Benefits and Problems of Recruitment and Selection
Table of Contents
.0 - Introduction 2
2.0 - Recruitment and Selection 3
2.1 - What is Recruitment? 3
2.2 - What is Selection? 3
3.0 - Discussions 4
3.1 - Objectives of Recruitment and Selection 4
3.2 - The Benefits of Recruitment and Selection 5
3.3 - The Problems of Recruitment and Selection 6
4.0 - Conclusion 7
5.0 - Reference List 8
.0 - Introduction
The sales force role in an organisation is one that must not be underplayed because they are considered as one of the most important individuals in an organisation. This is because the sales forces are the people who would be out on constant search for clients who would in return bring business and provide income to the company. Therefore, hiring the right sales person is one of the most important elements in determining the organisation's success as sales management is the fundamental management of any organisation's personal selling function, (Lawlor 1995, 76).
Sales management is the function of planning, directing, and controlling the personal selling activities of a business unit, (Hair et al. 2009, 4). Personal selling is defined as personal communication with an audience through paid personnel of an organization. Hence, they must be able to liaise with people in the personal selling function or other functional areas in the organization including consumers outside the organization, (Ingram et al. 2006, 2).
Therefore, the recruitment and selection of sales people in a business is important and problems would arise if the wrong person was selected for the job.
2.0 - Recruitment and Selection
2.1 - What is Recruitment?
The first step to gather the right sales force is through recruitment. Recruitment is the finding of potential job applicants, telling them about the company and also getting them to apply. However, the company should focus on finding applicants who are potentially good employees and the entire sales organisation would ultimately depend on a successful recruiting approach, (Hair et al. 2009, 212).
A recruiter's job is basically matching the skills of the potential job seeker to the needs of the company, (Futrell 2006, 515).
2.2 - What is Selection?
Selection comes into play after the recruitment process. Selection is the activities involved in choosing candidates that best meet the qualifications and have the greatest amplitude for the job which means choosing the right people for the job. The main selection processes are initial screening, checking references, in-depth interviewing, employment testing and follow-up interviewing, (Hair et al. 2009, 222).
However, this is also a hard task as it takes time before results from the selected people can be seen. If the person can't sell, it would be too late by then as the company would have experienced much loss. Hence the million dollar question is, "What makes a good salesman?", (Matthews and Redman 2001, 543).
3.0 - Discussions
3.1 - Objectives of Recruitment and Selection
The main objective of recruitment and selection in a business is to help determine the present and future needs of the company in terms of numbers and types ...
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However, this is also a hard task as it takes time before results from the selected people can be seen. If the person can't sell, it would be too late by then as the company would have experienced much loss. Hence the million dollar question is, "What makes a good salesman?", (Matthews and Redman 2001, 543).
3.0 - Discussions
3.1 - Objectives of Recruitment and Selection
The main objective of recruitment and selection in a business is to help determine the present and future needs of the company in terms of numbers and types of sales people. This is to help ensure that all recruitment and selection activities would contribute to the company's goals and the creation of a desirable company image. Not only that, it can also be used as a fair process to conduct the recruitment activities in an efficient and cost-effective manner, reduce the number of underqualified or overqualified applicants and evaluate the effectiveness of recruiting sources and evaluation techniques, (Ingram et al. 2006, 128).
(Mayer and Greenberg 2006) stated that there are two essential attributes needed for one to be a good salesperson which are empathy and ego drive. A balance between the two attributes is needed to be a good salesperson. This means that the salesperson needs to be able to place himself in his client's shoes and understand the situation while also having the ability to close the deal.
A salesperson is not a good one if he gets along well with his clients but is not able to close a sale which also means that a good salesperson would have to have the ego drive to fully utilise whatever empathy he possesses (Mayer and Greenberg 2006, 106).
3.2 - The Benefits of Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment of high quality staffs with the right skills on the appropriate contracts would definitely deliver the key objectives of the position and organisation. Besides that, ensure the equality of opportunities between people is also considered as an integral part of the recruitment practice as this encourages diversity. Hence, sales turnover rates would increase in the end, (Futrell 2006, 515). Not only that, proper recruitment and selection would allow the company to ensure that they would have adequate sales coverage in a particular area without lacking customer service. This would ultimately help increase and maintain the optimal total sales force performance and ensure that recruitment is effective as a key public relations exercise for all involved personnel, (Ingram et al. 2006, 124).
Apart from that, the continuous monitoring and reviewing would improve the recruitment process as more accurate information can be obtained from those who are involved in the process. This can in turn facilitate and encourage the best practice of recruitment and selection by training those involved to follow a structure and systematic process of recruitment and selection. (Futrell 2006, 516).
Sources of recruitment are either from an internal department or from external sources such as a competitor's company or the internet. The main advantage of internal recruiting is that the employers would know their employees and the employees would know the organisation well. Thus, locating sales recruits through employee referral programs are relatively quick and inexpensive as compared to other recruitment methods, (Ingram et al. 2006, 131).
On the other hand, external recruitment would bring in "new blood" to a company which inspires innovation. With the current development in technology, recruiting through the internet has become one of the best ways as it would cost nearly ten times less compared to other mediums such as the newspapers or magazines (Kerrigan 2001). Therefore, companies should utilize their website to the fullest as it will give potential recruits the very first impression of the company and it is suggested that the company website should have a direct link to the "Jobs" section. Not only that, the website should also have interactive features to attract and allow job applicants to apply easily. (Castleberry 2002, 535).
3.3 - The Problems of Recruitment and Selection
Problems do occur when the wrong people are recruited and selected to do a particular job. One of the problems usually occurs when the company decides to not hire anyone for a long period. This would lead to a large number of quits in future years due to the ageing of the personnel and would ultimately endanger mobility and flexibility and lead to problems related to production disruption when a relatively large scale recruitment has to be carried out in a short time spell, (Giovanni 1995, 9).
Besides that, problems also occur when the company decides to recruit and select internally. This is because a staff from a different department might have no experience or knowledge in another field. Also, interviews like any other selection tools, may fail to predict adequate information of the personnel on the job due to the interviewer being bias or allowing his personal opinions, attitudes and beliefs to influence the judgements about a candidate, (Ingram et al. 2006, 142).
Not only that, a company might end up recruiting and selecting a person which has the personality of a leaver. This means that the employee is one that would not try and just quit the job if he feels like it. This would ultimately cost the company more time and money as the company would need to recruit and select another person to replace the leaver's job, (Pendlebury 1970, 325).
Apart from that, if the company selects a wrong person with no proper experience or knowledge in the job, training programs would have to be given which is not only time consumer but also expensive. On top of that, the turnover rate for sales people are usually very high as most sales people do not just sell for one company in their lifetime and ends up working for other companies. (Cron et al. 2005, 124).
4.0 - Conclusion
In conclusion, the roles of recruitment and selection are crucial to a sales force and its company. Both recruitment and selection are equally important as they are dependent of one another. Without proper recruitment, there wouldn't be enough high potential sales people which would be able to bring in extra income to the company. Without selection, the company would be having an increase in costs and training will be wasted on individuals who are not meant to sell.
When both recruitment and selection are executed appropriately by the company, a good sales force can be built and would have the potential to achieve consistent revenue or exceed current sales for the company ensuring more income. High turnover rates could also be reduced because if the sales force is good, the company will be happy and in return will keep the sales force happy.
If recruitment and selection are handled wrongly by the company, it would lead to the company having problems related to production disruption which would in the end cause the company to be in a loss.
5.0 - Reference List
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