COMPETITIVAS DETERMINANTES FUNDAMENTO TÉCNICO - METODOLÓGICO

Employee Recruitment

Employee recruitment is the process by which organizations attract potential

workers to apply for jobs. Greater numbers of organizations are developing strategic programs for recruitment. The starting point for a good recruit- ment program is an understanding of the job and what kinds of worker characteristics are required to perform the job. Here, the recruiter relies on the products of job analysis—job descriptions and job specifications (see Chapter 3).

One of the primary objectives of a successful program is to attract a large pool of qualified applicants. A wide variety of recruitment techniques and tactics can be used, including job advertisements on Internet sites (e.g., Monster.com, careerbuilder.com), newspapers and trade magazines and on television, radio, or billboards; the use of employment agencies (including executive search firms—i.e., “headhunters”—for high-level positions); and referrals by current employees. College students are most familiar with on-campus recruitment programs and web-based career sites that post openings as well as allowing applicants and employers to “connect” online, through professional social networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com).

Research has assessed the effectiveness of the various recruitment meth- ods by examining both the quality of newly hired workers and the rate of turnover in new workers. Early evidence suggested that employee referrals and applicant-initiated contacts (that is, “walk-ins”) yielded higher-quality workers and workers who were more likely to remain with the company than newspaper ads or employment agency placement (Breaugh, 1981; Breaugh, Greising, Taggart, & Chen, 2003; Saks, 1994). There are important reasons why employee referrals and walk-ins lead to better workers: First, employees are unlikely to recommend friends and acquaintances who are not good potential workers in order to save themselves from embarrassment. Thus, the referring employees essentially do an informal “screening” that ends up bene- fiting the company. Applicants who directly apply for a position in a company (“walk-ins”) have typically researched the company and/or position and that may suggest that they are more motivated “self-starters” than those applicants responding to ads.

Like many things, the Internet has changed employee recruitment. The larger Internet job sites, such as monster.com and hotjobs.com, have millions of registered job seekers and employers, allowing a potential applicant to search hundreds of jobs in minutes, post a resume, and get career advice. The downside of Internet recruitment, however, is the large number of potential applicants who need to be sifted through. As one researcher puts it, you have to kiss a lot of “frogs” to find the “princes” (Bartram, 2000). Recently, there have been attempts to provide detailed information about what sort of applicants might best fit the positions and the organization and jobs on companies’ Web sites. It has been suggested that an interactive company Web site that would provide feedback about the applicant’s fit could help reduce the number of mismatched applicants (Breaugh, 2008; Hu, Su, & Chen, 2007).

employee recruitment the process by which companies attract qualified applicants

Stop & Review

What are the four processes in a model of human resource planning?

Recruitment is a two-way process: While the recruiting organization is attempting to attract and later evaluate prospective employees, job applicants are evaluating various potential employers (Turban, Forret, & Hendrickson, 1998). Research shows that a majority of young job applicants prefer larger, multinational firms, with a smaller subset preferring working for small orga- nizations (Barber, Wesson, Roberson, & Taylor, 1999; Lievens, Decaesteker, Coetsier, & Geirnaert, 2001). In addition, job seekers are influenced by the type of industry, the profitability of the company, the company’s reputation, the opportunities for employee development and advancement, and the company’s organizational culture (Cable & Graham, 2000; Cable & Turban, 2003; Cober, Brown, Levy, Cober, & Keeping, 2003). There is also considerable evidence that the characteristics of an organization’s recruitment program and of recruiters can influence applicants’ decisions to accept or reject offers of employment (Maurer, Howe, & Lee, 1992; Rynes, 1993; Stevens, 1997). In other words, it is important for organizations to make a favorable impression on a prospective employee to encourage the individual to want to take the job offer (Cable & Turban, 2001). A meta-analysis by Chapman et al. (2005) found that recruit- ers who were viewed by applicants as personable, trustworthy, competent, and informative led to more positive impressions by applicants. Recruiters play an important part in helping applicants decide if there is a good fit between them- selves and the position and organization (Breaugh, 2008).

In their efforts to attract applicants, however, many companies will “oversell” a particular job or their organization. Advertisements may say that “this is a great place to work,” or that the position is “challenging” and offers “tremendous potential for advancement.” This is not a problem if such statements are true, but if the job and the organization are presented in a misleading, overly positive manner, the strategy will eventually backfire. Although the recruitment process may attract applicants, the new employees will quickly discover that they were fooled and may look for work elsewhere or become dissatisfied and unmotivated. An important factor in the recruit- ment process that may help alleviate potential misperceptions is the realistic

job preview (RJP), which is an accurate description of the duties and respon-

sibilities of a particular job. Realistic job previews can take the form of an oral presentation from a recruiter, supervisor, or job incumbent; a visit to the job site; or a discussion in a brochure, manual, video, or company Web site (Breaugh, 2008; Wanous, 1989). However, research indicates that face-to- face RJPs may be more effective than written ones (Saks & Cronshaw, 1990). Another type of RJP that has not received much attention is a work simulation (Breaugh, 2008). We will learn more about work simulations in Chapter 5 in our discussion of employee screening methods.

Historically, research has shown that realistic job previews are important in increasing job commitment and satisfaction and in decreasing initial turnover of new employees (Hom, Griffeth, Palich, & Bracker, 1998; McEvoy & Cascio, 1985; Premack & Wanous, 1985). Some of the positive effects of RJPs are caused by the applicant’s process of self-selection. Presented with a realistic view of what the job will be like, the applicant can make an informed decision about whether the job is appropriate. RJPs may also be effective because they lower

realistic job preview (RJP) an accurate presenta- tion of the prospective job and organization made to applicants

Employee Recruitment 83 unrealistically high expectations about the job and may provide an applicant

with information that will later be useful in dealing with work-related problems and stress (Caligiuri & Phillips, 2003; Wanous, 1992). The implementation of realistic job previews often requires recruiting more applicants for job open- ings, because a greater proportion of applicants presented with the RJP will decline the job offer than when no preview is given. However, the usual result is a better match between the position and the worker hired and a more satisfied new worker.

One recruitment issue that has gotten increasing attention is the unreal- istic expectations that many applicants, particularly young or inexperienced workers, sometimes have about certain jobs and careers. It has been shown that realistic job previews need to be coupled with expectation lowering procedures that work to dispel misconceptions about certain jobs (Morse & Popovich, 2009). For example, many people are drawn to careers in consulting, or to certain health care professions, because the jobs seem important, interesting, and exciting. However, savvy recruiters work to lower expectations among inexpe- rienced applicants, by also focusing, in a realistic way, on the not-so-pleasant aspects of these jobs.

Another important goal for any recruitment program is to avoid inten- tional or unintentional discrimination. Employment discrimination against underrepresented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, the elderly, and the disabled, intentional or unintentional, is illegal. In order to avoid uninten- tional discrimination, employers should take steps to attract applicants from underrepresented groups in proportion to their numbers in the population from which the company’s workforce is drawn. In other words, if a company is in an area where the population within a 10- to 20-mile radius is 40% white, 30% African American, 10% Asian American, and 10% Hispanic, the recruit- ment program should draw applicants in roughly those proportions to avoid unintentionally discriminating against any group.

Not only is it important to be able to attract underrepresented applicants, it is also important to be able to get them to accept job offers. If an organiza- tion is perceived as not welcoming to members of minority groups, it will be difficult to get candidates to accept jobs. For example, research has shown that qualified members of minority groups lost enthusiasm for jobs in organizations that had few minority group members, and few minorities in higher level posi- tions (Avery & McKay, 2006; McKay & Avery, 2006). We will discuss the topics of employment discrimination, equal employment opportunity, and affirmative action later in this chapter.

Due to the competitive nature of recruiting the very best employees, companies need to give greater consideration to recruitment methods and processes. Some researchers have specifically looked at recruitment efforts that target specific groups of potential employees, such as college students. For example, many innovative organizations, particularly those creating web-based innovations (e.g., Google, Facebook, Zynga) are competing hard to recruit high-potential college graduates. Retail giants, such as Wal-Mart, have actively targeted seniors, through associations such as the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP).