Methods of Recruitment

Recruitment is the primary tool for attracting applicants (de Waal, 2018; Stevens et al., 2010). Recruiters attract potential applicants by sending messages which contain information about the organization, job, career advancement, company culture, etc. through various communication media (Priyadarshini et al., 2017). The HR department of the company must choose the source of applicants when hiring the right person for the job (Harky, 2018). 

According to Armstrong and Taylor (2014) the methods of recruitment of a business entity are often categorized into;

·       Internal recruitment - When the business fills the vacancy from the existing workforce within the organization.

·       External recruitment - When the business fills the vacancy from a suitable applicant outside the organization. 

When selecting between the two sources stated above, the company must take into consideration the nature and level of the job, as well as the company’s HR recruitment policies (DeVaro, 2016). For example, Sri Lankan Airlines usually opts to fill the managerial positions internally and uses external sources of recruitment for cabin crews and cargo loaders.

Internal Recruitment

• Promotions- This refers to the upgrading of a currently employed worker to a more responsible and higher-paid job with greater privileges (Shammot, 2014). The engineering department of Sri Lankan Airlines, for example, promotes engineering technicians as Assistant engineers who have enough experience and come up with extraordinary performance.

• Transfers- This can be considered as a means of job flexibility as well, where the employee is shifted from job to job without any change in his job post or responsibility (Shammot, 2014).  

• Job postings- This method involves sending current employees to fill job vacancies that are outside of their main base or country, for example, an employee working in Sri Lankan Airlines is sent to Bangladesh to serve as the station manager, for around two years.

External Recruitment

·       Advertisements: It has been typically observed that the organizations do advertise their vacant positions both on the electronic print media as well as the different types of other media channels to attract different types of talented applicants (Russo et al., 2000). An advertisement is generally developed to trigger the responsiveness of concerned applicants.

·    Contracting Agencies: A recruitment agency, also known as a labor broker, is an organization that takes the responsibility of recruiting employees for an organization for an agreed consideration. This arrangement seems to be very efficient in recruiting the most capable employees from different fields (Florea, 2014). It has been observed that these types of contracting agencies are highly beneficial to employers in the selection of a proper type of candidate.

·     Employee Referrals: Employee referral is denoted as a recruitment technique where employees are given the chance of recommending potential individuals outside of the organization for vacant positions (Stephen et al., 2013). In this method, the employees are selected based on the referrals of the present employees in an organization (Rajarao, 2010). In most cases, organizations prefer this method for better performance results. The most beneficial aspects of the method are that it saves time and cost of recruitment procedures for an organization, and enhances the process of recruitment to a greater extent. 

·    E-Recruitment: E-recruitment has become a common workforce sourcing technique during the COVID- 19 pandemic time. The majority of companies are using technology for all possible business activities, due to the social distancing measure including recruitment (Ptel, 2020). 

·     Labor and Union Offices: Unions are very useful when it comes to requirements of various types of organizations like building, construction industries, and printing (Keshav, 2013). It has been noticed that a labor pool is generally available with such types of unions and they are useful in predicting the nature and the type of the employees that will be hired.

 

Figure 1: Percentage of organizations using various external recruitment strategies

(source: Tomčíková, 2016) 

However, most suitable recruitment method should be recognized in order to minimize the challenges of the process.

 

References

·       Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S. 2014. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource     Management Practice. 13th ed. Ashford Colour Press Ltd. London

·    DeVaro, J. (2016). Internal hiring or external recruitment? The efficacy of internal or external hiring hinges on other policies that a firm uses simultaneously.

·    de Waal, A. (2018), “Increasing organizational attractiveness: the role of the HPO and happiness at work frameworks”, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 121-141.

·     Florea, N. V. (2014). Using recruitment agencies to obtain the best candidates. Land Forces Academy Review, 19(1), 80-89

·     Harky, Y. (2018). The Significance of Recruitment and Selection on Organizational Performance: The Case of Private Owned Organizations in Erbil, North of Iraq. 

·       Priyadarshini, C., Sreejesh, S. and Anusree, M.R. (2017), “Effect of information quality of employment website on attitude toward the website: a moderated mediation study”, International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 729-745.

·      Ptel, M. (2020). Social Posting in Covid-19 Recruiting Era-Milestone HR Strategy Augmenting Social Media Recruitment. Dogo Rangsang Research Journal, 10(6), 82-89.

·      Russo, G., Rietveld, P., Nijkamp, P., & Gorter, C. (2000). Recruitment channel use and applicant arrival: An empirical analysis. Empirical economics, 25(4), 673-697.

·      Shammot, M. (2014). The role of human resources management practices represented by employee recruitment and training and motivation for realization of competitive advantage. 

·       Tomčíková, Ľ. (2016). The effective recruitment and selection practices of organizations in the financial sector operating in the Slovak republic.