Recruitment and

Selection Practices
in
Business Process
Outsourcing Industry
 Recruitment and selection, as part of effective human
resource management is an important function that
makes it possible to acquire the number and types of
people necessary to ensure the continued operation of
the organization (Aiswarya, 2013).
 Thisdomain is not a single, simplified function, but a
group of plans, systems, tools, processes and
services.
 Inmost academic literature the terms recruitment and
selection are used together, however it is necessary at
the advent to elucidate the dissimilarity of the two terms
as it is entirely different functions of HR.

 Pilbeam and Corbridge (2006) explained that those two

terms is actually based on action between “applicant and
job”, which is dependent on stating a need by an
organization, using the most appropriate techniques and
on “reviewing, evaluating and modifying the recruitment
and selection system in the light of experience.”
Recruitment
 is a dynamic and complex process that includes advertising a job
opening to qualified applicants, enticing them to apply for the job,
maintaining the candidate’s interest throughout the process, and
influencing their decisions until an offer is officially extended.
 It indicates that the process of recruitment has an important purposes
which is to find the best talents on the job market with professional
knowledge, personal engagement and social competence.
 A number of variables, such as the time and cost of the recruitment
process, tend to have considerable influence on the expected benefits
and costs of each recruitment channel. They considered employee
referrals, private agencies, promotion and top notch universities as
recruitment channels to hire high skilled workers (Rufini & Torre, 2010)
Selection
 is the process by which managers and others use specific
instruments to choose from a pool of applicants a person or
persons more likely to succeed in the jobs, given management
goals and legal requirements (Bratton & Gold, 2007)
 Selection is crucial and continuing function. The ability of an
organization to attain its goals effectively and to develop in a
dynamic environment largely depends upon the effectiveness of
its selection program. If right personnel is selected the remaining
functions of management becomes easier, the employee
contribution and commitment will be at an optimum level and
employee-employer relations will be congenial (Anoosha, 2012).
 The key point of selection should be effective, efficient and fair.
Fair means ensuring that the decisions made during the process
is based on merit alone (ACAS, 2014).
 In setting out a similar distinction in which recruitment activities
provide a pool of people eligible for selection, Foot and Hook
(2005) suggest that although the two functions are closely
connected, each requires a separate range of skills and
expertise, and may in practice be fulfilled by different staff
members.
 The recruitment activity, but not normally the selection decision,
may be outsourced to an agency. It makes sense, therefore, to
treat each activity separately.
 Recruitment and selection, as defined here, can play a
pivotally important role in shaping an organization’s
effectiveness and performance, if work organizations are able
to acquire workers who already possess relevant knowledge,
skills and aptitudes and are also able to make an accurate
prediction regarding their future abilities.
Stage 1 - Job Vacancy
 Naturally, the first step in the process is when a vacancy arises in
your business.
However, before rushing to fill a position, consider the following
points:
 Do you know why the vacancy has arisen? Perhaps the previous
employee left due to problems in the business and unless these
are resolved, the new candidate will likely be unhappy too.
 In these times, every cent counts so when a vacancy arises it is
useful to consider whether you could manage effectively (not just
scrape by) without that post being filled, or whether through job
redesign, or part-time work, savings could be generated.
 As mentioned in the previous slide, is there potential to
appoint/promote an internal candidate to the vacant position
and then recruit externally for the lower post? By promoting
from within, where possible, you reduce the risks associated
with recruitment but you also let your existing employees see
that there is a potential ‘career path’ in your company which
might encourage them to stay longer with you.

Once you have considered the above points, you can then
reflect upon the second stage.
Stage 2 - Job Analysis
 Employee recruitment is potentially a very subjective process
and unless you take active steps to reduce the levels of
subjectivity, you will find that more times than not you will make
poor recruitment decisions based solely on gut feeling; and as a
result you will be frequently caught out by people who ‘do good
interviews’.
 Worse still, without objective criteria to evaluate candidates your
propensity to subconsciously select employees who ‘fit’ with
your world view will increase, so ultimately you will end up with
a lot of like-minded people in the business. This might sound
like a good thing, but it certainly is not as a healthy diversity is
far better in terms of business effectiveness.
To begin the process of reducing subjectivity, job analysis seeks
to answer this question:
2.1 What do you want employees to do?
 Knowing what it is you want your employees to do is a fairly
basic requirement and most businesses now have defined
job descriptions in place for every position.
 If you don’t have them, you should address this weakness
immediately; don’t assume that your employees are on the
same wavelength as you when it comes to what their job
involves and what results are expected. If you already have
them, make sure they remain current and reflective of what is
required and adjust them where necessary.
When using job descriptions as part of recruitment, keep the
following points in mind:
 The earlier that you give them to potential candidates during
the process the better, because before you interview them,
you want to at least be sure that they know what the job will
entail and are comfortable with that.
 Use the job descriptions to screen applicants based on what
you want the employee to do versus what each candidate
can do based on their CV.
 You may also develop specific technical or job-specific
questions to ask during the interview based on the job
description.
 Apart from their use in recruitment, job descriptions also
play an important role in managing employee performance
because how can you ever measure an employee’s
contribution if you haven’t clearly outlined to them what they
are supposed to do? They can also be used in training and
development to help identify individual training needs, so
they are vital tools.
 However, job descriptions only describe what you want a
person to do; as part of recruitment, you also need to know
what type of person you want for any given job.
Although it depends on the job you are recruiting for, in developing a
profile of the ideal candidate, you could consider headings such as:

 What education or training qualifications do you expect the ideal

candidate to have to be able to do the job?
 What level of work experience are you looking for?
 What specific skills and knowledge must they already have to do the
job to the standard you require?
 What communication skills do they require?
 What overall personality/disposition are you looking for in the person?
 What personal attributes must they have? Define them very clearly.
After all, an interview is supposed to help you determine if a candidate is the
‘right’ person for the job, but you can never do so unless you clarify what
‘right’ actually means. Another similar approach to drawing up an employee
profile is to use the seven headings below:
1. Education Qualifications/ Training - are there any specific educational or
training requirements?
2. Work experience - does the candidate need to have any particular level
of previous work experience?
3. Skills and Knowledge - are there any particular skills and/or knowledge
which are required for the job?
4. Physical Attributes - does the work involve strenuous lifting etc.?
5. Personality/Disposition - what type of personality might be most
appropriate for this position? Will they be required to work as part of a
team?
6. Communication Skills - does the position require the candidate to
communicate with the public?
7. Personal Circumstances - are there unsocial working hours? Does the
position involve travel?

Developing and using well-structured questions, based

on the employee profile, will help you get a better
insight into a candidate’s true personality.
Stage 3 - Attracting Candidates
 The purpose of analysing the vacancy is to have a clear picture in
mind of the job requirements and the type of person you wish to
recruit. Then you must set about trying to attract suitable
applicants for this position.
 Not only do you want to attract a good number of candidates for
interview, but perhaps more importantly you wish to attract the
right quality of candidates. In other words it is the quality of
applicants and not the quantity that you attract which is most
important.
In seeking to attract applicants it is important to consider two sources:
 Internal Recruitment
As mentioned, it is important to think about whether the position can be filled
internally before looking externally. This is particularly relevant for
supervisory or management positions. Internal recruitment has the following
advantages:
 Reduces recruitment costs.
 Internal candidates are already familiar with your organisation, its aims,
objectives etc.
 Can act as a motivating factor for others in the business by showing them
that it is possible to move ‘up the ranks’.
 A candidate from outside the company will always be an ‘unknown
quantity’ no matter how effective your selection process. On the other
hand a person promoted from within is already known to you.
 External recruitment
There are many sources of external recruitment including:
 Websites.
 National/local newspapers/trade journals.
 Recruitment agencies/consultants.
 Employment fairs/seminars/open days.
The source(s) of recruitment you use will be dependent upon a number of
factors such as:
 The type of position you are seeking to fill.
 The amount of money you wish to spend on filling the position.
 What has worked well in the past.
 The nature of the job market at the time you are recruiting.
 Advertising
As advertising is an expensive source of generating interest in
available positions, it is important that the content of the
advertisement achieves the following objectives:
 To reach the desired target audience.
 To attract the required number of suitable candidates.
 To send out the right image about your company.
The AIDA principle can guide you here, and your advertisements
should:
 Gain the Attention of the right people.
 Create Interest in the minds of those people.
 Instill a Desire in them to apply for the position.
 Provide them with information on how Apply for the position.
 The content of the advertisements you place should include
some or all of the following information, depending upon the
nature of the position being advertised;
 Brief promotional description of the company.
 Job title.
 Location.
 Description of the post.
 Qualifications and experience required.
 Conditions of employment including salary.
 Relocation expenses, if applicable.
 Closing date.
Stage 4- Screening Candidates
 When you receive a large number of applications for an
advertised position, the golden rule should be to interview less
people for longer, so you need to screen the applications to
select the most suitable candidates for interview. This can
involve:
 Using the job description and employee specification to compare
against the CV.
 Conducting short telephone interviews to gauge an individual’s
suitability. This can often be a useful exercise as the candidates
are frequently less ‘prepared’ so you get a better feel for their
natural self; plus, if telephone techniques are important for the
advertised position, then you can also assess their telephone
manner.
 The purpose of the screening process is to narrow down
the field so that you can spend more time with each
candidate for formal interview. It is important to note here
too that you cannot contact a candidate’s previous
employer at this point for references without their explicit
permission.
 Stage 5 - Interviewing Candidates
 The old saying of ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’ is particularly
true in relation to interviewing. If you are going to have any real
chance of finding the most suitable candidate then both you and the
candidate must be adequately prepared for the interview.
Preparing the Candidate
To help the candidate to be fully prepared for the interview you should:
 Ensure that adequate notice is given of the date and time for the
interview.
 Ensure that the candidate is aware how to get to your premises.
 Ensure they are clear where to go and who to contact upon arrival.
 Ensure they are aware of any information, documents etc., you would
like them to bring with them to the interview.
Preparation by the Interviewer
To ensure that you are fully prepared you must:
 Review all the relevant information beforehand - job descriptions, employee
profiles, application forms etc. You should examine each CV or application form to
identify areas to question during the interview.
 Prepare a plan of how you intend to conduct each interview - consistency is
important. This should include an outline of similar questions to ask all candidates
based on the job description, employee profile and CVs, so that you can compare
like with like.
 Prepare a suitable venue for the interviews. The choice of location and the layout
of the room will have an impact on the outcome.
 Make sure you are free from disruptions when you are interviewing and do not
schedule too many interviews on the same day.
 Allow adequate intervals between each interview, giving yourself
some time after each one to finalise your notes.
 Provide a list of candidates and their interview times to your
receptionist. This will help to present a professional image to
candidates on arrival.
 If two or more of you are conducting the interviews this obviously
increases the preparation required so that each knows what role
they will play during the interview.
Conducting an Interview
There is a well-known and easy to apply structure for conducting
interviews known as the WASP approach. It enables you to offer a
similar format to each candidate, thereby ensuring consistency in the
interviewing process and assisting your evaluation at the end.

Welcome
During this initial phase of the interview you should:
 Establish Rapport - Break the Ice. A relaxed candidate will perform
better.
 Explain the purpose of the interview.
 Outline the format for the interview with approximate timings.
 Inform the candidate that you will be taking notes.
Acquire Information
In this phase of the interview you are seeking to gather as many
relevant details from the candidate as possible so that you can
make an informed decision about their suitability.

 Begin with general questions before moving to the more specific.

 Use your question technique to explore background, attitudes,
suitability etc., relevant to the employee profile and job description.
 Probe to explore any ‘gaps’- but do not interrogate them.
 Let the candidate speak, use your listening skills!!! They should
speak for 80% of the time.
 Remember as you assess the candidate they are also assessing
you and making some judgements about you and the company.
Supply Information
Once you have obtained all the relevant information you
need, then you should allow the candidate to ask you
questions about the position. You should ensure that you:
 Outline the job description in greater detail giving an
overview of their potential role in the company.
 Provide the candidate with details on the salary and
conditions associated with the position.
 Answer any remaining interviewee questions.
Plan and Part
The final part of the interview is designed to ensure that
both parties leave the interview fully aware of the next
steps in the selection process. You should:
 Ask to check references – you do need permission to do so.
 Discuss salary if not mentioned already
 Give timetable for your decision and how they will be
notified
 Thank them
In some cases you may wish to provide the candidate with a
tour of your facilities. This can be done at this stage but
inform them at the outset.
Stage 6 - Selecting and Appointing
Candidates
 It has already been established that interviews are a very
subjective method of evaluating the suitability of a
candidate and some guidance has been provided above on
how you might reduce the subjective nature of your
interviews. There are of course many other recruitment
methods that can be used in conjunction with interviews to
reduce subjectivity, such as psychometric testing or
assessment centres but for many tourism businesses,
interviews remain the primary tool used.
To maximise the potential for selecting the best candidate the following
steps are worth noting:
As stated, prepare a job description and employee profile at the outset
of the recruitment process. These are then the criteria against which
you will measure each candidate.
 Prepare a simple assessment form incorporating these criteria.
 During each interview take only brief notes on candidate responses.
 After each interview complete the assessment form for the
candidate in question while the details are fresh in your mind.
 When you have completed all the interviews compare the assessment
forms to identify the most suitable candidate.
 For more senior positions it is important to conduct a second
interview, with more than one interviewer seeing the candidate.
Appointing Candidates
Every company will have its own procedure for appointing
successful candidates and clearly you will follow your own approach.
The procedure will generally entail these steps:
1. Candidate selected.
2. Verbal offer of appointment made.
3. Medical completed if appropriate.
4. Letter of appointment sent.
5. Contract signed.

This may vary slightly depending upon the urgency for filling the
vacancy. Whatever procedure you follow it is important to remember
that this is the beginning of your new employee’s formal introduction
to your company, so first impressions last.
Stage 7 - Induction & Training
 Induction is the process of receiving and welcoming employees
when they first join your business and giving them the basic
information they need to settle down quickly.
Induction has three aims:
 To smooth the early stages when everything is likely to be
strange and unfamiliar to the new employee.
 To establish quickly a favourable attitude to the company in
the mind of the new employee so that he or she is more likely
to stay.
 To obtain effective output from the new employee in the
shortest possible time.
Usually the induction process has two components:
Company Induction
The first stage of induction is when the employee receives a detailed introduction to
the company and their job. An employee handbook is useful for this purpose, but
there should also be a face-to-face induction given which covers things like:
 A brief description of the company – its history, products, organisation and
management.
 Basic conditions of employment – hours of work, holidays, pension scheme,
insurance.
 Pay – pay scales, when paid and how, deductions, queries.
 Sickness – notification of absence, certificates, pay.
 Leave of absence.
 Company rules.
 Disciplinary procedure.
 Grievance procedure.
 Promotion procedure.
 Union and joint consultation arrangements (if relevant).
 Education and training.
 Health and safety arrangements.
 Medical and first-aid facilities.
 Restaurant and canteen facilities.
 Social and welfare arrangements.
 Telephone calls and correspondence.
 Travelling and subsistence expenses (if relevant).
 If your business is not large enough to justify a printed
handbook, the least that should be done is to prepare a typed
summary of this information. You may not personally deliver
the full induction but you should spend time with all new
starters so that they understand your philosophy and what is
expected of them.
Departmental Induction
When the initial briefing has been completed, new employees should be
taken to their place of work and introduced to their manager or team
leader for the departmental induction programme. This can involve
working through a checklist of training and other information which might
span their first month in the role.

On-going Training & Development

Of course, training should not stop at induction and all employees should
receive appropriate on- and off-the-job training on a regular basis which
balances the needs of the business and the individual.
Stage 8 - Employee Evaluation
Monitoring employee performance is of course an on-going
activity, but for new employees, evaluation should have the
following defined phases:
 End of first day/week – a quick ‘how are you getting on’
chat should take place at the end of the first day, and week,
to ensure they are settling in well.
 End of first month – a more detailed job chat should take place
where the employee’s early performance is reviewed in detail and
positives highlighted. Where difficulties are identified, the
employee should be made aware of any issues, offered remedial
coaching and support, and then this should be followed up again
at weekly intervals. It is important that problems are addressed
early so that before an employee’s probation period (usually 3-6
months) has elapsed you are confident that they are the right
person for the longer term.
 End of probation period – given that you will have addressed
any problems by this point, this stage should represent the
employee’s first formal appraisal at the company where his or her
strengths are identified and praised and future goals are
established. You may at this point revise their pay upwards if that
was part of the employment contract.
 By viewing ‘recruitment’ as an eight stage process, you attach
greater importance to it and by taking the necessary action
within each of those stages you ensure that you are
maximising the quality of employees you bring into the
business. As you well know, it is far easier to keep a ‘bad egg’
out than to get rid of one later.