HR Planning and

Recruiting

Tehzeeb Sakina Amir

HRM-session 5
Spring 2011-MBA
 Main contents
Personnel Planning and forecasting
Recruiting job candidates recruiting
options
Developing & using application forms
 The Recruitment and Selection
process
Common HR way:
Decide what positions to fill through personnel
planning and forecasting
Build a pool of candidates internal or external
Have candidates complete application forms and
initial screening
Use of selection tools like tests, physical exams etc
Decide who to make an offer to, by having the
supervisor interview the candidates
 Planning and Forecasting
Employment or personnel planning The
process of deciding what positions the firm
will have to fill and how to fill them
Employment planning should come out of
the strategic plans of the organization:
setting up new plant, entering new
markets, reduce costs etc.
It will influence the type of positions need to
be filled or eliminated
 Planning and Forecasting
The area of concern:
To fill the openings from within the firm or
outside.
Each option produces its own personnel plans
Employment plans must be based on
basic forecasts of three things:
Personnel needs
Supply of inside candidates
Supply of outside candidates
 Forecasting Personnel Needs
The traditional approach - on revenue
basis
More comprehensive approach would be:
To consider projected turnover rate
Decisions to upgrade or downgrade products
or services
Technological changes
Financial resources
 Forecasting Personnel Needs
Trend Analysis study of a firms past
employment needs over a period of years to
predict future needs
It provides an initial working ground as
employment needs change over time and
employment levels rarely depend upon passage
of time
Other factors can also affect staffing needs
 Forecasting Personnel Needs
Ratio Analysis A forecasting technique for
determining future staff needs by using ratios
(say between sales volume and number of
employees needed)
It assumes that productivity remains about the
same!
If productivity change then ratio change
 Forecasting Personnel Needs
The Scatter Plot a graphical method used to
help identify the relationship between two
variables
If we can forecast level of business activity, we can
estimate for personnel needs as well.
 Drawbacks

Assume that firm will continue with existing structure &

activities

Focus exclusively on projected sales volume &

historical personnel relationship

Support outdated compensation plan where managers

reward increases with the number of staff reporting to
him and do not reveal managers who expand
irrespective of companys strategic needs.

Rest on non-productive idea of increasing staff as

inevitable

Tend to validate and internalize existing planning

processes and ways of doing things despite of changes
 Computer based forecast
It enables HR manager to utilize maximum number
of variables while making staff forecasts
Determination of future staffing needs by projecting
sales, volume of production, and personnel required
to maintain the volume of output, using software
packages
Can also study cause and effect relationships!

Managerial judgments!!
 Forecasting the supply of inside
candidates
Determining the current skill level of the employees, identifying the
potential employee and which employee would be most suitable for
the projected opening! At times it is OBVIOUS!!!
The other times, managers use QUALIFICATION INVENTORIES

Manual or computerized records listing employees education,
career and development interests, languages, special skills,
training courses and so on to be used in selecting inside candidate
for promotion.
Help to determine which employee is available for promotion or
transfer
 Manual Systems
Manual Systems - A Personnel Inventory or Development
Record are some manual devices
Personnel Replacement Charts Company records showing
present performance and promotability of inside candidates for
the most important positions
Position Replacement Card a card prepared for each
position in a company to show possible replacement
candidates & their qualifications.

Show their present performance, promotion potential and training
Computerized Information Systems
Use of Computerized data for promotions/transfers etc
Enter & Update data on every performance appraisal
Various packages software systems are available, where
at the time of need, enter the positions specifications
(education, skills) , the system produce a list of potential
candidates
Coding is done on basis of work experience, product
knowledge, industry experience, formal education
 Keeping the Data Safe
Danger of data theftvery sensitive issue
HR Manager must guard the privacy of the
employees:
Perform background checks to whoever access the data
Trusted worker only!! No outsiders
Perform random checks on existing employees
Limited access
 Forecasting the supply of outside
candidates
Employer may want to forecast the availability of
outside candidates
Low unemployment rates means less availability
BUT High unemployment rate does not ensure
availability too! (skilled workers)
Economic projections also indicate the way
employment would go
 Effective Recruiting
Employee Recruiting finding and/or attracting applicants for the
employers open positions.
Effective Recruiting is increasingly important
Irrespective of high or low unemployment rate
Recruiting effectiveness (complexities)
Recruitment efforts must be in line with companys strategic plans (how, when, what)
Select the method which is best suited for the job opening

Success of recruitment also depend upon non-recruiting issues!!

Simultaneously pre-screening candidates

Firms own image affect recruiting results
 Recruitment Function
Centralized recruiting
Pros in-line with overall
strategy
Reduces duplication
Spread recruitment cost
over more
departments/locations
Builds recruitment
experts
Produces synergies
De-centralized
recruiting
Pros - - more viable for
blue-collar jobs, where
local population is
preferred
Retail & service sectors
also prefer decentralized
recruiting
Measuring Recruiting Effectiveness
The question is what to measure and how to measure:
In what to measure case, how many applicants did we
generate through each of our recruitment source?

quantity but also quality
In how to measure each recruiting source effectiveness,
use of pre-screening selection devices (a work sample
test) or testing the job knowledge of the candidate can
be the indicators of a better pool of talents. Applicants
may be few but of high quality.

GE Medical Multigenerational staffing plan to go with each of
its products multiyear product plan

Recruiters meeting, employees referrals doubled up,
 The Recruiting Yield Pyramid
To calculate number of
applicants they must
generate to hire required
number of new employees New hires
50
Offers made
100 2:1

Candidates
150 interviewed 3:2

Candidates
200 invited 4:3

Leads
1200
generated
6:1
Internal Sources of Candidates
Current employees or promotions from within
are at times best sources of candidates:
You know ins and outs of the current employee
More committed person
Increased morale of workforce
Less orientation & training required (perhaps)
Drawbacks of hiring from within: employees applying
and not getting the job may get disconnected, feeling
of rejection, biases etc
Internal Sources of Candidates
Finding them:
Job posting publicizing the open job to employees
Personnel records
Skills banks
Rehiring - those who have left the company
Less training / orientation required
Check what they were doing when they left the
company
Wrong message to existing employees!
Internal Sources of Candidates
Succession Planning the ongoing
process of systematically identifying,
assessing and developing organizational
leadership to enhance performance. It
involves three step process

Identify firms future key positions needs

Creating & assessing candidates (identify
potentials internally and externally) & providing
them developmental experiences

Selecting those who will fill-in
Outside Sources of Candidates
Recruiting via internet on line jobs, job sites, ads on
their own sites, keyword searches on resume database
sites (hotjobs.com). Social networking sites linkIn.com

Advantages
Cost effective
Generates more responses (9 times more applicants) & quicker too
Longer lifespan

Disadvantages
Selected people use internet
Unsolicited and irrelevant job applicants
May end up deluged with resumes
Using Applicant Tracking Systems on line systems that
help employers attract, gather, screen, compile, and
manage applicants for e.g resruitsoft.com
 Outside Sources of Candidates
Recruiting via internet Designing Internet Ads
and Systems

Should be
User friendly, easy to use format & forms
Less confusing & time consuming
Attractive enough with compelling words/phrases
Attention catching
Ensure privacy
Effective feedback system

Should avoid
Use of abbreviations
Poor job descriptions
Too much of graphics/links/complicated forms
 Advertising
Two main areas:
The advertising medium
Target your ads to reach your prospective employees
Innovative ways for specialized jobs
The ads construction
AIDA - Attention, interest, desire, action
Attention use key words/phrases
Interest nature & aspects of the job

Desire highlight needs & desires like traveling, challenging etc

Action call today post your resume online too or walk in
These ads can be used to develop employers
image as well
 Recruiting Options
1. Temp Agencies
2. Headhunters
3. College Recruiting
4. Outsourcing/offshoring
5. Referrals and Walk-Ins
 Temp Agencies
Hiring contingent or temporary workers through
temporary help employment agencies
Also known as part-time or just-in-time workers
Not limited to blue-collar or clerical jobs but also
temporary CEOs
Direct hire or through agency
Benefits & Costs

Want for higher productivity and Less expensive to
recruit & train
Agency fee adds to the cost, less commitment
 Temp Agencies
Areas of concern HRM responsibilities
Employers treatment
Job insecurity
Lack of insurance &
benefits
Misled about job
assignments
Underemployed
Feeling of alienation
Invoicing
Time sheets
Temp-to-perm policy
Recruitment of and
benefits for temp
workers
Equal Employment
Opportunity statement
Job description
information
 Outsourcing/Offshoring
Outsourcing / offshoring jobs is gaining
popularity
Main issues:

Potential for political instability

Cultural misunderstandings

Security & privacy concerns

Dealing with foreign contracts, liability, legal systems
etc

Special training needs (language/accent)

Expected cost saving may not materialize

Anxiety of own work force
 Headhunters
Executive recruiter or Headhunters
Key executive & technical positions
Two types of executive recruiters:
Contingent
Retained
Technology and specialization are changing the trend
of executive recruiters search business
Pros and Cons
Irreplaceable, save time & cost, ensure confidentiality, highly
potential employees are hunted, fee can be insignificant
Need to be told explicitly what kind of person is required and
why, misleading information can result in disasters
 Headhunters
Guidelines for HRM
Make sure the recruiter is capable of a
thorough search
Meet the individual who will actually handle
your assignment
Know their charges (hidden costs)
Never solely rely on them!
 College Recruiting
Sending a representative to screen applicants and create
a pool
Management trainees
It is expensive and time consuming
Ineffective or untrained recruiters!
On-campus recruiting goals

First - to determine if the candidate is worthy of further
considerations

Second attract good candidates

Other things to be taken care of are the selection of
college/university and the College career centers
On-site visits

Internships
 Referrals and Walk-Ins
An important recruiting option is Employee
Referral
Firm posts job openings on intranet, bulletin boards
etc
At times rewards are offered for referrals which turn
into successful hiring.
Pros and Cons
High quality candidates are generated, accurate information,
the new employee will come with a more realistic picture,
cost effective approach,
If firm rejects the referrals then morale of the employee could
go down, can be discriminatory
Walk-Ins
 Ad construction AIDA
marks 5 and time:30 mins
Task 1: Task 2:
Analyze the given A RUN-of-the-mill ad
advertisement to the would be given to
group in the light of the group
the guidelines Restructure /
discussed in the class redesign the ad in
List down the the light of the
strengths and areas discussion.
of improvements
that you have found in
the given ad.
 Developing and Using Application
Forms
Purpose
Judgments on basis of education &
experience
Draw conclusions about applicants progress
and growth
Draw tentative conclusions about applicants
stability based on previous work records
Use the data in the application and predict the
success possibility of the applicant on the job