Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting and Orienting New Employees

Diane Arthur

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780814420256
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Nothing is more important to the productivity of an organization than its hiring program. Broken into four parts, this book spans the journey from recruitment to interviews to making an offer to orientation.

As president of a human resources development firm, author Diane Arthur is full of insights on the latest staffing challenges, including changes in technology such as virtual interviews and recruitment, web-based orientations, and the use of electronic files and social media.

Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting & Orienting New Employees offers practical information to help your business overcome these challenges and beat out competitors for the best talent. You'll learn about:

• interview methods,
• documentation issues,
• reference-checking,
• orientation programs,
• applicant testing,
• FMLA legislation,
• record keeping,
• I-9 compliance,
• and much more.

Recruiting, Interviewing, Selecting & Orienting New Employees has long been the go-to reference on every aspect of the employment process. Packed with forms, checklists, guidelines, and ready-to-use interview questions, the revised fifth edition provides you with the tools you need to get employees on board and ready to succeed.

PART I
Recruiting Qualified People

CHAPTER 1
Recruitment Challenges

Employers across the country struggle with similar recruitment challenges, including a tumultuous economic picture that continues to confound labor experts, frustration over the inability to attract and compete for qualified applicants despite long bouts of high unemployment, and efforts to establish and adhere to high standards of excellence. While there may not be any one-size-fits-all solution to these and other recruitment issues, there are limited-risk measures businesses can take that will likely improve employer-employee relations, which in turn will serve to improve productivity and hence profitability.

Weather the Impact of a Fluctuating Economy

No one will dispute that we have been on an economic roller coaster ride for the past several years and will undoubtedly continue to experience unrest, at least in the near future. This unsettling sense of economic instability tends to discourage long-term business planning, which is founded upon a solid core of qualified, motivated employees.

Even after we’ve settled into a state of calm, experts suggest that business as we once knew it will not resume. An air of uncertainty and concern will hover, challenging human resources (HR) practitioners in all employment-related matters, including hiring. Indeed, many recruiters hesitate to launch aggressive staffing efforts despite knowing that if they do not, jobs will remain unfilled, existing employees will become overworked and unmotivated, and productivity and quality of services or products could ultimately stagnate or decline.

While this scenario is daunting, it need not be prophetic. A three-pronged strategic plan will better enable employers to weather the impact of economic turbulence on recruitment efforts, allowing them to not only survive, but thrive.

1. Clarify goals by being “S.M.A.R.T.”

Recruitment—regardless of prevailing or predicted economic conditions—begins with a clear sense of where you’re headed as a business. Ask yourself: What is our mission statement? Do we know how each department can contribute to the achievement of short- and long-term organizational goals? Is there an alignment between employee interests and corporate goals? Do we have an accompanying detailed timeline that calls for measurable accomplishments?

While an unstable economy can make goal setting more challenging, it need not deter a business from moving forward. The long-standing “S.M.A.R.T.” model for identifying performance standards—establishing goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive—is applicable to clarifying business objectives. For example, your company may want to resume increased patterns of production that were averaging 8 percent per year before the onset of the recession. Think S.M.A.R.T.: Instead of saying, “We need to increase production,” identify realistic, attainable target figures based on past numbers, competitors’ output, and projected staffing requirements. Your mission statement, then, might be, “Our goal is to raise production by 5 percent at the end of this calendar year, and an additional 7 percent by December 31 of next year. This will initially match our competitions’ yield and surpass their current production by the end of our second year. In order to succeed we need to expand operations and improve quality control.”

Accomplishing specific objectives identified in your mission statement begins with answering the question, “What are the roles most critical to keeping our business strong while we move toward expansion?” Once specific functions and tasks are isolated, you can proceed to update and assess the skills and interests of current staff, focusing on top performers. This process of maximizing core strengths requires matching the scope of each employee’s responsibilities with that employee’s interests and attributes. This, in turn, lays the groundwork for HR to identify additional hiring needs and map out a productive recruitment initiative.

2. Practice targeted recruitment.

Savvy employers understand that regularly identifying key performers and ensuring that they are being fully utilized and motivated is a valuable precursor to recruitment. After experiencing economic setbacks, however, many employers leave openings unfilled, relying instead on their best workers to perform additional duties. This approach may work for the short term, but it is likely to ultimately strain employer-employee relations to the point where top performers move on to other job opportunities when economic conditions allow.

Alleviate the possibility of misusing top talent by viewing economic slowdowns as opportunities, allowing employers to select from among a highly talented pool of candidates who have been downsized or otherwise cut adrift for reasons having nothing to do with their abilities. Recruiting during an economic downturn, then, can actually serve as a tremendous competitive advantage when the economy rights itself, but only if you practice targeted recruitment. If you have established S.M.A.R.T. goals, you’re ready to match up business needs with requisite skills and abilities. In this regard, avoid the classic mistake made by many employers when the market is saturated with applicants and assume they will seek you out. This is not the time to practice passive recruitment; instead, be aggressive and target locations and sources where candidates with desirable skill sets are likely to be found. For example, if you want to fill technical support positions, your best bet is to focus on industry-specific, web-based sources (Chapters 3 and 4). This cuts down the amount of time and effort invested in the recruitment process and increases the likelihood of a high return on your investment.

Targeted recruitment also supports efforts to increase workplace diversity by using sources that reach out to underutilized groups, making it more likely that organizations will satisfy their affirmative action goals (Chapter 6).

Simply stated: know what you need and go where your applicants are likely to be.

3. Clarify your expectations.

Most applicants come in with a clear understanding of what they expect from a prospective employer. In addition to salary and benefits, the list usually includes a motivating work environment, opportunities for growth and advancement, regular feedback on their work, and a mutually respectful relationship between themselves and their boss. When asked what they want from their employees, however, employers are rarely as specific. Most say that they expect to be able to rely on their employees to perform their jobs in at least a competent manner. But there can and should be more in the way of expectations, regardless of who’s driving the economy. As part of your company’s targeted recruitment efforts, determine whether prospective employees are likely to help meet its S.M.A.R.T. goals: Are they able to help the organization grow and prosper? What is it about their concrete skill set and intangible qualities, such as interpersonal and organizational skills, that will benefit your business? Be prepared as well to determine whether prospective employees demonstrate a willingness to learn and accept criticism. Now consider traits that are relevant to each particular job. If you’re looking for a manager, for example, you’ll likely need someone who has demonstrated that she can work well as a team player, has effective conflict resolution abilities, and has the ability to remain calm while dealing with problems. When hiring an administrative assistant, emphasize the ability to maintain cooperative working relationships, flexibility, and effective time-management skills. And a human resources professional should have a keen sense of business, HR, and organizational operations, be a strategic thinker, and be an effective communicator. Of course, there is likely to be an overlap of skills and traits between one job and another, but you can still isolate those attributes that will lead you to the most qualified employee for a specific position.

Well-thought-out and well-written job descriptions will serve as the foundation for effective recruitment (Chapter 5), as will an understanding and application of different questioning techniques (Chapters 7 and 8).

Make Recruitment Efforts Succeed

While every employer deals with similar recruitment challenges, some are more successful than others. The resources successful recruiters use make a difference (Chapters 3 and 4), but there’s more involved than that. To achieve the best possible results, proactive employers apply as many of the classic “ABC Guidelines for Successful Recruitment” as possible every time they have a job opening.

ABC Guidelines for Successful Recruitment

As soon as you know there’s going to be an opening, either because of a vacancy or due to a newly created position, kick the twenty-six “ABC Guidelines for Successful Recruitment” into high gear. ¹ This means being:

• Attractive. Promote your organization as the kind of place employees will want to call their place of work. Highlight your most generous and unique benefits, have employees promote your attributes among friends, and publicly pat yourself on the back for accomplishments. In addition, convert failures or shortcomings into strengths, e.g., stating, “Last year you read about our competition; now it’s our turn. We’ve already surpassed Drexel’s profits by 12 percent and we’re just getting started. Join Hartman, and be part of a winning team!”

• Believable. If what you’re offering sounds too good to be true, repackage your wares. Skeptical applicants shouldn’t have to cross-examine interviewers to determine if your hard-to-believe advertised benefits package is real.

• Centered. Identify and focus on anywhere from three to six critical, job-specific competencies; that is, qualities or traits that contribute to a person’s ability to effectively perform the duties and responsibilities of a given job. Clearly communicate and adhere to them in your recruitment efforts. For example, here are key competencies that have been identified for a project manager: apply technical expertise to solve business problems, focus on key elements of a project, motivate and work effectively with a wide range of people, and negotiate in order to accomplish goals.

• Diligent. Effective recruitment requires hard work. Gather together a team of focused individuals who will invest the effort needed to recruit from a pool of qualified candidates.

• Empathetic. Take into consideration an applicant’s needs and interests in relation to organizational goals in order to strike a balance and find common denominators between the two. For example, if an applicant expresses an interest in becoming an integral member of the management team within five years, but the job she’s applying for is a support position with little likelihood of promotion, it’s likely she’ll grow disenchanted and leave shortly after being hired.

• Flexible. If you’ve tried one recruitment source and it’s not yielding the kind of results you need in a reasonable period of time, move on to others. Do this even if it’s a recruitment source you’ve relied heavily on in the past, with good results.

• Greedy. Tell yourself that your company is entitled to be staffed by the best possible workforce and seek out those applicants who maximally meet your needs. Aim high, but be realistic and don’t drag out the recruitment process for an unreasonable period of time hoping to find the ideal employee as opposed to the best fit.

• Hip. Stay informed and current when it comes to the latest developments in recruitment, as well as what sources and techniques your competitors are using.

• Informative. Anticipate what applicants are likely to want to know about a job and your company and be prepared to tell them, either verbally or in some form of written or electronically generated material.

• Judicious. Exercise sound judgment when matching applicants with jobs. Avoid decisions dictated by emotion or resulting from pressure to fill an opening.

• Knowledgeable. Be thoroughly familiar with the parameters of the job, as well as how it interfaces with other positions, the department, and the company. Also, be aware of how other organizations view this job in terms of responsibility, status, and compensation.

• Linear. Think in terms of a series of straight lines connecting the applicant, the job, and the company. This practice helps keep you on track and accomplish your goal of staffing openings as quickly as possible with the most suitable employees.

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