According to the literature this kind of job description is prevailing tone. Job descriptions are based on a detailed job analysis. There are several ways of analysis methods, the more sophisticated the method, and the more reliable is the information from the job. In our case the used method was the mixture of self-description and observing. The problem with this analysis, that it is very person dependent, and in case of a new kind of problem, it is not applicable. On the other hand this kind of methods are inappropriate for higher level of management.
There are techniques such as critical-incident or workshop analysis, which could carry out reliable source for the job descriptions, but these are time consuming and need experience to apply them in the actual circumstances.
The Personnel Department, with the approval of the Treasurer defines this kind of specification. There are the requirements for skills, educational background, and experience and these are derived from the actual job description. However in many cases this kind of specifications contain the previous employee’s personal skills and data, and obviously this kind of specification can not be the most sophisticated.
There are suitable classification schemes in the literature for person specification. The most common used the seven-point plan and the fivefold grading system. These methods can give clear framework for interviewing candidates. However these methods are known in our Human Resource Department, the use is not recognisable.
A new state of the art approach is spreading nowadays, the competency-based method. This kind of classification uses competencies, defined for the actual role, and applies the results as framework in the interviews. This kind of approach would be the most suitable in our department, and it can define the selection method in the next stages of recruitment and selection.
Attraction of candidates
In this stage of recruitment the aim is to collect the most suitable candidates for position.
Internal or external source
The first question is if internal workforce can fulfil the job or not. In our case, there are equal opportunities for the internal candidates; they can also apply for the advertised jobs. There is a company newspaper and an Intranet, where these ads can be found.
In several cases an internal candidate can be better solution, because the application of this kind of workforce has less risks.
At the Treasury Department we use advertisements in financial newspapers. A good worded newspaper advertisement can attract manageable number of applicants. During the drafting of the advertisement, we have to take some legal aspect into consideration. For example the sex and rate discrimination acts.
This is the most obvious way to recruit candidates. The media type and the style of the advertisement are the most important factors. These have to pass to the advertised position. A good choice of the advertisement can function as a first filter.
As I mentioned in the introduction, this is a small, closed market. The possible candidates are working at the competitor Treasury. So it is easier to make a direct seductive offer to the spotted candidate. It is not a very fair way, but effective and time saving. In most of the cases it happens with direct appeal.
This is a more efficient but more expensive way if we use mediator agencies in the process of attracting candidates. A recruitment consultant firm can overtake the most of the burden of selecting among the candidates, and provide the most suitable ones. In case of lack of applicants, these kinds of firms can search for the right person too. Using an executive search consultant firm is extremely expensive, but it is worth to use in case of the top positions.
Selection procedure
This is the stage when the employer tests candidates’ suitability by matching the role with the person. This procedure has several steps, which can be illustrated in a flow chart. First let’s see our company’s practice of selection, and than examine the stages.
In our case, the attracted candidates send their curriculum vitae and cover letter to the Personnel Department. According to the basic personal specification the personnel officer makes the first selection among the applicants. The personnel officer passes the possible candidates’ data to the Chief dealer, who makes the second selection. The candidates, who were short-listed, are asked for a personal interview with the Treasurer, Chief dealer and Personnel officer. This interview has a dual aim; first they check the applicant professional background, second to examine the candidate personality. This point of the process the interviewers have gathered the available information about the candidate from the given references. After the personal meeting, the Treasurer, the Chief dealer and the Personnel officer discuss the result of the interview, and the references, and make a decision. If their decision is positive the Personnel officer makes an offer to the candidate in the possible price range. After this offer there is a little room for the negotiation about the package. If the candidate accepts the offer, they sign the contract, and the candidate becomes an employee.
There are several methods for selection people. The more we use the better result we can get. These are curriculum vitae, interviews, assessment centres and psychological tests. And there are countries where graphology is a common way. References can also provide interesting information about the candidate. We have to take these information into consideration, when we are deciding to employ a person.
In our case the applied methods are curriculum vitae, interview and references.
CV and cover letter
As a first contact the applicant sends his curriculum vitae and cover letter. In many cases a standardised application form can be more helpful to gain the necessary information about the candidate. But the self-made curriculum vitae is much more personal and sometimes it can give additional information about the creativity of the candidate. Good curriculum vitae consist of demographic details, employment history and work experience, educational and professional qualifications, and leisure interests. In the cover letter the candidate can write down anything, which is not in the curriculum vitae, for example his carrier motivation.
INTERVIEW
An interview is a conversation with a special purpose. The main purpose of a job interview is to gather enough information about the candidate to make a prediction of the candidate’s future performance in the organisation. The interviewer has to find the answers for the three fundamental questions. Can the candidate do the job? Will the candidate do the job? And how the candidate will fit into the organisation?
Before the interview preparation is important. We have to review the personal and role specification and the applicant’s curriculum vitae to recognise the overlapping areas and the possible deficiency of the applicant. Our role is to explore these areas during the interview.
Structured and unstructured interviews
According to the approach of interviewing, there are two ways. There are unstructured and structured interviews. The unstructured ones follow the biography of the candidate or use the assessment headings of the seven-point plan or the five-fold grading system. There is no need for long preparation in case of this type of interview. The only thing is to decide the sequence of questions.
The structured interviews are the situational-based and the behavioural based interviews. This kind of interviews give more information about the applicant possible behaviour in the offered position. The common thing in the last two type, that the questions are prepared on the basis of the role analysis and the person specification.
Questions of an interview
The tools of the interview are questions. Using different type of questions result different type of answers. The interviewee should be encouraged to do most of the talking. To achieve this there are several type of questions in the inventory of the interviewer. Some of the most important types:
Open questions are the best way to encourage the candidates to talk, and the replies can provide a lot of useful information.
Probing questions digs deeper. After a general answer to an open question, using of probing questions the interviewer can go into the details.
Closed questions are good to declare facts. The answers can be even one word.
Hypothetical and behavioural questions are used in structured interviews, as mentioned before. This kind of questions tests the candidate approach or behaviour in case of a hypothetical problem or situation.
Capability questions explore the candidate’s knowledge, skills and competencies. Their purpose is to provide evidence that the applicant is up to the job’s required specifications.
Carrier and motivation questions try to find out what kind of factors can motivate and move the applicant.
Continuity questions keep the conversation fluent; these encourage the applicant to talk on.
Playback questions test the right understanding of the reply.
Focused work questions deal with the general tasks of working, for example absence, late arriving, etc.
Stages of an interview
- Opening
Usually starts with the welcome and introduction. The aim of this stage to establish good atmosphere, and to encourage interviewee to feel easy in the situation. It is good to use simple open questions and it is not important to jump in the main task at the beginning.
- Major part
This is the stage of the real questioning of the applicant. The aim is to obtain the necessary information about the person to compare with the personal specification. We can use here all type of questions mentioned above.
- Introduction of the position
In this part of the interview, the interviewer acquaints the candidate about the company and provides all necessary information about the job.
- Answering questions
It is vital to allow the interviewee to ask questions emerged during the interview, or during the introduction of the position. In some case a good question can give more information about the person than an answer.
- Closing
At the closing the interview it is useful to summarise the main points of the discussion in some sentence. Ask the interviewee if he has anything he wishes to add in support of the application. At the end the interviewer informs the applicant about the next step and thanks all of information.
Practice at my organisation
The interview method at my company is interviewing panel, where more than one person interviews the candidate in a face to face discussion. This kind of interview has the advantage, that the interviewers can discuss their impressions about the applicant. The individual interview is more personal, but it could be override by subjective judgement. The third type of interview is the selection board. It is very formal, the questions of the different interviewers unplanned, and there is a possibility that one dominating person’s judgement rule the whole board. It seems to me, that we are using the best method among the interviews.
In the practice of our company the interview type is biographical. The situation is that the participants on our market know each other quite well, that is the reason for a fairly simple method of interviewing. However in some cases a structured interview can avoid some misunderstanding. Some behaviour-based question can be useful during the interview.
Psychological test
These tests are measuring the individuals’ abilities and characteristics. To prepare a good test is hard task; a good one provides reliable data about the applicants’ characteristics. There are many types of tests. The personality tests could based on the big five-factor model.
However there are some attack against personality tests in the literature, the majority of psychologists agree with the use of personality inventories. This kind of test can provide valuable supplementary information about the applicant, which are very hard to recognise during a personal face-to-face interview. In our case this kind of test is missing, according to my view it would be helpful to fill out a test with the applicant at the first meet.
References
With the selection methods above, we managed to get information directly from the applicant. The purpose of reference is not to checking the received information, but to obtain in confidence factual data about the candidate and opinions about his character. References can be written ones, but a phone chat with the previous or present employer has measurable result.
Using references in this kind of confidential type of job is essential. My organisation use to ask minimum two professional references from the different organisations of the banking sector.
Follow up and monitoring
After we managed to find the right person to the right position, we contract with him for a trial period. During this time we can ensure that the new employee has settled in and we can check him in the real working circumstances. If there is any problem with the employee, we have to find out where is the mistake in the recruitment and selection process and how can we achieve improvement.
AN INTERVIEW PLAN
I prepared a possible interview plan of a dealer position in our dealingroom. I tend to use a mix of the studied interview approaches. First of all I have to check the position’s person specification and point out the major skills and requirement, which are essential for a bond trader’s job. These are:
Work based experience:
- knowledge of domestic bond markets;
- calculating skills;
- computer using skills
- fluent English knowledge.
Behavioural competencies:
- able to relate well to others;
- flexible, able to cope with change;
- able to tolerate stress;
- able to communicate well;
- able to make fast decisions;
- straight personality;
- loyalty to the company.
Qualifications:
- graduation in economics;
- stock exchange examination.
According to the applicant’s biography and the personal specification I grouped the questions. Some question can useful from the situational and behavioural based approaches to test the applicant reactions in the most critical situations. The questions of the major part of the interview can be to following:
Qualification:
- Where did you graduate?
- Why did you choose this kind of study?
Experience:
- How long have you been working on the bond market?
- How much part of your day do you spend with trading, analysing and administrating?
- Please describe your ordinary day.
- What are the most important aspects of your present job?
- Why do you want to leave your recent job?
Abilities:
- What is your opinion about the Hungarian bond market and economic outlook of the country?
- Are you familiar with the trading tools and information suppliers?
- What sort of problems have you successfully solved in your recent position?
- Tell me about the last analysis you made on the bond market.
Behaviour:
- Do you able to make fast decisions?
- What do you do when you are nervous?
- Has your boss ever charged you?
- Are you used to be late from work?
- How many days’ absence did you have last year?
Motivation:
- Why did you decide to apply this position?
- What do you want to achieve in the next five years?
Interests:
- Have you got any hobby or special interest?
- What do you do in your spare time?
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
As we can see in the previous chapters, my organisation has a well-established recruitment and selection method and practice. It is not a surprise at a kind of institution like a big bank with more than 2500 employees. The methods of the modern human resource management are well known and applied in several cases.
The job descriptions and personal specification is well documented. The recruitment method is well planned; the different stages of selection provide effective filtering. According to the big size of HR department, the personnel of the department make the recruitment and the selection in most cases; the outsourcement of the tasks is rare. The selection based on interviewing panel method, the style of the interview is unstructured and based on the applicant biography and the job’s person specification. The two professional interviewer dominate in the panel, and their opinion is decisive. The use of references is common, and information is taken into account during the decision.
The role of the personnel officer in the process, to make to first filtering, to co-ordinate the procedure and to give theoretical background. However this kind of theoretical backing is missing in some places.
Legal issues didn’t emerge during the process.
Recommendation
The approach of the human resource department to the Treasury’s specific demand is highly positive. They accept the clashing opinions of the management of the Treasury and in the decisions the judgement of the Treasury is determining. There is some point where the opinion and knowledge of the personnel officer could be more emphatic.
There is a need for more sophisticated analysis of job descriptions and the personal specifications. This could give good basis for the structure of the interview.
A psychological test would provide some important information about the candidate.
A structured interview planned by the help of the HR officer would bring better understanding of the applicant adequacy. As a minimum some behavioural question could be effective during the interview.
Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 349.
Torrington and Hall, Personnel management, Prentice Hall, 1991
See the fields of HR management, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 1st Chapter, Page 12
Grant, Personnel Journal, 1988, Human Resource Management, Oxford Brookes University CME
Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 22nd Chapter, Page 289
Roger, 1952, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 352
Munro-Fraser, 1954, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 353
Roberts, 1997Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 353
Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 358
Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 368
Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 368
Roger, 1952, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 352
Munro-Fraser, 1954, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 24th Chapter, Page 353
Intelligence, ability, aptitude, attainment, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 26th Chapter, Page 399
Roberts, 1997, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 26th Chapter, Page 401
Schmitt, Blinkorn and Johnson, Michael Armstrong, Human Resource Management Practice, 7th edition, 26th Chapter, Page 403
The stages of the interview was discussed in the previous section. In this section I focused on the main part of the interview.