I’ll be honest, this can be a dry subject. However, having a solid understanding of recruitment, and being able to implement thoughtful recruitment strategies is vital to a company’s success.
The following post is meant to help you understand the basic principles of recruitment and candidate selection.
Understanding Recruitment
Labor Demand
Labor demand refers to any staffing needs your business unit has now and what needs it may have in the future, say 3 – 5 years. For example, knowing that your company is seeking to expand by 50% over the next 3 years should give you a clue that you may need to increase your staff within that time as well.
There are a few things that you can do to understand the your labor demand:
- Know your company’s vision and how your business unit will be impacted thereby
- Know the current and forecasted turnover rate for your business unit, your company, and your industry
- Understand the job market for your industry, in your area
- Be aware of growing trends (e.x. new technologies that you may utilize or for which future applicant’s may be specialized)
Labor Supply
Labor supply refers to the availability of qualified applicants in your field and in your area. For example, if a nearby university launches a new Computer Science program, you may expect an influx of related professionals in your area in the next 4 – 5 years.
Understanding your labor supply can be of critical importance as it allows you to plan how to deal with regular (and irregular) turnover, business expansion, etc. Aggressive growth plans can easily be ham-stringed by staffing problems.
Things that you can do to understand your labor supply include:
- Understanding the costs and benefits of living in your area (cost of living, tax rates, etc.)
- Understanding the general job outlook of your area (talent is attracted to areas with a positive job outlook)
- Understanding social conditions and demography of your area
Recruitment Objectives
Once you understand your labor supply and demand, you can begin crafting your recruitment objectives. These objectives should address any advantages or concerns exposed during your supply and demand analysis.
For example, if you find that the job supply in your area is low, you may have an objective such as: “Establish programs and incentives to increase staff retention rate.” If you determine that large percent of older staff are due for retirement within the next 5 years, you may have an objective such as: “Within five years, recruit enough entry-level staff to offset the 15% off the current workforce expected to retire within that time.”
Recruitment Sources
As an IT Leader, you may not have the final say on what recruitment sources are used by your Human Resource department. However, by knowing what methods are available, you can make informed recommendations.
Popular recruitment sources include:
- Online/offline job boards
- Online/offline Job Fairs
- Job forums
- Colleges and Universities
- The company website
- Walk-in applicants
- Word of mouth
- Etc.
It’s important that you (or the Human Resources department) keep track of what sources are producing applicants. Having this information will allow you to maximize the efficiency of your recruiting efforts.
Applicant Groups
Understanding your Yield Ratio
Your yield ratio shows the percentage of candidates, from your recruitment sources, that move on to the next stage of the hiring process.
The calculation for determining the Yield Ratio for a recruitment source, is pretty simple:
Yield Ratio = (# of candidates invited to interview / # of leads from the recruitment source) x 100%
For a simple example, lets say that 100 applications are received via an Online Job Board. Of those applicants, 60 are invited to interview. What’s the Yield Ratio?
YR = (60 / 100) x 100% = 60%
Analyzing a group of recruitment sources might yield something like this:
| Target Group | Yield Ratio |
|---|---|
| Online Job Boards | 60% |
| Job Fair | 45% |
| Local College | 8% |
| Walk Ins | 5 % |
In this example, we can say that of the applicants that apply through an Online Job Board, 60% are brought in for an interview.
Determining your Target Applicant Group
Based on the information revealed through the Yield Ratio analysis, you can then choose (or recommend) a subset of recruitment sources to target.
In the above example, it would make sense to prioritize online job boards and job fairs over recruiting at the local college, or encouraging people to apply in person.
Reaching your Target Applicant Group
Once you determine your target applicant groups, you can focus on maximizing those sources. For example, you can post on additional online job boards, or plan to have recruiters attend more job fairs.
Candidate Selection
Whereas you may not be directly involved in the recruitment process, you will almost certainly be so in the selection and hiring process. Therefore, it’s important to understand the ethics and legalities that drive hiring processes.
Fairness
As you may guess, your selection process needs to be fair. There are three types of fairness that you should be aware of:
- Distributive Fairness – the perceived fairness of the outcomes of the selection process
- Procedural Fairness – the perceived fairness of the policies and procedures used in the selection process
- Interaction Fairness – the quality of the interpersonal treatment during the selection process
In addition to this, you need to know that it is okay to discriminate based on applicant attributes such as experience, skills, education, etc.
However, you may not discriminate based on inclusion of any protected class. For your reference, these include:
- Gender
- Race
- Religion
- Color
- National Origin
- Age (over 40)
- Physical or mental handicaps
Generally speaking, you should strive to be fair along each of these metrics. However, you should check with your Human Resources department to learn the specific selection policies for your organization.
Methods and Tests
There are a number of methods and tests that you may choose to use in candidate selection:
- Integrity tests – questions meant to reveal the level of integrity that the candidate possesses
- Behavioral questions – questions meant to reveal how a candidate might react to various situations
- Skills Tests – often a hands-on test of an applicant’s skills
- Personality Tests – often administered by a third-party, these include the Myers-Briggs, DISC Assessment, etc. These are popular in sales positions where management may benefit from knowing what type of sales techniques a candidate might successfully employ.
- Panel Interviews – these are popular for leadership positions. The candidate interviews with various representatives from the company, often from different business units
- Structured Interviews – the questions are predetermined and the “correctness” of the responses are used to grade the candidate
- Unstructured Interviews – the questions are per-candidate and the responses are not formally assessed
In hiring skilled IT staff, unstructured interviews as a “First Interview” are often followed by a skills test that serves as a “Second Interview”.
For example, you may call a promising candidate and discuss the job functions with them, ask them about their experience and expertise, etc. If you feel the candidate is “strong” then you may schedule a follow up skills test. In this test, you may have them remotely log in to a testing environment and ask them to perform various functions that relate to the functions of the job. For example, you may have them create, modify, or delete Active Directory users, configure Group Policy settings, resolve a web server error, etc.
Conclusion
This article covers a lot of topics, and I understand that they may not be seem very exciting. However, these principles are important to understand as they can improve your leadership ability, and help position your business for success.