Written by Recruitment is a critical function of human resource management that involves finding and attracting the most suitable candidates for jobs within an organization.
It is the process of locating, inducing, attracting and getting prospective applicants to apply for existing job openings.
Recruitment is the first major step towards building a talented and effective workforce because it is the stage where individuals who possess the required skills and attributes are attracted by the organization.
It is an important function of human resource management as it plays an important role in the survival and growth of the business.
Recruitment can be done internally or externally.
Internal recruitment involves identifying suitable candidates from within the organization and offering them the opportunity to apply for the available job positions in the organization, while external recruitment involves reaching out to individuals outside the organization who may be suitable for the available job opening.
Need for recruitment
The need for recruitment may arise due to the following reasons:
1. Job vacancy created by transfers: When employees are transferred to other departments, branches or locations within the organization, a vacancy is created, which needs to be filled.
Recruitment is necessary to find suitable replacements for these employees.
2. Job vacancy created by promotion: When employees are promoted to higher positions within the organization, their previous positions become vacant.
Recruitment is necessary to fill these vacancies with qualified candidates.
3. Job vacancy created by the retirement or death of a worker: When an employee retires or dies, a vacancy is created, which needs to be filled.
Recruitment is, therefore, necessary to find suitable replacements for dead or retired employees.
4. Vacancies due to diversification, growth and expansion in business operations: As businesses expand and diversify their operations, new positions are created, which require qualified candidates to fill them.
Recruitment is necessary to find suitable candidates for these new positions.
Purpose Of Recruitment
1. It increases the organization’s pool of human resources: Recruitment helps the organization to find new potential employees and increases the number of candidates that the organization can choose for its various job positions.
2. Attract and encourage application: Recruitment attracts and encourages candidates to apply for open positions in a company.
3. Increases the success rate of the selection process: Recruitment helps to identify potential candidates who are most suitable for the job, and thus, increase the chances of finding the right fit for the position.
It encourages unqualified applicants to self-select themselves out of the process, thus, enabling the selection of the right candidate for the right job as per the organization’s needs.
Factors Affecting Recruitment
As an important function of human resources management, recruitment is directly affected by various factors. These factors are divided into internal factors and external factors.
Internal Factors
These are factors that can be easily controlled by the business. They exist within the organization and they can affect recruitment.
Because this factor exists within the organization, there are also called endogenous factors.
Internal factors that can affect recruitment include:
1. Recruitment policy: This is a statement or framework that outlines the recruitment practices and objectives of the organization.
This affects recruitment because it determines whether the organization recruits internally or externally, as well as the method that must be followed to do so.
2. Size of the organization: The recruitment process is also influenced by the size of the organization.
Larger organizations are more likely to follow due process in recruitment than smaller organizations.
This is because larger organizations tend to have more resources and expertise to devote to the recruitment process than smaller organizations, which may not have the adequate resources and expertise to successfully carryout a thorough recruitment.
3. Public image of the organization: An organization’s public image also affect its recruitment process.
An organization with a positive public image is more likely to attract and recruit qualified candidates than one with a negative public image.
This is because a positive public image indicates that the organization is reputable, trustworthy, and offers a desirable work environment.
On the other hand, a negative public image can make it more difficult to attract and recruit qualified candidates.
External Factors
These are factors that cannot be easily controlled by the business. They are external to the organization but affect recruitment
Because this factor is outside the organization, there are also called exogenous factors.
External factors that affect recruitment are:
1. Labour market: The demand and supply of labour also affect recruitment.
For example, If there is a high demand for clerks, but a low supply of available clerks, there will not be enough clerks available in the job markets.
As a result, organizations in need of clerks will find it difficult to recruit external candidates and may have to rely on internal recruitment.
By the same reasoning, if the supply of clerks exceeds the demand, an organization may recruit externally since it will be very easy to get external candidates to fill the position in the organization.
2. Legal environment: Laws such as labour laws have a huge effect on the recruitment process of an organization.
For many jobs, these laws dictate the safety, compensation as well as working conditions under which a company hires and recruits new employees.
Labour laws define the minimum wage, maximum working hours, health and safety regulation, and other employment standards that an organization must comply with when hiring and recruiting new employees.
3. Unemployment situation: Unemployment is a condition in which people who are without jobs are actively seeking jobs.
Unemployment significantly affect the recruitment process of an organization because it affects the availability of job candidates.
When there are a lot of individuals looking for jobs, it’s easier hiring people because there are more candidates available to fill job vacancies.
Conversely, if there are few individuals unemployed, recruiting people becomes difficult as there are fewer candidates available to fill job vacancies.
4. Recruitment policy of competitors: A company’s recruitment process is not only determined by its recruitment policy but also is not affected by the recruitment policy of competitors.
Often, companies change their recruitment policies to match or exceed that of competitors to remain competitive.
This ensures that the companies attract the right employee.
Conclusion
To summarize, recruitment is the process of attracting candidates to fill job positions within the organization.
Recruitment can be classified into internal recruitment and external recruitment.
Internal recruitment means identifying suitable candidates from within the workforce of the organization and encouraging them to apply for job positions, while external recruitment involve attracting external candidates to apply for job positions in the organization.
Recruitment is affected by internal and external factors.
Internal factors that affect recruitment are recruitment policy of the organization, size of the organization and public image of the organization.
On the other hand, external factors that affect recruitment are labour market, legal environment, recruitment policy of competitors and unemployment situation.
