Report on Recruitment Process
Submitted by-
Ashutosh Sharma
Intern
Team-24
MWH Holdings
Recruitment & Selection
The most important asset of any organization is the high-calibre employees. Hiring the right
talent, at right time and for right job is one of the biggest challenge for HR Department for
any organization. It involves functions like Recruitment and selection. It becomes a
challenging job to hire employees during recession, and where to go far, COVID-19 is the
best examples where recruiters are facing troubles in hiring. So, before deep diving in, let’s
understand the basics through few definitions-
Some definitions-
• Recruitment- It is the process of “identifying and attracting the potential candidates for
filling up the vacant positions in an organization through proper analysis of job requirements,
reviewing applications, screening and shortlisting and selecting the right candidate. It is a
positive action since involves people to apply for a particular job.
• Selection- It is the process of examining the applicants, in regard to the suitability of the job
and choosing the best from the suitable candidates. In other words, it is a process of rejection
and thus it is often termed as negative process.
The Process of Recruitment-
Before inviting applicants to apply for the job it is important to decide what kind of
candidates are required to be invited. This is conveyed through ‘Job Specifications’
Job specifications are based on Job Descriptions which is dependent on nature and
requirements of job. Thus, job specfications are different for jobs.
Elements of Job specification
• Physical Specifications- For certain jobs, physical specifications are required, for example-
for assembling of electronic equipment good vision is required, for typing job, finger speed is
required. While preparing a Job description, these physical specifications are required. These
may vary from height, weight, vision, hand/foot coordination to age range, voice etc.
• Mental Specifications- These include intelligence, memory, judgement, ability to
read/write, arithmetical abilities etc.
• Emotional and Social Specifications: These include characterstics like personal
appearance, manners, emotional stability, extroversion or introversion, leadership, social
adaptability.
• Behavioral Specifications: Certain management personnel at higher levels of management
are expected to behave in a particular manner. These are not formally listed but have to be
kept in mind during the process of recruitment and selection.
Methods of Recruitment-
Following are the methods of Recruitment-
• Direct Methods- It includes recruitment of students from educational/professional
institutions, employees’ contacts with public, manned exhibits.
Schools and Colleges- For clerical, labour and apprenticeship help, high schools can be
extensively used. For technical, managerial and professional jobs, colleges, university
departments and specialized institutes, like the IITs and IIMs, are used. These institutions
usually have a placement officer a teacher-in-charge of placement, who normally provides
help in attracting employers arranging interviews, furnishing space and other facilities and
providing student resumes. The companies maintain a list of such institutions, keep in touch
with them, send their brochures indicating job openings, future prospects, etc. On the basis of
these students who want to be considered for the given job are referred to the company
recruiter.
Employees’ contact with Public- The employees are informed about the particular
vacancies and they bring this to the notice of their friends, acquintances etc.
Manned Exhibits- Here the recruiters are sent in seminars, exhibitions or conventions for
attracting the talent.
• Indirect Methods- It includes advertisements in newspapers, radio, journals, brochures etc.
When qualified and experienced persons are not available through other sources, advertising
in newspapers and professional and technical journals is made. Whereas all types of
advertisements can be made in newspapers anMd magazines, only particular types of posts
should be advertised in the professional and technical journals; for example, only engineering
jobs should be inserted in journals of engineering.
• Third Party Recruitments- Various agencies and consultancy firms are used for
recruitment of employees adhering to the requirements by the company. “These include
commercial and private employment agencies, state agencies, placement offices of schools/
colleges etc.”
• E-Recruitment- It is the latest trend in Recruitment, also known as Online recruitment
which is very popular nowdays, specially in COVID-19 era. It makes use of technology or
web based tools like job portals(naukri.com, shine.com etc), corporate websites or its own
intranet, social media like Linked In “Many big and small organizations are using Internet as
a source of recruitment. They advertise job vacancies through worldwide web. The job
seekers send their applications or curriculum vitae (CV) through an e-mail using the Internet.
Alternatively job seekers place their CVs in worldwide web, which can be drawn by
prospective employees depending upon their requirements.”
Types of E-Recruitment-
Job Portals- It deals with posting the Job description and job specifications on the job
portals and also searching for suitable Resumes posted on the site with respect to the
openings in the organization.
Social Media/Corporate websites- Like in job portals, the JDs are posted on social media
like LinkedIn from where the CVs are extracted. Also, organizations attract applicants
towards their website where they can apply for particular job by filling few details. The
companies have a well defined applicant tracking system with a proper back-end support.
• Employee Referrals- These are also the latest and one of the most commonly used
recruitment strategies used by companies. As per SHRM website, “using current employees
as a source for job candidates is effective for four main reasons:”
Current employees value their reputation and will refer only those individuals, who they
believe are skilled and competent enough for the organization. This is infact a pre-screening.
They are likely to help the person they referred in mastering the job once they are hired.
Referrals from current employees are an effective way to attract the applicants for job
openings who are not actively looking for a job, but do possess desirable skills, work
experience and work ethics.
In comparison to other methods or traditional methods, applicants hired by employee
referrals tend to have better qualifications, make better employees and stay longer.
Selection Process-
As discussed earlier, selection process includes rejection of unsuitable or less suitable
candidates. From the fig, we can see an ideal selection process consists of several hurdles
which the applicants have to undergo.
Though selection process vary from organization to organization and from one job to other.
They might not be in the same order. The complexity of the process usually increases with
the level and responsibility of the position to be filled.
Interview-
Meaning and Purpose:
In simple words, an Interview is a conversation between one person on one side and the other
person or persons on other side. An interview should serve 3 purposes-
a) To obtain information b) to give information c) motivation
“The interview should provide sufficient information about the employee’s background, work
history, education and interests. The candidate should be given information about the
organization, specific job and personnel policies. It should also try to establish a friendly
relationship between an employer and applicant and motivate the applicant to want to work
for the company
Types of Interview:
Informal interview: This type of interview can take place anywhere. The employer may
ask few questions like name, date of birth, place of birth, work experience etc. These
interviews are generally not planned and is generally used when the labour market is tight
and companies are in dire need of workers.
Formal Interview: This type of interviews are conducted in a formal atmosphere by the
employer in an office with the help of well- structured questions. The time and place of
interview are stipulated by employment office.
Group Interview- Many times companies will conduct a group interview to quickly
prescreen candidates for the job opening as well as give the candidates the chance to quickly
learn about the company to see if they want to work there. Many times, a group interview
will begin with a short presentation about the company. After that, they may speak to each
candidate individually and ask them a few questions.
One of the most important things the employer is observing during a group interview, is how
you interact with the other candidates. Are you emerging as a leader or are you more likely to
complete tasks that are asked of you? Neither is necessarily better than the other, it just
depends on what type of personality works best for the position that needs to be filled.
Panel Interview- This type of interviews are generally conducted by a panel of
interviewers. The panel may consists of different representatives of the company such as
human resources, management and employees. The reason why some companies conduct
Panel interviews is to save time and to get collective opinion of the panel regarding the
candidate.
Behavioural Interviews- In this type of interview, the interviewer asks questions based
on common situations of the job the applicant applies for. The logic behind the behavioral
interview is that your future performance will be based on a past performance of a similar
situation.
Telephonic Interview- This interview is generally conducted when the candidate is not
local or for an initial screening of candidate to check whether they can invite a candiate for
personal interviews. Generally, the schedule for telephonic interviews are well informed to
candidates. These kind of interviews are popular nowadays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Video Interviews- This type of interview is conducted through video calls/conferencing
with the help of tools like skype, zoom, Webex etc. The schedule of interviews are well
informed to the employees. These interviews are less time consuming and the employers are
able to fulfill the purpose of interview without physical presence.
Limitations of Interviews-
At times the judgement of the interviewers might be based on personal prejudices, personal
likes/dislikes, biases.
Halo/Horns effect- One prominent characterstic of a candidate is allowed to dominate. It
can be positive and negative.
A good interviewer must have good knowledge of the job and the requirements. He must be
emotionally stable with sympathetic attitude but without biases. The time and schedule
should be timely shared with the candidates because their time also matters.
