by Muhammad Ansar

Created on: August 06, 2009

Like all other resources, human resource of a company must be managed to achieve desirable results from operations of a company. Objective of a formal recruitment and selection process is to recruit and select individuals with required skills and competences. Selected candidates must fulfill organization's needs and provide competitive advantage over others in the industry. Recruitment process starts from the identification of vacancies in different departments. Steps involved in a formal recruitment and selection process includes:

Job Description

Job Description is a detailed statement of activities involved in a job. It includes information about the title of the job, status of the position, purpose of the position in the organization, duties that need to be performed, minimum skills required by a candidate, authority of the job holder, working conditions etc.

Person Specification

The next step is to prepare person specification. It includes data about the education, experience and core competencies required to carry out the job efficiently. Professor Rodger's Seven Point Plan and Munro Fraser's Five Point Pattern are helpful in writing a detailed person specification.

After the job description and person specification is complete, there is a choice to recruit potential candidates through internal or external hiring. Internal selection act as motivator to employees. If the possible selection is from internal sources an advertisement will be placed internally. However if candidates are recruited from external market, external sources will be used for advertisement.

Job Advertisement

The media of advertisement for external job seekers depends on the nature of position sought. The contents of job advertisement must be clear, brief and give true picture of the vacancy being advertised. The advertisement must attract suitable candidates only.

Collection of Application Forms or CVs

Large companies invite potential candidates to fill their standardize application forms. Small firms invite candidates to send their CVs for prospective positions. After application forms or CVs are received process of short listing starts. Normally short listing of candidates is done by an HR specialist and the departmental manager of prospective candidates.

Interviews

Short listed candidates are invited for interviews. Interview conducted may be in the form of individual interview, panel interview or selection board.

Selection Testing

In some organizations selection interview is followed by selection testing. Different types of tests are common like personality tests, intelligence tests and aptitude tests. All of these testing methods have its benefits and limitations. One difficulty common with selection tests is to evaluate the result of selection tests.

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