Disadvantages to the employer of internal appointments
- The candidates doing well role conflict in that they are now senior to people with who they worked with as equals- there may be a problem for them in asserting their power.
- A person promoted internally may be expected to pick up the new job in an unreasonably short space of time.
- Filling a vacancy internally leaves another vacancy to fill note also that where an employer is practising ‘equal opportunity’ policies they cannot favour internal when filling vacancies.
External candidates
Job Description
A job description lists the main tasks required in a job. More and more organisations have job descriptions for every job they have- from the caretaker to the managing director.
In drawing up a job description the personal department has a number of alternatives. These are:
- The line manager can draw up a description of what the job entails
- The existing job holder can do it
- The human resources manager can interview the job holder and the line manager to find out what the job involves.
In most cases it is probably best to combine approaches.
Clearly the second approach may produce a biased view of what the job involves. After all, most people are likely to exaggerate the importance of what they do and the effort that is required to do it. Moreover, the job holder may emphasise those duties they prefer to do rather that their most important duties. Also, since they are leaving they may not bother to do a very thorough job of it anyway.
On the other hand, in approach to my first point- the line manager will probably miss out many little but important tasks which are only obvious to the job holder.
The aim of the exercise is to itemise all the tasks involved in a job and try to allocate to proportion of the working week to each task. The list of tasks, and the relative importance of each one, is vitally important for several reasons:
- In carrying out appraisals of employees- a manager cannot appraise his employees if he/she does not know what the job involves
- When analysing the job for training needs the manager must be able to see what tasks a job involves so that he/she can determine what training may be required.
- In planning the size of the workforce for the future, it will be necessary to know exactly what tasks each job involves in case the re-allocation of tasks between jobs is required, e.g. three people may be required to share the work of a forth post which is being made redundant- this cannot be done fairly without a detailed knowledge of the tasks involved in the forth post.
- For pay determination- analysis of, and comparisons between, job descriptions means that each job can then be allocated a pay rate. This process is known as ‘job evaluation’. A simple example is where clerical jobs which include the responsibility for handling money get a higher ranking, and therefore higher pay, than clerical jobs which do not.
Clearly, none of this is possible without good quality and detailed job descriptions.
Drafting the Job Description
From all the information collected, by whichever method is chosen, it will then be necessary to draw up the document itself. People that apply for jobs will be sent a job description along with an application form and a personal specification.
Main features of a job description-
- The job title
- The location of the job
- A brief outline of what the employing organisation does
- The main purpose of the job
- A detailed list of the main tasks required
- The standards that the job holder will be required in the job
- Pay other benefits
- Promotion prospects
- The person to whom the job holder reports
- The person(s) who report(s) to the job holder.
This day’s employees are expected to be more flexible and to be able to do a wider range of work. This shows that point 1 tends to be broader than it used to be.
Advertising the Job
Before writing the advertisement the employer must determine exactly what is wanted from the job being advertised. To ensure this the employer must look carefully at the person specification, what type of person is required, job description, what the person will be required to do in the job, before writing the advert.
Ikea
Part-time Human Resources Administrator 26 hours per week
To maximise your HR initiatives to strengthen our vision, business idea and HR idea to make IKEA the best retailer to work for in the UK market.
You will provide administration support to the small HR team including preparing contracts, logging and following up job applications and taking responsibility for monitoring the sick procedure.
You will be able to work on your own initiative with high accuracy and attention to detail. You will be computer literate including using MS Word and Excel plus experience of using databases. You will have the ability to demonstrate a high degree of confidentiality and have excellent interpersonal skills.
You will ensure that HR filing systems are maintained and up to date. You will contribute to the development of the HR function in the store.
Hours will be 26-30 hours per week, 5/7 days
Letter of application, CVs and references
Once Ikea has attracted a number of candidates, the next stage will be to reduce all the candidates to a smaller enough group so they can all be individually invited for an interview. For most jobs e.g. cashier there are many applicants and a simple quick process is needed to sort them out. Some jobs are more complicated, these would be jobs like a manager position where there would be few candidates who will be taken seriously which means Ikea can spent more time on investigating them.
The three main documents assessed in this sorting process are:
- Letter of application
- Curriculum Vitae (CV)
- Application form
All Business require at least on of these documents when recruiting more staff.
CV
Some people unfortunately to not take time and care on their CV. These people do it in an unprofessional and untidy way which will not impress a possible employer. These CV’s are usually badly typed or even hand written.
If you aren’t that confident that you could write and put together your own CV then these days there are plenty specialists agencies that can prepare CV’s for people in a professional manner. CV’s should always be written in a word processing document and printed neatly.
In your CV you put everything that would normally be asked for in an application form this includes-
- Name and Address
- Telephone number
- E-mail address
- Date of Birth
- Martial status
- Education and qualifications
- Training
- Employment history
- Hobbies and interests
- References
When listing employment in chronological order, start with the most recent job, this same rule applies to education and employment.
Letter of Application
This is just a letter that could be written or word-processed asking for the job and explaining why the writer is suitable for it. The letter will be structured in any way the writer thinks is appropriate to the job, this fact alone makes it a useful selection method.
Advantages
The personnel staff will have identified specific requirements from the job and person specifications. They can then compare these with information on the forms. The business only needs to interview those people who have met those qualifications the business is asking for.
References
There are several different types of references. These are:
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Testimonial a letter, usually from a former employer or teacher which will say very positive and kind things about the applicant. As the applicant has been given this letter it is unlikely that the writer will make anything other than positive helpful statements (clearly, if the writer did say something critical the applicant would tear the testimonial up and look around for someone else to write one)
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Reference letters requested the prospective employer- this is the most usual type of reference. The letters are confidential so that the referee can be completely honest without embarrassment, but it may not tell the prospective employer all he/she know. Employers can learn to ‘read between the lines’, and often omission of information can be a telling factor.
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Reference forms some organisation, the civil service for example, use a structured form with specific questions about the applicant. These include assessments on effort, ability, and about their honesty and health
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Telephone references some organisations telephone the people given as references. The main benefit is that the recruiter can asses the tone of the voice of the referee, and this can often say far more about an applicant than a letter can.
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Medical reference most employers will carry out some kind of medical check up even if it is just a completion of a medical form asking a few simple questions. These checks are necessary because-
- The employer needs to safeguard the health of other employers
- The job itself may require specific health standards
- If an employer is to join a company pension scheme a medical check- up will be needed
- Medical matters of growing importance- notably the problem of AIDS- may mean that in the future medical checks will have to be tougher, this includes blood tests.
Interview
Interviewer- The interview is one of the last stages within the recruitment process and one of the most important, often these days the applicant will also get a small test of some kind to go along with the interview. Interviews are arranged for nearly all kinds of jobs. Only a few of the people who applied for the job will get interviewed this is because after the human resources department have sifted through all the CV’s, application forms, and references they should have narrowed the list down to a few applicants. The list is narrowed down to save time and money this is because usually the senior manager must be present at an interview, this means if he has less interviews to do he has more time for other things.
Interviewing- interviewing has to be conducted in an appropriate manner for the business if it is not the business may get a bad name from it. To prevent this most businesses follow these simple rules-
- The interviewer must ask ‘what are my objectives? What im a looking for? How will I phrase the question I am going to ask? The interviewer must be able to fill in the gaps that the CV and application form didn’t answer.
- Decide if the vacancy requires just one interviewer or two. It could even have a panel of up to 4-5 interviewers. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.
- ‘One on one’ interviews put applicants at ease so that they will talk more naturally the problems are that
- A single interviewer lacks range
- A single interviewer is more likely to suffer from bias and can be highly prejudiced.
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Mirror imaging favouring candidates who are like them.
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‘Halo’ effects favouring candidates who have particular attractive characteristics even if those characteristics have little bearing on the job applied for.
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‘Horns’ effect opposite to above.
Tests
Nowadays it is increasingly common for employers to expect job applicants to carry out tests this is to give a fuller picture of their ability for the job applied for. These are usually referred to as aptitude tests. They are appropriate for manual work where there is some skill involved and also in office work where applicants might be required to take short typing or word processing test. For professional posts such as tests are less usual because it is felt that the candidate’s qualifications, references and experience are sufficient evidence. In more recent years new developments in testing have included.
Psychometric Testing
Psychometric tests assess the intelligence and personality of applicants. They are much more sophisticated than aptitude tests and the employer must have properly trained staff to analyse the test results properly. Such tests are particular valuable when assessing intelligence, interest in the job applied for, motivation and personality. The producers of such tests (there are dozens available)
Verbal reasoning
This test is to see how you reason with words.
Contact
The contact side of the recruitment process is the simplest of all the areas of function. The business uses methods such as telephone, e-mail, and letters to contact any applicants who may have applied for the job. The human resources department maintains this to make sure the business ensures these methods are kept in place.