Key success factors in effective employee recruitment and selection interviews

¶ … Interview

Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)

Christopher Tang Sin Hoon

IdentifING Key Success FactorS for an effective interview

In today's highly competitive and global environment, any organization that wishes to be successful needs to hire the best candidates possible for the positions available. A company is as strong as its people. It must also retain these productive individuals and keep them satisfied with their work. This necessitates that the interview process is conducted in a planned and effective manner. The interview of potential employees continues to be the major decision-making tool for nearly all jobs worldwide (Erker & Buczynski 2008). Hiring has been such an integral part of an organization's human resources ongoing responsibility that it is often taken for granted and not reviewed and critiqued on a regular basis. Organizations believe that since they are hiring people to fill the jobs, there is no need to make any changes in the process. What the organization does realize is that employee recruitment and selection can be either random or purposeful and strategic. Finding a qualified candidate is a beginning, but choosing a person who will appreciate, share, and promote the company's mission is equally essential. A strategic hiring process requires an clarity of what is important to the organization. Its core mission, vision, values, culture, and strategy needs to be considered when developing a hiring strategy (Segal 2002).

Segal (2002) explains that organizations often make certain common hiring mistakes:

1) Job Descriptions: The company fails to accurately spell out the specific behavioral competencies, such as flexibility, agility and strategic insight, and only list the minimum objective requirements, such as education and job experience. It is often the case that a person does not do well in a position because of deficiencies in behavioral competencies, not actual skills. Job descriptions are also very important for the employees and hiring manager in terms of annual reviews.

2) Recruiting: Because the applicant pool is becoming more diverse, there are many more outstanding candidates from which to choose. Those organizations that do not increase the diversity of their hiring will exclude many talented people and may find that their hiring quality suffers. Hiring a diverse group of employees also enhances a company's image with future hires and the public in general.

3) Employment Application: Every employer has one general or different types of employment applications. Yet, sometimes the applicants do not have to fill out this form, especially for senior positions. Also, some candidates attach their resumes and never complete the application. Resumes frequently have errors or actual false information; an application may be inconsistent with the resume, which is a way to screen out such candidates. Filling out a form also gives the company additional information on the employees, such as how they fill out forms and their literacy capabilities.

4) Making Final Decision: If a consistent process is not followed, the company suffers. A well considered hiring program requires planning and is worth the time and resources invested. Hiring the right people is critical to an organization's attainment of strategic plans and will ensure that the company follows the legal parameters that are established.

The following chart demonstrates what happens to a candidate who does not prepare for the interview:

Chart 1.1

The organization recruits for new employees, calls those who screen positively into the interview and hires those they consider the best for the position. If the employee fails by not doing his/her job properly, finds the job unsatisfactory or leaves the position prematurely, the company does not change its hiring behavior, but continues to repeat the same process.

Previous action by organizations

1.2 Research problem and hypotheses/research questions

The questions that must be asked, therefore, in order to better prepare these candidates for their job interviews and become more successful in their employment search, are the following:

What is the best way to alter the above noted preparation model, so that the organization is better prepared for its interviews?

What is the best way for companies to develop this recruiting and selection process so that they hire the appropriate employees that perform most efficiently and reduce the percentage of rehires.

The present model needs to be altered in a way that organizations can recruit and hire candidates that works within its strategic plan. To increase the success of the interview, the above model must be changed by placing an emphasis on four key factors. The interviewers will be trained to determine through the interviewing process if a candidate has these key factors. These are: 1)

Tenacity and ability to accept and adapt positively to change, which in turn leads to a high degree of adaptation; 2) Personal understanding of strengths, weaknesses, and goals, which leads to a high degree of self-awareness; 3) Emotional Intelligence and 4) Initiative. In order to solve this problem, it necessary to break these down into separate components or propositions: 1) tenacity is required to be a viable candidate; 2) personal understanding is required to be a viable candidate; 3) Emotional intelligence is required to be a viable candidate and 4) Initiative is required to be a viable candidate.

New action after research

1.3 Research Justification

Theoretical Impact

Current model is not effective for successful hiring.

New model will have theoretical implications to modify the existing model and enhance effectiveness of hiring process.

Policy Impact

With the proposed new model, the current recruiting and selection policies will be impacted.

More aggressive policies must be adopted to drive the organization forward.

Interviewers must be knowledgeable for the interview.

Practice Impact

With new model strategy, interviewers will adopt new methods for conducting interviews.

More candidates will qualify for and remain in jobs after being hired

Candidates hired will better meet the requirement of the employer.

1.4 Methodology

YOU MAY HAVE to COMPARE TWO GROUPS HERE: ONE THAT HAS the TRAINING and ONE THAT DOES NOT.

In the research I will use a combined quantitative method to show results. This will determine the current and new model status that is improvement or failing. The quantitative in scientific number, which is giving the prove and no need the reason, that's because the figure will give the explanation of itself. In the thesis I'll using the large respond from my customer to do the survey.

Interview

In the interview, will be using 1 hrs for each questionnaire. The reason why I'm not using the email questionnaire because most of the email user will take as junk mail and seldom respond back to us. So direct interview with them with my question sheet will be the best way to gets the result.

T-test

T-test will be using 1 variable at one time.

Respondent will attend on spoilt liker scale

Because it's simple, straightforward, convenience

1.7 Delimitations

It is understood that the number of people interviewed was small and perhaps more detail could have been available in a larger group. Those who were interviewed also came from a very specific pool of individuals, or clients from my organization who are employed with manufacturing concerns. In addition, those interviewed were from the same country with similar backgrounds and experience. Other cultures and human resource positions may provide other results. It is also recognized that there are many different methods for improving job interview performance, and this is a suggestion based on academic input and personal experience.

1.8 Chapter Summary

This chapter laid the foundations for the thesis. It introduced the research problem and research issues. Then the research was justified, definitions were presented, the methodology was briefly described and justified, the thesis chapters were described, and the limitations were given. On these foundations, the thesis can proceed with a detailed review of the pertinent literature.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Humans are an organization's most significant assets. Without them, daily business tasks such as product and services development, operations, manufacturing, business transactions, communication, and customer service could not successfully be completed. The strengths of human power drive an organization. Today's companies are continuously updating and changing, which impact the employees as well as the business. To maximize organizational effectiveness, the people's abilities, time, and talents must be managed appropriately. Human resource management works to ensure that the right employees are recruited, hired and pleased with their work. "It is responsible for bringing people into the organization, helping them perform their work, compensating them for their labors, and solving problems that arise" (Cherrington, 1995, p. 5). Human resources is responsible for how organizations treat their employees. HR must attract qualified applicants and also assist in screening the candidates' resumes and setting interviews with the ones having the proper qualifications. Chapter 1 of this dissertation introduced the research problem and issues, as well as the justification of this research, presentation of definitions, description and justification of the methodology, delineation of the chapters and an overview of the limitations. With this brief understanding of the subject, the importance of companies having a well-thought-out interview approach is already recognized.

The literature review has two main sections. In the first section, the parent discipline on Recruitment is introduced with the various areas of study done on this topic along with a classification model and analysis. In the second section, the immediate discipline of Interviewing is discussed. The gaps are identified and the factors are shown as to what is important in the interview, including the four important interviewing factors.

2.2 Parent Discipline: Recruitment

Recruitment, the parent discipline of the interviewing process, is the act of identifying and attracting potential candidates from within and outside an organization in order to evaluate them for future employment (Schuler, 1987). When HR identifies potential employees, the organization can begin the selection process of collecting, measuring, and evaluating information about the candidates' qualifications for particular positions. Companies use such processes to increase the possibility of bringing on individuals who have the right skills and abilities to be successful at their jobs and increase the success of the organization. Recruiting, hiring and retaining high-quality talent is essential to an organization's success. As the present job market becomes increasingly competitive and the available talent pool more diverse, HR management needs to be more discriminating than ever in its choices, since poor recruiting decisions can produce a long-lasting negative impact including high training and development costs to diminish the incidence of low performance quality and high turnover which, in turn, impact employee morale and the production value of goods and services. In the worst case scenario, the organization can fail to reach its goals and thus lose its competitive edge and market share.

More formally, recruitment has been defined as encompassing "all organizational practices and decisions that affect either the number or types of individuals that are willing to apply, or to accept, a given vacancy" (Rynes, 1991; p. 429; Breaugh, 1992). The main goal of recruitment is to attract the greatest number and highest quality applicants to an organization. The larger the number and better qualified the applicants, the more likely an organization can effectively choose and retain the right employees for the job. An effective recruitment strategy is all-important, since it ultimately influences the firm's profitability and sustainability.

Companies can best improve their ability to hire and retain top global talent by adopting a new mind-set, cutting the red tape, and implementing best recruiting and hiring practices (Collins & Stevens, 2002). Organizations need to be aware of the competition that exists for the best employees and know that they need a plan in place to attract and hire them. Companies need to strengthen and expedite their hiring processes. The objective should not only be to avoid hiring the wrong people but also making sure not to reject or lose the few candidates who are right for the position. This also means that the individuals who are in charge of hiring can make fast decisions and not get bogged down with a lot of red tape at headquarters to make an offer. By the time the answer comes back, the candidate could be gone. Best practices of leading

Multinational corporations include benchmarking their employees on global criteria and developing an effective balance of local and expatriate talent (Fernandez-Araoz, 2005)

2.2.1 Importance of Recruitment Strategy

Regardless of the economic problems occurring globally, the competition for talent is expected to continue well into the 21st century (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001). The impact of both increased demand, especially in fast-growing economic countries, and dwindling labor supply, as well as the specific hiring needs for a globalized economy, will