Sources of recruitment and selection

Sources of recruitment and selection

When hiring the right person for the job, the company’s HR department must choose the source of applicants (Harky, 2018). There are mainly two sources available for recruiting and selecting applicants; Internal and external recruitment (Shammot, 2014). Internal recruitment is the process of filling up the job vacancy by advertising internally and only allowing existing employees of the company to apply for the job. External, on the other hand, is the process of searching for candidates outside the current employee pool to fill job vacancies (DeVaro, 2016). When deciding between the two sources, the company must take into consideration the nature and level of the job, as well as the company’s own HR recruitment policies (DeVaro, 2016). For example, Sri Lankan Airlines opts to recruit internally when a managerial position needs to be filled, and uses external sources of recruitment for cabin crew and cargo loaders.

Sources of internal recruitment:

• Promotions- This refers to the upgrading of a currently employed worker to a more responsible and higher paid job with greater privileges (Shammot, 2014). Engineering department of Sri Lankan Airlines, for example, tend to promote qualified senior technicians to engineers, who have enough experience and have showcased good performance throughout.

• Job postings- Airlines often send current employees to fill job vacancies that are outside of their main base or country, for example, an employee working in Sri Lanka sent to Bangladesh to serve as the station manager, for a period of around two years. Sri Lankan Airline Engineers are also sent to outside line stations, such as Maldives Line Station, to be posted as Line Station Engineers.

• Transfers- This can be considered as job flexibility as well, where the employee is shifted from job to job without any change in his job post or responsibility (Shammot, 2014). A great example is at Sri Lankan Airlines engineering, where the aircraft engineers who are working in the hangars are transferred to workshops to serve as workshop engineers, usually for around a period of six months.

Benefits of internal recruitment

Procedure trainings are greatly reduced because the employee is already aware of the company policies, procedures and culture (Gupta and Kumar, 2014). He or she will, therefore, take less time to adapt to the environment as opposed to a new employee who had just joined the company. This reduces the cost of training for the company. Moreover, the company has better flexibility with their workforce as it knows the capabilities of the candidate and have a better idea of how they will perform in the new role (Gupta and Kumar, 2014). Internal recruitment also boosts the morale of present employees, ensuring that they will always have an opportunity to climb the career ladder in their respective career fields. This further leads to greater motivation to work harder as employees will recognise that their hard work is being rewarded. This, in turn, leads to better performance (Shammot, 2014).

Drawbacks of internal recruitment

As mentioned by DeVaro (2016), one of the biggest drawbacks of recruiting internally is the limited pool of candidates available to choose from. The prospect of hiring the perfect candidate is limited to within the organisation. Therefore, there is always a risk because the current employee may not always be the most suitable. Besides, it also leads to inbreeding, where the bad habits and cultures of present employees are further continued to the top as they get promoted or passed to other departments during a job transfer, which affects the company culture (Shammot,2014). Moreover, if a present employer gets a promotion, for example, the company must replace him with someone else to do his previous job. This takes time and consumes money (Anyim, Ikemefuna and Shadare, 2011).

External sources of recruitment

In addition to internal recruitment methods, companies can choose to recruit externally as well (Saviour et al., 2016). Various sources include:

• Advertisement- This method is one of the widely used forms of reaching across a wide audience quickly. Sri Lankan Airlines uses the local newspapers as one of their methods to advertise job vacancies, ranging from cabin crew positions to technician course programmes.

• E-recruitment- Companies that maintain their public website usually advertise job openings in search of future employees. Sri Lankan Airlines uses this method to advertise job vacancies in engineering, piloting and cabin crew. Cappelli (2001) has researched that it’s one of the most cost-effective ways of advertising.

• Education and training establishments- Also known as campus recruiting, this involves picking and interviewing potential candidates who are almost out of university and are looking to land their first job. They will be eager and well-motivated to perform well and impress their new bosses (Saviour et al., 2016).

• Employee referrals- This is a process where current employees suggest potential candidates for a particular vacancy, and if they are hired, the current employee who refers the candidate often gets rewarded with incentives and bonuses (Saviour et al., 2016).

Figure 1: Percentage of organizations using various external recruitment strategies

 

(source: Tomčíková, 2016)

Advantages of external recruitment

Since it is more of an open process, there is a wider opportunity and greater probability of selecting the most suitable candidate for the job, which otherwise would have been limited, if internally recruited (Harky, 2018). The company can also benefit from a fresh set of skills and ideas that will be a positive in the long run. New and innovative ideas can be shared within the company which creates a better learning culture (Saviour et al., 2016). In addition, there will be lesser involvement of internal politics and bias judgment from within the company as opposed to internal recruitment, where favouritism could play a part in selection. This fair play would ensure that every employee would feel comfortable knowing that he or she is not being discriminated against or unfairly treated in anyway, which otherwise would have happened if a fellow work colleague gets promoted for the job. Another benefit of recruiting externally, as mentioned by Harky (2018) is the added level of competition brought in from the new employees. The current employees would feel that they need to showcase their talent and step up the game. Hence it creates a positive competitive environment and a more motivated workforce, which the company can gain a lot from.

Disadvantages of recruiting externally

Whilst external recruiting has many benefits, it is not without its fair share of drawbacks. For instance, one of the biggest drawbacks is the time and cost that should be incurred by the company, especially the added advertisement costs involved (DeVaro, 2016). Moreover, new employees will take time to get adapted to the company procedures and cultures.  This means that the company should account for a grace period for the initial stages of the learning curve and within that time the organisation cannot expect the maximum employee performance to be achieved (Anyim, Ikemefuna and Shadare, 2011).

The graph below shows the success rate of the different sources of recruitment. As mentioned earlier, Sri Lankan Airlines is a prime example of a company using both internal and external sources of recruitment. However, small companies or start ups usually have no option but to recruit externally since their internal choices are greatly limited.

Figure 2- Effectiveness of using different sources of recruitment on selected businesses

(Source: Gupta and Kumar, 2014)

List of references

• Anyim, F., Ikemefuna, C. and Shadare, A. (2011). Internal Versus External Staffing in Nigeria: Cost-Benefit Implications. Journal of Management and Strategy, [online] 2(4). Available at: http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/jms/article/viewFile/643/309 

• Cappelli, P. (2001). Making the Most of On-Line Recruiting. Harvard Business Review. [online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2001/03/making-the-most-of-on-line-recruiting 

• DeVaro, J. (2016). Internal hiring or external recruitment? The efficacy of internal or external hiring hinges on other policies that a firm uses simultaneously. [online] Available at: https://wol.iza.org/articles/internal-hiring-or-external-recruitment/long 

• Gupta, A. and Kumar, S. (2014). A Study on Recruitment & Selection Process with Reference. ResearchGate. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268210664 

• Harky, Y. (2018). The Significance of Recruitment and Selection on Organizational Performance: The Case of Private owned Organizations in Erbil, North of Iraq. International Journal of Contemporary Research and Review, Section: Social Science, [online] 9(02). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323380295_The_Significance_of_Recruitment_and_Selection_on_Organizational_Performance_The_Case_of_Private_owned_Organizations_in_Erbil_North_of_Iraq 

• Saviour, A., Kofi, A., Yao, B. and Kafui, L. (2016). The Impact of Effective Recruitment and Selection Practice on Organisational Performance (A Case Study at University of Ghana). Global Journal of Management and Business Research: A Administration and Management, [online] 16(11). Available at: https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume16/3-The-Impact-of-Effective-Recruitment.pdf 

• Shammot, M. (2014). The role of human resources management practices represented by employee recruitment and training and motivation for realization of competitive advantage. African Journal of Business Management, [online] 8(1). Available at: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/view/35379 

• Tomčíková, Ľ. (2016). The effective recruitment and selection practices of organizations in the financial sector operating in the Slovak republic. [image] Available at: http://exclusiveejournal.sk/files/files/10/64/25/cb5cae0d6c1a414b8e83d629f14bf20e/cb5cae0d6c1a414b8e83d629f14bf20e.pdf 

·