recruitment and selection

Question 1

what is recruitment

Answer 1

attracting and soliciting potential candidates to be employees

Question 2

what is selection

Answer 2

selecting the best suitable candidates to be potential employees

Question 3

what is recruitment and why is it important? Barber (1998, p.5)

Answer 3

‘practices and activities carried out by the organisation with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees’

Question 4

what is recruitment and why is it important? Saks, 2005, p.48

Answer 4

recruitment activities should ‘enhance their [applicants] interest in and attraction to the organisation as an employer; and increase the probability that they will accept a job offer

Question 5

what is recruitment and why is it important? Taylor and Collins, 2000, pg.304

Answer 5

‘recruitment is the most critical human resource function for organisation survival or success

Question 6

what are the aims of recruitment

Answer 6

• to obtain a pool of suitable candidates for vacant posts
• to ensure that all activities contribute to organisational goals and image
• to efficient and cost-effective manner
• to use a fair process and be able to demonstrate that the process was fair

Question 7

what are the factors influencing recruitment

Answer 7

external environment
organisational
the job

Question 8

what is recruitment in the sports context

Answer 8

• sport and leisure is a growing sector
• skills shortage - number of hard to fill vacancies (81% of orgs, CIPD)
• S&L sector is fragmented
• impact of coronavirus on recruitment

Question 9

what is the recruitment process?

Answer 9

1. analysing the job
2. writing the JD and PS
3. deciding the recruitment method
4. deciding the application method
5. marketing the job

Question 10

what is the pre-recruitment/job analysis

Answer 10

• job analysis: ‘a purposeful, systematic process for collecting information on the important work related aspects of the job’ Gatewood and Field, 1998, pg.245

work orientated
- WHAT work is done
- tasks & job duties
- job description

worker/attribute orientated
- the ATTRIBUTES needed to do the work
- KSAOs needed
- person specification

Question 11

what are the 8 great competencies (Bartram, 2005)

Answer 11

• leading and deciding
• supporting and cooperating
• interacting and presenting
• analysing and interpreting
• creating and conceptualising
• organising and executing
• adapting and coping
• enterprising and performing

Question 12

what is open search recruitment methods

Answer 12

• employer’s website
• online job boards/internet job sites
• newspapers
• Jobcentre plus

Question 13

what are closed searches

Answer 13

• internal - redeployment, career development
• word of mouth/employee referral
• links to schools/colleges/universities
• previous applicants/employees

Question 14

what are the external recruitment issues

Answer 14

legal requirements
supply of labour/skills shortages

Question 15

what are the internal issues of recruitment

Answer 15

• nature and level of job
• internal recruit pool
• resources/cost
• targeting particular groups
• diversity - ‘cloning’/excluding particular groups
• nature of contract - fixed term/open contract
• speed urgency
• relationship building and employer branding

Question 16

what is employer branding?

Answer 16

• ‘interactive social process - applicant has as much power as to whether to engage in process or not
• places greater importance on the perceptions of potential and actual applicants
• 69% of UK respondents claimed they have an ‘employer brand’ (CIPD, 2007)
• communicating beyond the job to the whole employment package
• more applicants were submitted to companies ranking high in lists like Fortune (Cable and Urban, 2003)

Question 17

what does the Sunday Times Best Company to work for survey include?

Answer 17

• dimensions on leadership
• personal growth
• well-being/work-life balance
• teamwork
• ‘giving something back’
• the way the company treat staff
• fair pay
• benefits

Question 18

what is good recruitment and selection?

Answer 18

good recruitment = good number of suitability qualified people for the vacancy
selection = finding the most suitable for the job and the organisation

Question 19

what are the assumptions underpinning selection?

Answer 19

1. individual differences between people - not all people are equally suited to all jobs
2. future behaviour can be predicted from past behaviour

Question 20

what are selection methods?

Answer 20

• application forms
• telephone/face-to-face interviews
• testing
• group methods and assessment centres

Question 21

what is the process of shortlisting?

Answer 21

• application form, CV, letter of application
• based on criteria drawn from the person spec
• AFs and CVs scored against the criteria
• more than one person
• same people involved in shortlisting and final selection

Question 22

explain an interview (conversation with purpose)

Answer 22

interviewers
- gather information to inform selection
- impart a realistic picture of the organisation and the job
- leave candidate with a positive impression

candidates
- present relevant strengths
- find out about more
- evaluate the organisation

but can feel one-way especially in panel interviews

Question 23

what are structured interviews?

Answer 23

• series of job-related questions
• standardised - all candidates asked same questions
• generally good predictive validity
• requires clear understanding of ‘good’ performance

Question 24

what is an unstructured interview?

Answer 24

• non-directive, unscripted and respondent-led
• enables exchange of information about values and needs
• value in terms of organisational fit
• poor predictor of job performance

Question 25

what problems can unstructured interviews suffer from?

Answer 25

perceptual problems; - the primacy effect - information overload - stereotyping - halo and horns - personal liking

Question 26

what is psychometric testing?

Answer 26

cognitive/ability - achievement - what the person has learnt to do - aptitude - innate capacities e.g. numerical, verbal, spatial manual dexterity personality - person's tendency to behave, think and feel in certain ways

Question 27

what is performance based testing

Answer 27

hands-on behaviour, examples of job performance

Question 28

what is the evaluation of cognitive tests?

Answer 28

Arnold and Silvester, 2005 research findings show that: - cognitive testing is the single best predictor of job performance across almost all occupational areas - validity is particularly high for jobs of medium and high complexity - applicants do not always find cognitive testing acceptable

Question 29

what are personality tests?

Answer 29

- assess person's habitual tendency to behave, think and feel in a certain way assumptions; - personality is relatively stable - personality traits apply to everyone - traits can be viewed on a continuum - people differ in their position on those continuums

Question 30

what are the big five personality traits

Answer 30

neuroticism extraversion conscientiousness agreeableness openness to new experiences

Question 31

what is neuroticism?

Answer 31

tendency to frequently experience negative emotions such as anger, worry, and sadness as well as being interpersonally sensitive low scorers: not getting irritated by small annoyances, calm, unemotional, secure high scorers: constantly worrying about little things, insecure, feeling inadequate

Question 32

what is extraversion?

Answer 32

tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to enjoy others, the tendency to have a dominant style low scorers: preferring a quiet evening reading to a loud party, sober, unenthusiastic high scorers: being life od the party, active, optimistic, affectionate

Question 33

what is conscientousness?

Answer 33

tendency to be careful, on-time for appointments, follow rules, hardworking low scorers: prefers spur-of-the-moment action to planning, unreliable, careless high scorers: never late for a date, organised, hardworking, neat, self-disciplined

Question 34

what is agreeableness?

Answer 34

tendency to agree and go along with others rather than to assert one's own opinions and choices low scorers: quickly and confidently asserts own rights, irritable, uncooperative, rude high scorers: agrees with others, about political opinions, good-natured, forgiving, helpful, gullible

Question 35

what is openness to experiences?

Answer 35

tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values, feelings and behaviours low scorers: prefers not to be exposed to alternative moral systems, narrow interests, not analytical, down-to-earth high scorers: enjoys seeing people with new things e.g. clothes/piercings, curious, imaginative, untraditional

Question 36

what are the problems with psychometric tests?

Answer 36

- tests are not outstanding predictors of future performance - personality - can be faked and general low predictability of performance - cognitive - doesn't necessarily reflect intelligence. Doesn't capture different types of intelligence - fairness?

Question 37

what are performance tests?

Answer 37

performance tests require the job candidate to actually perform the job, usually in small part or for a short time - two common types of performance tests: - work samples - assessment centres

Question 38

what are assessment centres?

Answer 38

- assessing a group of applicants using a set of competencies - multiple selection techniques - requires a lengthy design process - one of the most effective ways of selecting candidates (Suff 2005) - expensive and time consuming

Question 39

assessment exercises

Answer 39

in basket task presentation group discussion role play psychometric tests structured interview

Question 40

what is the effectiveness of selection methods?

Answer 40

no method if perfect but some better than others "...no single technique, regardless of how well it is designed and administered, is capable of producing perfect decisions that predict with certainty which individuals will perform well in a particular role" (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2008, p.248)

Question 41

advantages of online recruitment for recruiters

Answer 41

larger applicant pools time to hire is reduced promotes the employer brand

Question 42

advantages of online recruitment for applicants

Answer 42

- obtain information on job and company - access to a wide range of jobs and employers - application tracking - more rapid feedback - less travel to complete stages of application

Question 43

what is the association of social media and recruitment?

Answer 43

- increase on accessing info on candidates via technological means (e.g. Van Iddekinge et al, 2013) - ethical issues of screening via online personal profiles (e.g. Chauhan et al, 2013) - potential issues: fast checking, HR managers bias due to what they see online, lower costs, deducing personality, data protection and security - 2012 Reppler study of 300 US recruiters - 91% used social media to screen, 47% decided to interview or not, 69% rejected a candidate based on profiles (Sutherland, 2013)