Recruitment and Selection Strategies Essay

Summary: The recruitment and selection strategies that a company chooses are vital to the success of a business. Recruitment and selection strategies just thrown together are likely to fail. This is why a new business, such as Landslide Limousine must define the necessary criteria for recruitment and selection processes that will support its employee selections. This criterion will include hiring an adequate and qualified staff, a commitment to fair employment practices, and pre-employment standards to include background and reference checks. To determine the criteria for these requirements, the company’s organizational goals, the forecasted demographic changes, analyze workforce needs, workforce diversity objectives, organizational branding, and the methods needed for recruiting, screening, and selecting the proper candidates will be looked at. By assessing these areas we will be able to provide Landslide Limousine effective strategies for the recruitment and selection of personnel to provide a high quality and reliable service to its customers. We will also need to take into account that Landslide Limousine is a new company moving into Austin, Texas, and will need to follow local, state, and federal laws for the area in the employment processes. Organizational Goals Mr. Stonefield has set a goal for his company Landslide Limousine to be the  best limo service in Austin, Texas. He plans on hiring up to 25 employees within the first year with only a 10% turnover rate. He does expect to have a net annual revenue of -$50,000 for the first year, but an annual expected revenue growth of -5% for future years. To meet these goals there needs to be the right employees in place that will â€Å"buy in† to the company. These employees will understand the vision that Mr. Stonefield wishes for his company and want to help him reach it. Forecasted Demographic Changes Landslide Limousine is expecting to have a high turnover rate the first year. To keep the business going successfully it is necessary for the individuals hired to help out in other areas when needed. For this to be accomplished, the applicants need to be qualified in a variety of areas. The company will also need to think ahead and hire individuals who might be bilingual because of the proximity of Austin, Texas, to the Mexico border. An applicant who is not bilingual should not be dissuaded from applying, it would just be an added benefit for the company. Analysis of Workforce Needs Landslide Limousine will employ up to 25 people within the first year these employees will include customer service representatives, dispatchers, drivers, HR assistants, and managers. Customer service representatives will handle the calls from customers and potential customers. They will be the frontline to the business and must have high customer service qualities. Dispatchers will convey information that the customer service representative gathers to the drivers about where and when to pick up and drop off clients. Drivers will drive the customers to their locations in an efficient professional manner. HR assistants will help the manager in making sure that the company is following the applicable local, state, and federal employment laws and help handle any HR related issues with the employees. A manager will oversee the rest of the employees and ensure that the company is maintaining its perspective on the company’s goals and objectives. Workforce Diversity Objectives Landslide Limousine’s success will depend on its ability to hire qualified  candidates from a diverse pool of applicants. For this reason the hiring individual must be familiar with equal employment opportunity laws, fair employment practices related to the recruiting and hiring processes, and employment eligibility that allow an individual to work in the United States. The last is especially important with Austin, Texas, close to the Mexico border the immigration laws must be strictly adhered to (â€Å"Do your applicants,† n.d.). This will ensure that the employees have the proper credentials necessary for employment in the United States. Organizational Branding Mr. Stonefield wants his company to be the best there is in Austin, Texas. To do this he must ensure that his goals and visions for the company meet the needs of his consumers. He will also need to ensure that the employees hired are a good fit for the company and the image that he wishes to portray. In this type of industry, the contact made with the customer is a big influence on how he or she perceives the company. If there is a choice between attitude and skills, the individual with the correct attitude toward customer service should win out every time. Work skills are something that can be taught with training, customer service skills have to do with the attitude that an individual has and how he or she can handle situations with customers effectively. Methods for Recruiting Candidates This will be a key component in an effective recruitment and selection process. The methods for recruiting candidates will be from several sources. We cannot use internal sources at this time because the company is just starting up in the Austin, Texas, area. This is something that will be considered for future job openings in the company. For the initial job openings the sources will be external, and the areas to consider are newspaper advertisements, state employment services, job fairs, and using word of mouth. These methods will bring in applicants who may have the experience needed for the line of work the company is looking to fill. Another area to consider would be online job-related sites such as carreerbuilder.com and monster.com. Networking through professional organizations and keeping an eye out for changes among the competition as  also very useful. The company must know exactly what type of applicant they are looking for before advertising the positions and accepting resumes (Richason IV, n.d.). One last area to consider would be a temp service agency that specializes in providing other companies employees who will work for them on a temporary basis. These employees are hired by the temp service agency to meet the requirements requested by the company. By hiring through a temp agency, the screening and selecting of candidates is completed by them. Employees hired by this type of agency do have the opportunity to be hired as a permanent employee of the company. Methods for Screening Candidates The company needs to ensure the individual doing the hiring is knowledgeable in equal employment opportunity laws and affirmative action provisions pertaining to the position. This is the first opportunity in the recruitment and selection processes that an employer can express his or her commitment to equal opportunity. This is a critical part of any effective recruitment and selection process. When screening applicants for a position the reviewer must look for suitable qualifications. These are the experience of the applicant, his or her credentials, educational requirements for the position, and the presentation of his or her qualifications. A quick review of applications and resumes can help a company identify qualified applicants by looking for key words. Interview Methods Once the applicants have been narrowed down, the individual doing the hiring can conduct preliminary phone interviews. These phone interviews or screening interviews will describe to the applicant in more detail the job position and requirements, assess the applicants communication skills, review his or her work history, and to determine if he or she is interested in a face-to-face interview. The face-to-face interview is the most common interview method, which involves the applicant and the interviewer meeting face-to-face in an office. These interviews can be behavioral, situational, structured, and  unstructured or a combination thereof. A behavioral interview will typically ask an applicant to explain his or her work experience, skills, and activities as examples of his or her past behavior. A situational interview will ask questions about hypothetical events. The applicant is asked how he or she would react in a particular situation. A structured interview has a standard set of questions that are asked of every applicant. An unstructured interview adapts the questions based on the applicant’s intelligence, understanding and answers. It is recommended that these different types of face-to-face interviews be melded into one for Landslide Limousine. The interviewer should have some structured questions to ask of all applicants, unstructured questions based on the interviewees understanding and answers. Behavioral and situational questions will ask the interviewee questions based on his or her past behavior and questions based on hypothetical events. Testing Procedures There are several types of tests that can be administered. Cognitive tests will test reasoning, memory, math skills, reading comprehension, and knowledge of a job or function. Personality and integrity tests will determine if an individual has certain traits or dispositions and will predict if the individual will engage in certain types of conduct. Medical examinations are required by the Department of Transportation to carry a commercial drivers license (CDL) and in Austin, Texas, a CDL is required to drive a limousine. Drug testing required for every employee before and during employment. Also criminal background checks are recommended because of the nature of business the company does. These tests should be administered without regard to color, race, sex, national origin, age, religion, or disability (â€Å"Employment tests and,† 2010). Before giving a test for pre-employment there are a few things that need to established to ensure that the test is legally defensible. These things are to make sure that the right tests are given and that the company has certified the tests validity and reliability. A valid test must measure the criteria needed for predicting job performances. It also must be reliable, which means that the test must measure an item consistently or that an individual’s score should be close to the same every time it is  taken. Because employment testing can be challenged in court, the company needs to make sure that the tests do not violate any local, state, or federal Equal Employment Opportunity Laws, including Title VII (Quast, 2011). There are several laws that need to be considered when administering these tests. They are the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), and the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). The use of these tests and applicant selection procedures are prohibited if they are discriminatory. Avoid questions of a personal nature or ones that may be considered offensive. Also the company should not just rely on these test results to choose the right candidate for the position (â€Å"Employment tests and,† 2010). Interview Process Considerations Interviews are scheduled when the hiring individual has free uninterrupted time. This allows them the opportunity to review the resume and conduct an informational interview with the applicant. Refrain from focusing on his or her credentials or experience. The interviewer needs to present hypothetical scenarios to the applicant and ask how he or she would evaluate and solve the problem. Listen to his or her responses without interrupting and make notes on the key points of the conversation (Richason IV, n.d.). Methods for Selecting Candidates The methods used for selecting the right candidates for the positions will be varied, depending on the position applied for. The interviews and tests will be a consideration for positions needing filled. The notes taken during the interview process will be compared to the applicants resume to see if anything was missed. The selections will be based on how competently he or she answered the questions and the questions that were asked by him or her during the interview. The limousine driver position needs a valid commercial driver’s license for the state of Texas, and is a requirement for working in the Austin, Texas, area. Applicants who do not ask questions are either uninterested in working for the company or shy and therefore might not be a good fit for the company (Richason IV, n.d.). Conclusion The recommendations that have been made will ensure the continued success of the company. The company’s organizational goals, forecasted demographic changes, workforce needs and diversity objectives, organizational branding, and the methods needed for recruiting, screening, and selecting candidates have been considered in the development of this plan. The recruitment and selection process must adhere to local, state, and federal laws to ensure compliance and avoid legal issues. By following these recommendations Landslide Limousine will hire an adequate and qualified staff while ensuring a commitment to fair employment practices and pre-employment standards. References Do your applicants have the right to work in the u.s.?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.firstchoiceresearch.com/docs/I-9 Employment Eligibility.pdf Quast, L. (2011, September 13). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2011/09/13/pre-employment-testing-a-helpful-way-for-companies-to-screen-applicants/2/ Richason IV, O. E. (n.d.). Methods of recruitmant and selection. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/methods-recruitment-selection-2532.html The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, (2010). Employment tests and selection procedures. Retrieved from website: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/factemployment_procedures.html