Recruitment Is a Critical Component of Any

Recruitment is a critical component of any human resources strategy. A good recruitment strategy should seek to find the right workers for the available roles within the company. For many firms, finding the right workers is essential to gaining and maintaining competitive advantage. For such companies, recruitment is essentially a competition for scarce resources, so it is necessary to outcompete rivals in order to win and sustain competitive advantage. While a basic way of explaining recruitment strategy is to "find the best people possible," a good recruitment strategy will refine this by understanding what it means to find the best people (Peterson, 2013). Recruitment strategies therefore need to be taken in the context of organizational objectives. Further, recruitment strategies need to weigh constraints as well. Most organizations must formulate a recruitment strategy with a budget in mind, and there are often constraints either external or internal relating to the diversity of the workplace and in terms of finding the right balance of workers to drive the company forward. This paper will look at the recruiting strategy of FedEx and analyze the overall effectiveness of the strategy.

FedEx Recruiting Strategy

FedEx has around 160,000 employees around the world, and the majority of its workers are in the United States. The company seeks to minimize turnover through a number of strategies, including a promise not to lay off full-time employees even in recession times, but there is still a constant need for new workers because of turnover, which affects its part-time ranks. FedEx mainly recruits for part-time positions, because full-time positions are typically filled internally. The company may pursue senior management candidates from outside the company, but in general even these come from within, as there is a sophisticated system for moving employees through the ranks.

For recruitment, FedEx has a centralized system online where applicants fill out forms, and if selected for interview would be contacted by one of the company's professional recruiters. There is a multi-stage interview process, drug-testing and applicants who will be driving vehicles will need to submit their driver's abstract proving competency. The process can take weeks, and is then followed by a training period. Part of the interview process is designed to test the ability of the applicant to relate to customers, because many of the lower-level positions are where the company has the point of contact with its customers. This contact is almost daily, so customer service skills and temperament are just as important as meeting the physical requirements for the position.

One of the key elements in the FedEx recruiting strategy is to cultivate a great employer brand. The concept of the employer brand reflects the desirability of a company for job-seekers. Companies that are more desirable will tend to attract better-quality applicants (Knox & Freeman, 2006). FedEx seeks to cultivate its employer brand through high visibility (prominent logos on its trucks), having staff who are friendly and well-adjusted, and through a variety of programs designed to treat employees well. By developing a reputation for treating employees well, a company can attract more workers, expanding the pool of quality applicants. With more applicants, the company is likely to find more high quality applicants, thereby improve the quality of its workforce.

Armed with a good employer brand, FedEx then seeks to identify the best of the applicants to fill its vacancies. The company does this by identifying the key skill sets for success in the company, rather than the key skill sets for success in a given role. The emphasis, therefore, is on discipline, organizational skills, and communication skills (ICMR, n.d.). By hiring employees are who the right fit in terms of their personality and attitude, the company gets employees who are most likely to succeed at the customer service dimensions, and to get people who can move around the organization. For example, it may be hiring people for call center work, but FedEx understands that today's part-time call center rep is tomorrow's full time courier or dispatcher. Training for individual jobs is something that the company deals with at a later date.

Strengths and Weaknesses

There are many strengths in the company's policies. First, the recruitment process is open enough to attract enough good candidates. The cultivation of a great employer brand is important because the company needs to fill thousands of positions per year. Further, the emphasis on softer personality factors is important. The jobs themselves only require moderate skill, and those skills can be taught. The softer side of the business cannot be so easily taught, so the company is right to recruit for the things that are harder to teach. Further, FedEx understands how critical the communication and service orientation aspects are to its business, and in this it has been able to recruit for what it considers to be its key success factor. There are some minor barriers, for example having to work through the website, but again, it is worthwhile to weed out people who are too lazy or unmotivated to go through a barrier or two. Once in the company, it is emphasized that overcoming barriers to deliver great customer service is an important success factor, so it makes sense that the company would test this from the outset in the recruiting process.

If there are weaknesses in the recruiting process, it is that it relies heavily on the employer brand. Without this, FedEx would have trouble bringing in enough good applicants to fill its positions. The company has made a shift away from some of the things that enhanced its employer brand -- it offered voluntary buyouts to some staff in order to outsource some jobs (Murphy, 2013). If the company loses its employer brand, it will be competing with the likes of fast food chains for workers instead of attracting high quality people.