that
effective recruitment is a process that involves exploration and that will require special-
ised methods and techniques, short of which no ‘discovery’ of potential people for the
job can be made. Usually, recruitment and selection depends on the organisation’s pol-
icy guiding recruitment and selection as already noted in chapter 3. Noe et al. (2007)
have added important policy issues that have to be considered during the planning of
recruitment and selection that are linked to the organisation’s position in terms of a
number of factors. These are for example, recruiting internal staff as opposed to exter-