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Words of Wisdom

They do psychometric testing. I got in before all that mumbo-
jumbo.

HR directors are largely dissatisfied with the quality of their
employees they would re-hire less than 60% of current
employees.

Testing is a human interaction, and if you take this element away
youll soon lose the real customers: the candidates themselves.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Selection
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Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Selection
Video.edhole.com
Recruitment
is the process of generating a pool of capable people to apply for
employment to an organization.

Selection
is the process by which managers and others use specific instruments to
choose from a pool of applicants a person or persons most likely to
succeed in the job(s), given management goals and legal
requirements.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Selection
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Selection
Video.edhole.com
Recruitment and selection are vital to the formation of a positive
psychological contract, which provides the basis of organizational
commitment and motivation.
The attraction and retention of employees is part of the evolving
employment relationship, based on a mutual and reciprocal
understanding of expectations.
There are wide variations in recruitment and selection practices,
reflecting an organizations strategy and its philosophy towards the
management of people.
Progressive HR practices are crucial to a positive psychological
contract this includes attention to effective recruitment and
selection practices.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Selection
Video.edhole.com
Various recruitment and selection practices are bound by the law of the
land.
In general there are three forms of discrimination that are against the
law:
Direct
Indirect
Victimization
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
The Legal Context
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Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (amended 1986)
Race Relations Act 1976 (amended 2000)
Equal Pay Act 1970 (amended 1983 to include work of equal value)
Disability Discrimination Act 1996
Directives from the EU such as the 1998 Data Protection Act
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Key Legal Provisions in the UK
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A key role for HR is to align performance within roles with the
strategy, so recruiting for the right people for a role depends on
how it is defined in terms relating to performance to achieve the
strategy.
Criterion-related behaviours or standards of performance are
referred to as competencies.
Competencies can be used to provide the behaviours needed at
work to achieve the business strategy, and enable organizations to
form a model of the kinds of employee it wishes to attract through
recruitment.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
The main approaches to attracting applicants can be
summarized as follows:
Walk-ins
Employee referrals
Advertising
Websites
Professional associations
Educational associations
Professional agencies
E-recruitment (general recruitment agents/ companies own
sites)
Word-of-mouth
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
An organization will take account of a number of factors when
forming its recruitment plans and choice of media.
These might include:
Cost
Time taken to recruit and select
Labour market focus, for example: skills, profession or occupation
Mobility of labour geographic and occupational
Legislation on sex discrimination, race discrimination and
disability
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Personnel specifications versus competencies

Personnel specifications may contain stereotypes of the ideal
person and so organizations may be reinforcing the stereotype in
their recruitment practices.
The use of competencies allows organizations to free themselves
from traditional stereotypes in order to attract applicants from a
variety of sources.
Competencies appear to be more objective, have a variety of uses in
attracting applicants and allow an organization to use more reliable
and valid selection techniques.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Recruitment and Attraction
Video.edhole.com
Organizations have become increasingly aware of making good
selection decisions, since it involves a number of costs:
The cost of the selection process itself, including the use of
various selection instruments
The future costs of inducting and training new staff
The cost of labour turnover if the selected staff are not retained
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Selection: Costs
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Underlying the process of selection and the choice of techniques
are two key principles:
1. Individual differences: Attracting a wide choice of applicants will
be of little use unless there is a way of measuring how people
differ, i.e. intelligence, attitudes, social skills, psychological and
physical characteristics, experience etc.
2. Prediction: A recognition of the way in which people differ must
be extended to a prediction of performance in the workplace.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Selection: Principles
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Reliability and Validity Issues

Reliability refers to the extent to which a selection technique
achieves consistency in what it is measuring over repeated use.

Validity refers to the extent to which a selection technique actually
measures what it sets out to measure.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Selection
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Information elicited interviews have a specific focus, i.e. facts,
subjective information, underlying attitudes.
Structure ranging from the completely structured to the
unstructured. A compromise between the two enables the
interviewer to maintain control yet allowing the interviewee free
expression.
Order and involvement the need to obtain different kinds of
information may mean the involvement of more than one
interviewer. Applicants may be interviewed serially or in a panel.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Selection Interviews
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Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Selection
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Personality research has lent support to the use of sophisticated
selection techniques such as psychometric tests that have a good
record of reliability and validity.
Ability tests: these focus on mental abilities (verbal/numerical)
and physical skills testing. Right/wrong answers allow
applicants to be placed in ranked order.
Inventories: self-report questionnaires indicating traits,
intelligence, values, interests, attitudes and preferences. No
right/wrong answers but a range of choices between possible
answers.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Psychometric Testing
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On-line testing, or e-assessment, is also used for selection and
other HR purposes.

Benefits:
Online testing enables organizations to test at any time and
anywhere in the world.
It enables the quick processing of applicants.

Drawback:
Loss of control over the administration of the tests anyone
can be called on to help

Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
E-assessment
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Assessment centres are designed to yield information that can
be used to make decisions concerning suitability for a job.
They provide a fuller picture by combining a range of techniques.
General methods used include group discussions, role plays and
simulations, interviews and tests.
Candidates attending an assessment centre will be observed by
assessors who should be trained to judge candidates
performance against criteria contained within the competency
framework.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Assessment Centres
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Applicants have expectations about how the organization will treat
them. Recruitment and selection represent an opportunity to clarify
these.
Realistic job previews (RJPs) provide a means of achieving this.
RJPs can take the form of case studies, shadowing, job sampling and
videos this enables the expectations of applicants to become more
realistic.
RJPs: lower initial expectations, cause some applicants to de-select
themselves, increase levels of organization commitment, job
satisfaction, performance and job survival.
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Realistic Job Previews
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Video.edhole.com
Web support material for Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition
John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan
Video.edhole.com