Maple leaf shoes ltd case study

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C H a P T E R

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

LO1 Explain the strategic importance of the recruitment function.

LO2 Discuss the constraints facing a typical recruiter.

LO3 Identify the appropriate recruiting methods for different types of jobs.

LO4 Explain how to generate effective recruitment advertisements.

LO5 List key measures for evaluating the effectiveness of the recruitment function.

Recruitment

LEaRNING ObjECTIvEs

In this ever-changing, global, technologically demanding business environment, sourcing and retaining talent becomes the competitive battleground. Just as sports teams recruit aggressively for best athletes, business organizations in the future will compete aggressively for the best talent … Successful firms will be those most adept at attracting, developing and retaining individuals with the skills, perspective and experience sufficient to drive a global business.

Dave Ulrich 1

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172 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

Finding new employees for the organization is a continuing challenge for most human resource departments. Sometimes the need for new workers is known well in advance because of detailed human resource plans. At other times, the human resource department is faced with urgent requests for replacements that must be filled as quickly as possible. In either case, finding qualified applicants is a key activity, as seen in the following example:

Consulting giant Accenture Inc. is a leading employer in Canada with about 4,500 employees. Globally, Accenture hired approximately 70,000 employees in 2011 including about 1,000 new workers hired in Canada. Their projections were for a similar-sized hiring spree in 2012. With this fast-paced growth, Accenture faces one of the biggest human resource challenges: “attracting and retaining the best and brightest.”2

Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting capable individuals to apply for employment and to accept a job offer if/when one is made to them. Selection involves the identification of candi- dates from this pool of applicants who best meet job requirements using tools such as application blanks, tests, and interviews. The recruitment process begins with generating a pool of applicants, continues during selection while decisions are made among applicants to choose the best one, and then extends after selection decisions have been made to convince candidates who have been made an offer, to accept the job.3

Recruitment includes all activities by an organization that affect an applicant’s decision to apply for and to accept a position. These can be activities that the organization purposefully engages in to persuade applicants to want to work for them (such as recruitment websites), or unintentional things (like the length of time between when an applicant applies for the job and when they hear about an interview, or public relations fiascos such as the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf Coast in 2010 4) that may affect applicant attraction to the organization.5 Recruiting is a two-way street: It is a matching process between firms with jobs and individuals seeking jobs. The organization is trying to entice highly qualified people to consider working for their organization. Meanwhile, applicants are trying to learn about what it would be like to work for the organization. Work is a large part of most people’s days, and can have a substantial impact on their well-being. How the organization treats them from the moment they first learn about the organization right through to a job offer being extended to them, can impact whether or not they will choose to work for the organization. Moreover, the process of recruiting doesn’t end once a job has been accepted or started; it continues with newcomer socialization.

Responsibility for recruitment usually belongs to the human resource department. This responsibility is important because the quality of an organization’s human resources depends on the quality of its recruits. Since large organizations recruit almost continuously, their human resource departments use specialists for the activity. These specialists are called recruiters.

As Figure 5-1 illustrates, recruitment can be done only after the identification of job openings through human resource planning or requests by managers. As mentioned in Chapter 3, advance knowledge of job openings allows the recruiter to be proactive.

After identifying openings, the recruiter learns what each job requires by reviewing job analysis information, particularly the job descriptions and specifications. This information tells the recruiter the characteristics of both the jobs and the future job incumbents. When the job analysis information appears outdated or superficial, recruiters can learn more about a job’s requirements from the requesting manager. Knowing the job’s requirements helps recruiters to choose methods of finding the right number and type of applicants.

Typically, most recruiters use more than one recruitment method to find suitable candidates for vacant job positions. Common recruitment methods include recruitment advertisements and postings on websites and job boards; school, college, and university campus visits; contacts with professional and labour associations; and use of government agencies such as Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). Sometimes, to attract high-quality applicants, a recruiter may have to use unconventional procedures, as the following example shows:

Inspector Kevin McQuiggin from the Vancouver Police Department recognized that it was getting harder and harder to recruit IT talent to the force. In the past, the VPD averaged about a thousand applications a year from traditional recruitment sources like job fairs, putting ads in the newspaper, and word of mouth. In this new era, attracting tech-savvy applicants who will need to complete the 2–3 years of training to get up to speed, and then stick around for the

recruitment The process of finding   and attracting capable  applicants to apply for  employment and   accept job offers that   are extended to them.

selection The identification of  candidates from a pool of  recruits who best meet job  requirements, using tools  such as application blanks,  tests, and interviews.

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  173

long haul, is a rising challenge for police forces around the world. To alleviate the hiring crunch and attract a technologically adept crowd, McQuiggin held a recruiting seminar in Second Life , a three-dimensional virtual world with millions of people around the globe participating through their avatars. The first VPD recruitment session was hosted by VPD avatars made in the images of the VPD real-life recruiters. It was attended by 30 avatars producing four applications.6

Recruitment involves far more than just getting people to apply for jobs, and success in recruit- ment is not simply measured by the number of applications received. The right type of applicants is far more important than the number of applicants. Many successful organizations have recog- nized the strategic importance of recruitment and made it an integral part of their overall human resource management strategy. The following section discusses the strategic importance of the recruitment function.

Strategic Importance of the Recruitment Function

In the recent past, recruitment has gained considerable attention among practitioners as well as in the media. A variety of factors, including an aging population, which results in a large number of retirements, stiff competition for talent, growth in the Canadian economy, and rising compensation and aspiration levels of new entrants, has been found to make the task of recruiting very challenging. Over the 2006–15 period, growth in Canada’s economy is anticipated to create about 1.7 million new non-student jobs, and a further 3.8 million positions will need to be filled due to retirements. Over the longer term, positions freed due to retirement will generate an even higher share of total job openings.7 Front-line positions are the easiest to fill, while executives, skilled trades, and high- tech jobs are the toughest to recruit for. Even in the recent recessionary settings, some jobs such as physicians, nurses, and radiologists continued to be hard to fill in several parts of Canada.

Today, recruitment of human resources has a significant impact on the organization and its strategic success. The more important HR and organizational activities affected by recruitment are examined below.

1 & 3

LO1

Figure 5-1 An Overview of the Recruitment Process

The Selection Process

Job Analysis Results

Number of Job Vacancies

Review Job Specifications

Characteristics of Recruits

Comments from Job Incumbents

Comments from Managers

Constraints on Recruiter

Recruitment Methods

Employer Services • Advertising • Walk-ins • Referrals • Applicant tracking system Other Organizations: • Educational institutions • Professional associations • Labour organizations • HRSDC • Professional search firms • Temporary-help agencies

Maintaining Applicants

in the Applicant

Pool

Pool of Recruits

Influencing Job

Choices

Human Resource

Plans

Requests from

Managers

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174 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

Gaining Competitive Advantage from Human Capital Successful firms recognize that today, more than ever before, human capital spells the difference between success and failure. Despite the existence of state-of-the-art human resource systems and procedures, poorly qualified and motivated recruits often prove extremely costly to firms. In con- trast, in today’s global knowledge economy, the presence of highly skilled and motivated workers can be a real competitive advantage.

Experience working in a foreign country is considered a major asset by many employers. As one executive recruiter noted, “an international assignment on your CV gives you an edge over competitors because it shows breadth of experience and adaptability.”8 In one survey of 6,000 employees, 75 per- cent of the respondents considered foreign work credentials “essential” or “extremely useful.”9 How- ever, managers with foreign country experience are also hard to come by. Only about 37 percent of 2,700 executives surveyed stated that they would consider taking an overseas assignment. This makes people with foreign work experience extremely valuable, which in turn makes recruiting them difficult.

Further, if applicants lack the necessary skills and/or aptitudes, considerable additional resources may have to be invested into selection, training and development, employee communication systems, and employee relations practices. A small pool of recruits also poses a major challenge to the selection procedure (which will be discussed in the next chapter).

Reaping the Benefits of Diversity Management Today, many Canadian firms recognize the vitality and competitive advantage that often accompanies a diverse workforce. Further, as discussed in Chapter 4, if the firm’s workforce does not reflect the larger labour market composition, the firm may be asked to pursue an employment equity program to correct imbalances. Progressive employers monitor their environments continuously and adjust their recruitment strategies to deal with the emerging trends in a proactive manner:

Maple Leaf Electronics, a software manufacturer, has 50 computer programmers on its payroll, of which 45 are men. Recently, the Statistics Canada figures on the local labour market indicated that, in the larger labour market, about 35 percent of the programmers were women. The company’s human resource manager realized that the current 10 percent utilization rate of women was far below the societal figure and decided to actively seek out women when recruiting.

Hiring from a larger, diverse pool of candidates offers a greater choice of job applicants to the firm. A diverse workforce also offers greater flexibility and additional capabilities in some instances. It reflects an organization’s commitment to broader social goals and projects a better image of the firm to clients and other constituents.

Focusing on Employee Development When recruiting (especially for middle- and upper-level jobs), a firm has a choice: it can either develop and promote internal candidates or hire from outside. The strategic choice of internal versus external recruitment has profound implications for an organization.

The advantage of hiring skilled employees from outside is that they already possess the neces- sary skills to begin work immediately and little training may be needed. However, this must be weighed against the fact that current employees, especially in smaller organizations, know a lot more about the organization, its strategy, and its culture. A conscious effort to train and develop employees to assume higher job positions in the future also acts as a strong motivator for many employees.10

Figure 5-2 lists some of the advantages and weaknesses of each strategy. Needless to say, the specific strategy chosen by the firm has major implications for recruitment and salary costs, employee morale, and organizational innovation and change. One additional consideration is that, typically, promoting an employee will generate a job opening somewhere else in the organization.

The internal promotion of a supervisor to a manager position results in a supervisor opening, which may in turn be filled by the internal promotion of a front-line worker. The front-line worker position may need to be filled by recruiting externally.

1

competitive advantage A competitive advantage  exists when the firm is able  to deliver the same value  and benefits as competitors  but at a lower cost (cost  advantage), or deliver   more benefits or unique  value that exceed those   of competing products  (differentiation advantage).

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  175

Investing Resources into Recruitment The decision about the total recruitment budget affects the quality of recruits and the overall effectiveness of recruitment activity. It is important to note that the costs of recruitment are not simply the hiring costs (such as the costs of advertisement, recruiter’s travel, and so on). Often the costs of a bad hire may not be translatable into monetary terms as there is no accurate way of measuring the number of lost customers or resources due to delays and inefficient handling of a situation.11 Further, inappropriate recruits often leave the organization, causing significant addi- tional costs to hire and train replacements. Often such costs are not apparent. However, some organizations, such as NCR Corporation, have recognized the importance of the recruitment func- tion and have found innovative ways to recruit qualified persons and reduce recruitment costs:

NCR Corporation produces point-of-sale terminals, automated teller machines, cheque- processing systems, and barcode scanners, and is one of the largest providers of IT maintenance support services. It maintains its competitive edge by hiring employees at the entry level, retaining them, and promoting from within. In the past, its recruitment program, “Project 6K,” used standard- ized procedures to recruit the best university students for entry-level positions. Universities and colleges are rated on a four-point scale (“1” being the best). In the number 1 category, students with a GPA of 3.2 or higher will be contacted; at a school rated in the number 4 category, only students with a GPA of 3.4 or better would be considered by the recruiter. The company believes that such a focused recruitment effort helps it to secure high-quality recruits while minimizing the recruitment costs. The company actively seeks a competitive advantage through its employees by hiring top people and creating a work climate where they are highly productive.

Figure 5-2 Internal versus External Recruiting

Internal Recruiting

Advantages •  Employee is familiar with the organization and its culture.

•  Employee is “known” to the firm; the fit of this individual to the organization will be known as well.

•  Improves workforce morale and motivation.

•  Information about employee performance is known in addition to scores on selection tests;  this improves the organization’s ability to predict the person’s success in the new job.

Weaknesses •  Internal rivalry and competition for higher positions; can reduce interpersonal and 

interdepartmental cooperation.

•  No “new blood” is brought into the system, which can prevent creative solutions from emerging.

•  Poor morale (leading to possible turnover) of employees who were not promoted.

•  May be expensive to offer counselling, training, and development to employees who vied for,  but did not get, the promotion.

•  Performance evaluation records are only relevant to the extent that the promotion job is  similar to the employee’s current job.

External Recruiting

Advantages •  Organization is able to acquire skills or knowledge that may not be currently available within.

•  Newer ideas and novel ways of solving problems may emerge.

Weaknesses •  Newcomers may not fit in with the organization and into its present culture.

•  Newcomers take a longer time to learn about the organization’s culture, policies, and practices.

•  Usually, hiring from the outside is more expensive.

•  Lowered morale and motivation levels of current employees who don’t see any career growth  possibilities within the firm.

3

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176 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

Other investments into the recruiting process include selecting and training recruiters. When selecting recruiters, friendliness or personableness, knowledge of the job, organization, and career- related issues, and enthusiasm are important characteristics.12 Choices must also be made about whether recruiters should be HR professionals, line managers, or coworkers. HR professionals may be knowledgeable about career paths and the organization, but lack understanding of specific job details. Line managers, on the other hand, may know details of the job and company, but not necessarily career development opportunities. And coworkers may understand the job very well, but not necessarily the organization or career paths to the same extent as HR professionals. Depending on the areas of expertise of the recruiters, training may be needed in other areas.13

Additional training is also recommended for interviewing skills, job analysis, interpersonal aspects of recruiting, laws and regulations, and recruitment targets. Marketing and sales training may also be advantageous for creating advertisements and being persuasive to candidates.14

Key issues in the context of evaluating the effectiveness of the recruitment function and its contribution to organizational success will be discussed in a later section in this chapter. But first, it is important to recognize the several constraints a recruiter faces.

A successful recruiter must be sensitive to the constraints on the recruitment process. These limits arise from the organization, the recruiter, and the external environment. Although the emphasis may vary from situation to situation, the following list includes the most common constraints:

• organizational policies • human resource plans • diversity management • recruiter habits • environmental conditions • job requirements • costs • inducements

Organizational Policies Organizational policies can constrain the recruiter. Policies seek to achieve uniformity, economies, public relations benefits, and other objectives unrelated to recruiting. Four policies that have impli- cations for recruitment are highlighted below.

1. PRomoTe-fRom-WIThIn PolIcIeS As already pointed out, promote-from-within policies are formulated to give present employees the first opportunity for job openings and facilitate their career growth. These policies are wide- spread. Searching for candidates internally versus external searching significantly impacts how recruiting is conducted. For instance, will recruitment ads be placed in the newspaper or posted in the lunchroom? Moreover, the content of the job postings will be different: substantially less infor- mation will be needed about the organization for internal as opposed to external candidates, and internal candidates may have a better sense of what a job entails than an external applicant.

Bypassing current employees can lead to employee dissatisfaction and turnover. On the other hand, promoting a positive organizational culture encourages people to join and stay with a firm.15 Employees are likely to be loyal to their employer only if they believe the organization values them. Nevertheless, there may be generational differences in the extent to which workers plan to spend their careers with their current organizations:

In a recent Conference Board of Canada report, 80 percent of Boomers reported planning to stay with their organization, whereas only 37 percent of Gen Xers and 24 percent of Gen Ys plan to stay.16

The “employee goal” discussed in Chapter 1 also necessitates the human resource manager to recognize and foster employee aspirations at the workplace.

Constraints on Recruitment

LO2

3

organizational policies Internal policies that affect  recruitment, such as  “promote-from-within”  policies.

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  177

2. comPenSATIon PolIcIeS A common constraint faced by recruiters is pay policies. Organizations with human resource departments usually establish pay ranges for different jobs. Recruiters seldom have the authority to exceed stated pay ranges:

If Charles Shaw at Ontario Electronics decides to recruit externally, the pay range will influence the job seeker’s desire to become a serious applicant. For example, when the market rate for junior engineers is $3,500 to $3,800 per month, satisfactory applicants will be few if Charles can offer only $3,000 to $3,200 per month.

3. emPloymenT STATuS PolIcIeS Some companies have policies restricting the hiring of part-time and temporary employees. Although there is growing interest in hiring these types of workers, several unionized settings have limitations against hiring part-time, temporary, and contract workers, which can cause recruiters to reject all but those seeking full-time work. Likewise, policies against hiring employees who “moonlight” by having second jobs also inhibit recruiters. Prohibitions against holding extra jobs are intended to ensure a rested workforce.

4. InTeRnATIonAl hIRIng PolIcIeS Policies in some countries, including Canada, may also require foreign job openings to be staffed with local citizens. The use of foreign nationals, however, does reduce relocation expenses, lessen the likelihood of nationalization, and if top jobs are held by local citizens, minimize charges of economic exploitation. Moreover, unlike relocated employees, foreign nationals are more apt to be involved in the local community and understand local customs and business practices.

Human Resource Plans The human resource plan is another factor recruiters consider. Through skills inventories and pro- motion ladders, the plan outlines which jobs should be filled by recruiting and which ones should be filled internally. The plan helps recruiters because it summarizes future recruiting needs. This foresight can lead to economies in recruiting:

At Ontario Electronics, Charles Shaw checked the human resource plan before recruiting junior mechanical engineers. The plan indicated a projected need for three junior electrical engineers and a mechanical engineer during the next four months. Two internal candidates were hired for two of the junior positions. For the other positions, there were no internal candidates available. Charles decided to recruit mechanical engineering candidates at the same time when he was looking for the remaining junior electrical engineer. If advertisements were to be placed in the university news paper, there would be no additional cost for seeking both types of engineers. Travel costs, advertising costs, and the time devoted to a second recruiting trip would be saved.

Diversity Management Programs Where diversity management and employment equity programs exist, recruitment must also take these programs into account.

Ontario Electronics never pursued policies that intentionally discriminated against any group. But over the years, its sources of engineering recruits had been mostly white males who attended the small local university. In the recent past, the firm had initiated a voluntary diversity management program that focused on bringing more women and minorities into its technical and managerial cadres. To fulfill the intent of the diversity management program, Charles decided to recruit engineering technicians at a large metropolitan university, where female recruits were more likely to be found.

As we saw in Chapter 4, employers cannot discriminate against people with physical disabilities unless the disability would prevent the person from doing the job after reasonable accommodation by the employer. Proactive employers such as the Vancouver International Airport use innovative recruitment programs to tap the skills of a diverse workforce:

Realizing that there are thousands of physically and mentally challenged individuals who seek work, Vancouver International Airport actively started to recruit personnel among this group to their “barrier-free” workplace.17

5

1 & 3

human resource plan A firm’s overall plan to   fill existing and future  vacancies, including  decisions on whether   to fill internally or to   recruit from outside.

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diversity management Recognizing differences  among employees belonging  to heterogeneous groups  and creating a work  environment in which  members of diverse   groups feel comfortable.

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178 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

Recruiter Habits A recruiter’s past success can lead to habits. Admittedly, habits can eliminate time-consuming delib- erations that reach the same answers. However, recruiter habits may also perpetuate past mistakes or obscure more effective alternatives. So although recruiters need positive and negative feedback, they must guard against self-imposed constraints.

Consider again the recruitment of the junior engineer at Ontario Electronics. Suppose that the engi- neering department expresses satisfaction with recruits from the nearby university. Such positive feedback encourages recruiters to make a habit of using this source for beginning engineers. Since all these engineers have a similar curriculum, they may also share strengths and weaknesses. As a result, the engineering department may suffer because of the educational uniformity of new recruits.

Environmental Conditions External conditions strongly influence recruitment. Changes in the labour market and the chal- lenges mentioned in Chapter 1 affect recruiting. The unemployment rate, the pace of the economy, spot shortages in specific skills, projections of the labour force by Statistics Canada, labour laws, and the recruiting activities of other employers—all of these factors affect the recruiter’s efforts.

Faced with a labour market that had a severe shortage of experienced drivers, Coastal Pacific Xpress Inc. , a Surrey, B.C.–based long-haul trucking firm, increased the pay of its owner-operators by 45 percent in four months to attract more recruits.18

Although these factors are considered in human resource planning, the economic environment can change quickly after the plan is finalized. To be sure that the plan’s economic assumptions remain valid, recruiters can check three fast-changing measures.

1. leAdIng economIc IndIcAToRS Statistics Canada routinely publishes the direction of the leading indi- cators. The economic indices suggest the future course of the national economy. If these indices signal a sudden downturn in the economy, recruiting plans may have to be modified. Other agencies such as HRSDC, Industry Canada, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund also publish information that is of great interest to national and international organizations.

2. PRedIcTed VeRSuS AcTuAl SAleS Since human resource plans are partially based upon the firm’s predicted sales, variations between actual and predicted sales may indicate that these plans also are inaccurate. Thus, recruiting efforts may need to be changed accordingly.

3. emPloymenT STATISTIcS Statistics Canada routinely reports various employment statistics. Periodically, it produces reports on the state of employment in different industry sectors.

Employers can also monitor competition for specific job groups by looking at the ads in major newspapers. For clerical and production workers, who are usually recruited on a local basis, the human resource department may want to create its own ads index to monitor local changes in ads.

Organizations worldwide are likely to face a spiralling employee attrition rate over the next decade or so.

A survey of more than one million workers in 50 countries indicated that one third of the global workforce will change employers in two years. Sixty-four percent of employees who reported being uncertain or not committed to staying with their employer actually left the company within five years.19

Tighter competition for applicants may require more vigorous recruiting. When business con- ditions decline, an opposite approach is called for, as the following example illustrates:

As a major recreation centre was opening in Quebec, the leading economic indicators dropped. Although the human resource plan called for recruiting 100 workers a week for the first month, the employment manager set a revised target of 75. Lower recruiting and employment levels helped establish a profitable operation even though first-year admissions fell below the projections used in the human resource plan.

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recruiter habits The propensity of a  recruiter to rely on  methods, systems, or  behaviours that led to   past recruitment success.

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  179

Job Requirements Of course, the requirements of each job are a constraint. Highly specialized workers, for example, are more difficult to find than unskilled ones. Recruiters learn of a job’s demands from the requesting manager’s comments and job analysis information. Job analysis information is especially useful because it reveals the important characteristics of the job and applicants. Knowledge of a job’s requirements allows the recruiter to choose the best way to find recruits, given the constraints under which the recruiter must operate.

“Find the best and most experienced applicant you can” is often a constraint that is imposed on recruiters as though it were a job requirement. At first, this demand seems reasonable: all managers want to have the best and most experienced people working for them. But several potential problems exist with this innocent-sounding request. One problem in seeking out the “best and most experi- enced” applicant is cost. People with greater experience usually command higher salaries than less experienced people. If a high level of experience is not truly necessary, the recruit may become bored soon after being hired. Moreover, if the human resource department cannot show that a high degree of experience is needed, then experience may be an artificial requirement that discriminates against some applicants. Another point about experience is worth remembering: for some people in some jobs, 10 years of experience is another way of saying 1 year of experience repeated 10 times. Someone with 10 years of experience may not be any better qualified than an applicant with only 1 year.

Costs Like all other members of an organization, recruiters must also operate within budgets. The costs of identifying and attracting recruits are an ever-present limitation:

Manitoba Engineering Company Ltd. found that the average cost of recruiting engineers in the com- pany was more than $3,300 per hire. To hire senior engineers and managers, the cost was even higher. To fill a $70,000 per year position, the company often had to pay $5,000 to $6,000 to search firms. To monitor and control costs, the human resource manager of the company was asked to assess the effectiveness of the company’s recruitment programs and costs of recruitment under alternative recruitment methods.

Careful human resource planning and forethought by recruiters can minimize these expenses. For example, recruiting for several job openings simultaneously may reduce the cost per recruit. Of course, a better solution would be to take action to reduce employee turnover, thus minimizing the need for recruiting. Proactive human resource management actions go far in achieving this objective.

Inducements The recruiter is very much like a marketer—he or she is selling the company as a potential place of work to all eligible recruits. As with any marketing effort, inducements may be necessary to stimulate a potential recruit’s interest. The growing global marketplace means that workers are also mobile, and attracting them may require unconventional incentives or inducements:

Nurses at Health Canada are offered up to a $4,500 inducement for working in remote and isolated First Nations communities.20 KFC in Japan developed a unique strategy for attracting qualified employees by offering them a trip to Hawaii. This enabled the company to meet local competition as well as competition from other international organizations, and look for Japanese workers effectively.21

Not all inducements are monetary or even tangible.

A department of an Atlantic Canadian university takes all its potential faculty recruits to the scenic areas for a day’s car tour in an effort to “sell” the location (and through that, the institution). Faced with severe constraints on the compensation package it can offer, the department decided to use its “intangible” assets to assist in its recruitment and selection process.

Flextime, high quality of life, etc., can be potential selling points for a firm; in some instances, certain items (such as flextime) can also be a constraint if all major employers are using them. In such an instance, a firm needs to meet the prevailing standards. Inducements may be a response to overcoming other limitations faced by the recruiter:

3

costs Expenses related to  attracting recruits.

inducements Monetary, nonmonetary,   or even intangible  incentives used by a   firm to attract recruits.

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180 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

The fast food industry, which employs a large percentage of young workers, typically experiences high employee turnover. To reduce turnover and thereby its recruiting costs, one fast food chain introduced an educational assistance program. Under the program, an employee could accrue up to $2,000 worth of tuition credits over a two-year period. Result? Turnover among participants in the program is a mere 22 percent compared to a 97 percent turnover of those who were not part of the plan. It significantly reduced the firm’s recruitment efforts and costs.

More recently, several employers have been using nontraditional benefits to attract and retain their employees:

Some of the benefits offered today include fitness centre subsidies, reimbursement of professional membership fees and course fees, on-site vaccination programs, employee mental health insurance, retiree health care benefits, financial planning assistance, and on-site parking.22

The key in all cases is to understand the needs and motivations of the target recruits and offer a set of inducements that appeal to them. Not all inducements have to be monetary.

RBC Financial Group finds that its focus on workplace diversity has paid rich dividends when recruiting employees. It found that when job candidates come in for interviews at RBC, they often ask about the bank’s diversity initiatives and whether resource groups exist. The fact that the bank has four resource groups is a big drawing factor when recruiting. The bank’s Reach focuses on people with disabilities; Royal Eagles focuses on the needs of the Aboriginals; Pride is for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered people; and Mosaic helps members of visible minorities and new Canadians to integrate into the workforce and the larger community.23

Traditionally, job seekers formally apply for a job through either submitting their résumé or completing a job application. The résumé (or curriculum vitae or CV) is a brief summary of the applicant’s back- ground. It typically includes a one- to two-page summary of the applicant’s education, work expe- rience, personal contact information, work goals, and related skills. Often, a résumé is the first piece of information about a job candidate that an employer will see.

In the case of unsolicited applications, the résumé is the information source that a recruiter will use in deciding whether the applicant is worthy of further consideration. This makes the résumé a vital part of a job search for any person. To help them sift through a large pile of résumés, many recruiters such as Home Depot and TD Canada Trust will scan paper résumés into a database and/ or accept résumés electronically. They will then use résumé screening software such as Resumix to filter through and score the résumés according to key education and job requirements:

Organizations such as MCI Telecommunications and Disneyland Resorts use computer scanning to take advantage of the large number of résumés they receive. When résumés arrive at either MCI or Disneyland Resorts, clerks scan the résumés into a computer database. Later, recruiters can search the database for candidates with specific qualifications. When the hiring manager needs to fill a position, he or she tells the recruiter the job requirements and applicant profile. The recruiter then searches the database using key words. The computer displays the number of résumés that meet the required criteria. If the number is too large or too small, the recruiter can change the required qualifications (e.g., if a search for candidates who have had 10 years of work experience yields only five résumés, the recruiter can change the search criterion to seven years of experience). Once the program finds a manageable number of applicants, the recruiter can view the résumés or résumé summaries online and eliminate any that are not appropriate. Then, the recruiter can print selected résumés.24

Applying for a Job

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résumé A brief voluntary listing   of an applicant’s work  experience, education,  personal data, and   other information   relevant to the job.

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  181

The second way of formally applying for a job is by completing a job application form. Many people think that completing a job application form after submitting a résumé is redundant. Not so! The job application form collects information about recruits in a uniform manner, and hence is an important part of all recruitment efforts. Even when recruits volunteer detailed information about themselves on a résumé, job applications are often required so that the information gathered is comparable across candidates. Furthermore, job application forms designate the information the recruiters would like to have for each applicant, and may make indicators such as education credentials and gaps in employment history more readily apparent.

Each human resource department generally designs its own form. Nevertheless, certain common features exist. Figure 5-3 provides a typical example of an application form and its major divisions.

6Figure 5-3 A Typical Application Form

Kanata Electronics, Inc. “An Equal-Opportunity Employer”

application for Employment

Personal Data   1.  Name 

  2.  Address    3. Phone number 

Employment status   4.  Type of employment sought    Full-time     Part-time

        Permanent     Temporary

  5.  Job or position sought 

  6.  Date of availability, if hired 

  7.  Are you willing to accept other employment if the position you seek is unavailable?

      Yes    No

  8.  Approximate wages/salary desired $   per month

Education and skills   9.  Circle the highest grade or years completed.

     9  10  11  12  13  1  2  3  4  1  2  3  4

      High School  University  Graduate School

 10.  Please provide the following information about your education.

    (Include only vocational schools and colleges.)

    a.  School name    Degree(s) or diploma 

      School address 

      Date of admission    Date of completion 

    b.  School name    Degree(s) or diploma 

      School address 

      Date of admission    Date of completion 

 11.  Please describe your work skills. (Include machines, tools, equipment, and other abilities you possess.)

job application form A company’s form  completed by a job  applicant indicating their  contact information,  education, prior  employment, references,  special skills and other  questions pertaining   to the position.

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182 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

Work History Beginning with your most recent or current employer, please provide the following information about  each employer. (If additional space is needed, please use an additional sheet.)

 12.  a.  Employer    Dates of employment 

      Employer’s address 

      Job title    Supervisor’s name 

      Job duties 

      Starting pay    Ending pay 

    b.  Employer    Dates of employment 

      Employer’s address 

      Job title    Supervisor’s name 

      Job duties 

      Starting pay    Ending pay 

References In the space provided, list three references who are not members of your family.

 13.  a.  Name    Address 

      Name    Address 

      Name    Address 

 14.  Please feel free to add any other information you think should be considered in evaluating   your application.

    By my signature on this application, I:

    a.  Authorize the verification of the above information and any other necessary inquiries that    may be needed to determine my suitability for employment.

    b.  Affirm that the above information is true to the best of my knowledge.

Applicant’s Signature    Date 

Name and Address Most application forms begin with a request for personal data. Name, address, and telephone number are nearly universal. But requests for some personal data, such as place of birth, marital status, number of dependants, sex, race, religion, or national origin, may lead to charges of discrimination. Since it is illegal to discriminate against applicants, an unsuccessful applicant may conclude that rejection was motivated by discrimination when discriminatory questions are asked. The human resource department must be able to show that these questions are job-related if it asks them.

When applications solicit information about health, height, weight, disabilities that relate to the job, major illnesses, and claims for injuries, potential legal problems exist. Discriminating against people with disabilities is prohibited under the Canadian Human Rights Act. The burden of proof that such questions are job-related falls on the employer.

Employment Status Some questions on the application form concern the applicant’s employment objective and avail- ability. Included here are questions about the position sought, willingness to accept other positions, date available for work, salary or wages desired, and acceptability of part-time and full-time work schedules. This information helps a recruiter match the applicant’s objective and the organization’s needs. It may also cue the recruiter to be sensitive about an applicant’s current employment status.

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  CHAPTER 5  Recruitment  183

Often applicants who are currently employed will not have their current place of employment contacted for a reference until they are close to receiving a job offer so that if they are not successful in obtaining the new job, their current employer does not know they were looking for an alternative.

Education and Skills The education and skills section of the application form is designed to uncover the job seeker’s abilities. Traditionally, education has been a major criterion in evaluating job seekers. Educational attainment does imply certain abilities and is therefore a common request on virtually all applications. Questions about specific skills are also used to judge prospective employees. More than any other part of the application form, the skills section reveals the suitability of a candidate for a particular job.

Work History Job seekers must frequently list their past jobs. From this information, a recruiter can tell whether the applicant is one who hops from job to job or is likely to be a long-service employee. A quick review of the stated job title, duties, responsibilities, and ending pay also shows whether the candidate is a potentially capable applicant. If this information does not coincide with what an experienced recruiter expects to see, the candidate may have exaggerated job titles, duties, responsibilities, or pay.

References Besides the traditional references from friends or previous employers, applications may ask for other “reference-like” information. Questions may explore the job seeker’s criminal record, credit history, friends and relatives who work for the employer, or previous employment with the organi- zation. Criminal record, credit history, and whether the applicant has friends or relatives who work for the company may be important considerations if the job involves sensitive information, cash, or other valuables. Job-relatedness must be substantiated if these criteria disproportionately dis- criminate against some protected group. Previous employment with the organization means there are records of the applicant’s performance.

Signature Line Candidates are usually required to sign and date their applications. Adjacent to the signature line, a blanket authorization commonly appears. This authorization allows the employer to check references; verify medical, criminal, or financial records; and undertake any other necessary investigations. Another common provision of the signature line is a statement that the applicant affirms the information in the application to be true and accurate as far as is known. Although many people give this clause little thought, falsification of an application form is grounds for discharge in most organizations:

Jim LaVera lied about his age to get into the police officers’ training program. As he neared retirement age, Jim was notified that he would have to retire in six months, instead of 30 months as he had planned. When Jim protested, the lie he made years before came to the surface. Jim was given the option of being terminated or taking early retirement at substantially reduced benefits.

Recruitment Methods

To let job seekers know about job opportunities at the company, there are many options for recruiters. In most instances, recruiters will tend to use several methods at the same time in their search for applicants.

Walk-ins and Write-ins Walk-ins are job seekers who arrive at the human resource department seeking to drop off their résumé or to complete a job application form. Write-ins are those who send a written inquiry by either mailing in their résumé or completing a job application on-line. Indeed, today, a significant percent- age of human resource managers prefer to receive résumés and job applications electronically

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walk-ins/write-ins Job seekers who arrive   at or write to the human  resource department in  search of a job without  prior referrals and not in  response to a specific ad.

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184 PART 3  Attracting Human Resources

because of the ease of storage and retrieval.25 Suitable résumés and applications are typically kept in an active file until an appropriate opening occurs or until the application is too old to be considered valid—usually six months. Larger firms relate information collected like this into their overall human resource information systems.

Employee Referrals Present employees may refer job seekers to the human resource department. Employee referrals have several unique advantages. First, employees with hard-to-find job skills may know others who do the same work.

RBC and KPMG were chosen as two of Canada’s Top Employers for 2012, in part, because of their employee referral programs. RBC offers referral bonuses of up to $1,500 for some positions, with KPMG referral bonuses of up to $5,000.26

Second, new recruits already know something about the organization from those employees who referred them. Thus, referred applicants may be more strongly attracted to the organization than are walk-ins. Third, employees tend to refer friends whom they identified through personal networking. These persons are likely to have similar work habits and work attitudes. Even if work values are different, these candidates may have a strong desire to work hard so that they do not let down the person who recommended them.

Employee referrals are an excellent and legal recruitment technique. However, recruiters must be careful that this method does not intentionally or unintentionally discriminate. The major problem with this recruiting method is that it tends to maintain the racial, religious, sex, and other features of the employer’s workforce. Such results can be viewed as discriminatory. The Canadian Forces have organized recruitment campaigns designed to attract more women to military careers. Should there be limitations as to choice—for example, wanting to be a submariner?

Advertising Advertising is an extremely common, effective method of seeking recruits. Since it can reach a wider audience than employee referrals or unsolicited walk-ins, many recruiters use it as a key part of their efforts.

employee referrals Recommendations by  present employees to the  recruiter about possible job  applicants for a position.