Recruitment
Definition
- 1: the process of adding new individuals to a population or subpopulation (as of breeding or legally catchable individuals) by growth, reproduction, immigration, and stocking; also : a measure (as in numbers or biomass) of recruitment
Description
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting a qualified person for a job. All companies in any industry can benefit from contingency or retain professional recruiters or outsourcing the process to recruitment agencies.
The recruitment industry has four basic types of firms.
- 1). Employment agencies deal with clerical, trades, temporary and temporary to hire employment opportunities.
- 2). Recruitment websites and job search engines used to gather as many candidates as possible by advertising a position over a wide geographic area. Although thought to be a cost effective alternative, a human resource department or department manager will spend time outside their normal duties reading and screening resumes. A professional recruiter has the ability to read and screen resumes, talk to potential candidates and deliver a selective group in a timely manner.
- 3). "headhunters" for executive and professional positions. These firms are either contingency or retained. Although advertising is used to keep a flow of candidates, these firms rely on networking as their main source of candidates.
- 4). Niche agencies specialize in a particular industrial area of staffing.
Some organizations prefer to utilize employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment instead of recruiting firms. The difference, a recruiting firm is always looking for talent whereas an internal department is focused on filling a single opening. The advantage associated with utilizing a third-party recruiting firm is their ability to know where to find a qualified candidate. Talent Management is a key component to the services a professional recruiting firm can provide.
The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by networking, advertising or other methods. Utilizing professional interviewing techniques to understand the candidate’s skills but motivations to make a move, screening potential candidates using testing (skills or personality) is also a popular part of the process. The process is meant to not only evaluate the candidate but also evaluate how the candidate will fit into the organization. The recruiter will meet with the hiring manager to obtain specific position and type information before beginning the process. After the recruiter understands the type of person the company needs, they begin the process of informing their network of the opportunity. Recruiters play an important role by preparing the candidate and company for the interview, providing feedback to both parties and handling salary/benefits negotiations.[1]
