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Recruitment - An Overview

Recruitment is a process of identification of job vacancies, attracting and selecting qualified candidates to fill vacant positions in an organization.

In other words it covers everything from identification of staffing needs to onboarding of an employee in an organization. The recruitment plays a very crucial role in the development of an organization staff and success and it directly affects an organization’s ability to build a skilled workforce. Effective recruitment makes sure that business can fill open vacant positions, promote inclusion and diversity, and support long term expansion and success.

Recruitment practices of HRM directly affect the success of an organization. The quality of the talent which a company recruits are depended upon an organization’s recruitment policy and its hiring practices, and that follows the effectiveness of the selection phase which is again inherently dependent upon the caliber of candidates attracted, to the greater extent, recruitment determines the performance of an organization and helps achieving their business goals. 

Below in this write up, we will learn everything about recruitment in detail which will include - what recruitment in HRM, its meaning and definition given by various experts, the types of recruitment, and the steps involved in recruitment and also the importance of recruitment in a business organization.  So, let’s start exploring now one by one about recruitment:

Table of Content


What is Recruitment in HRM? 

Recruitment means searching finding and recruiting the best talent for an open job vacancy within the organization in specific time and cost.

Recruitment in HRM is a systematic process for Hiring Talent.  It start from identifying, attracting, screening, short listing interviewing, selecting and finally hiring the most potential candidate for filling up the vacant job vacancies in an organization.

In any business organization, employees are always considered to be their biggest asset and People Management is the most important function managed by their HRM Department. The primary job of Human Resource Management (HRM) Team is to keep building the pool of Human Capital for the organization which can result into selection of right candidate for right job. Recruitment aims for choosing and hiring the right the person for the right Job at the right time. The Human Resource Management Department often considers two major sources of recruitment namely internal and external source of recruitment. The purpose of recruitment process is to gather information about the talented and qualified individuals who might be interested to work for the organization in an effective way.

Recruitment Meaning:

Recruitment actually means a way to search the future employees of the organization and stimulate qualified people to apply for the job. It helps to create a pool of job seekers and improve the scope of recruitment of better employee.

Recruitment activity brings together the people who are qualified and looking for job and the organizations which are searching for prospect employees. The properly executed recruitment process leads to joining and selection of suitable manpower in the organization.

Recruitment Definition:

Recruitment is defined as a process of discovering reliable sources of contacting desirable employees which meets the staffing requirements of the organization. Through recruitment process the organization can attract the adequate number of manpower to facilitate the effective selection process and joining of efficient work force.

Recruitment Definition by eminent Authors

Here are some popular definition of recruitment given by eminent authors:

Edwin Flippo  - Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization.

DeCenzo and Robbins - It is the process to discover potential candidates for future actual or anticipated job vacancies. Another perspective is that it is a linking activity which brings together organizations those with jobs to fill and people those are seeking jobs.

 Plumbley - It is a process to match the capacities of candidates with the demands of the organization. The inclination of qualified candidates should also match with the rewards and benefits the organizations are willing to provide in the job.

Dale Yoder - Recruitment is a process to discover the sources of manpower to meet the requirement of the staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective selection of an efficient working force.

Kempner - Recruitment is identified as a first step of the process which persists with selection and ends with the joining of the suitable candidate in the organization.

William B. Werther & Keith Davis –Recruitment is a discovering  of potential applicants for actual or anticipated organizational vacancies. Or from other perspective, it can be looked at the linking activity bringing together those with jobs and those seeking jobs

Joseph J. Famularo - However, the act of hiring a man carries with it the presumption that he will stay with the company-that sooner or later his ability to perform his work, his capacity for job growth, and his ability to get along in the group in which he works will become matters of first importance.

Define Recruit

To define the actual meaning of word ‘recruit’ is to make a person join a group or a corporation. For example: to recruit members for painting group or to recruit people for army.

The verb refers to formally joining a group or an organization. Recruit word is broadly used when someone participate in a process of getting a job or work from the organization. The person newly joined an organization is referred / defined as new recruit.

What is meant by recruitment?

Recruitment means a process of finding and hiring candidates for a specific job role. The recruitment includes the entire hiring process, from the first stage to the recruit's integration into the business, is covered by the term recruitment.

Recruitment is a positive process of searching for employees and stimulating them to apply for the jobs in the organization. There will be opportunity to hire better candidates when more people apply for employment.

Recruitment brings people with employment and people looking for jobs together. The better recruitment process leads to higher productivity, better wages, high morale and reduction in labor turnover. Due to recruitment people apply for jobs, hence this is a positive process.

What are the types of recruitment?

There are majorly two types of recruitment adopted and often used by the organizations in their recruitment process i.e., internal and external recruitment.

External recruitment

External recruitment refers to hiring employees outside the organization. Various types of external recruitment are:

  1. Direct recruitment
  2. Employment exchange
  3. Employment agencies
  4. Advertisements
  5. Professional association
  6. Campus hiring
  7. Advertisement through word of mouth

Steps of Recruitment

The process of recruitment consists of three Major Steps or phases -

  1. Before posting job advertisement
  2. Selection process
  3. Formalities after selection of the candidate.

Here are the common steps of recruiting followed by the Human Resource department of various organizations:

1) Preparation- It is step in which the HRM department prepare a frame of ideal candidate for the vacant position. The skills and competencies required to perform the job are identified, also a qualification and level of experience required execute the job responsibilities is determined. Once the framework is ready, the HR identifies the proper communication channel through which the information about job vacancy can be conveyed to the suitable candidates.

2) Receive applications- Once the advertisement about the job vacancy is posted through internal and external source of recruitment, the HR department starts receiving the applications for the job opening. Most of the time the HR department confirms the candidate that their application is received by the organization and the further sorting process is going on. Many companies used application tracking system (ATS) which helps to automatically communicate with the applicant that their job application is received and is in process.

3) Selection stage 1: Cancel out unqualified applicants

Here the selection process begins- In this stage the application which are not suitable for the job are cancel out by the HRM department. The application can be weed out based on the un-matching qualification or experience of the candidate.

4) Selection stage 2: Arrangement of candidates

The applicants who are matching to the requirement of the job vacancy are then rated based on their on-paper experience and qualification. The ratings convey how well the applicant is fit of the vacant job profile. It is time consuming process and many times excel sheets are used to sort out the application and rank them based on their suitability to the job profile.

5) Selection stage 3: Interview rounds

The ranked and selected candidates can called for the interview round. There are several interview rounds which can vary from 2-6 based on the selection process adopted by the organization. Mostly the HR round includes the background verification, personality check and behavioral suitability of the candidate. The manager interview round is often used to check the actual work suitability of the candidate.

6) Selection stage 4: Future work situation

This is considered as a last round of selection in which a simulated work exercise is given to the candidate. It includes the question or tasks related to the area of expertise of the candidate. It provides actual result about the ability of the candidate to perform as a future employee of the organization.

7) Offer and Joining formalities

Generally 2-3 top selected candidates gets joining offer from the organization. The joining formalities include the submission of relevant papers and signing the work contract with the organization. After the documentation formalities the joining date of the employee is decided and a new recruit joins the organization.

Importance of Recruitment

The following points will help to understand the importance of Recruiting: 

  1. The process is important to encourage and attract candidates and get ample amount of application for the job vacancies.
  2. It is an effective way to create information pool about the prospective candidates who are suitable for the talent needs of the organization.
  3. It is very important step of planning and analysis about the present and future manpower requirement of the organization. 
  4. It bridges the gap between employers and their future employee.
  5. It is a less expensive way of gathering information about the talented manpower in the industry.
  6. It helps to improve the selection process by proper sorting of suitable candidate for the job.
  7. It reduces the turnover of employees due to correct matching of candidate expectations and the rewards offered by the organization.
  8. It also helps the organization to meet the social and legal obligation of maintaining the manpower composition.
  9. It determines the appropriate candidates through the different channels of recruitment.
  10. It helps the organization to create different sources of attracting the right candidate for the job profile.

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