1. The Recruitment Process
1.1 Introduction and definition
The process of recruiting involves hiring people for a job so that they undertake a specific role.
Similarly, the process of selection involves the identification and selection of appropriate
candidates for a specific job. 1 In normal circumstances, recruitment is carried out by the human
resource department of a particular organization. The responsibility of attracting, selecting, and
bringing onboard suitable candidates is the task of the organization's human resource department.
Recruitment is vital because it allows the organization to fulfil the purpose of attracting and
encouraging suitable talent to the organization. Recruitment helps in creating a robust pool of
talent which enables the organization to select the best candidate to fill the job requirement. 2
Recruitment involves determining the requirements of the company, both in the present and the
future. As such, recruitment ensures the personnel planning and job requirements are assessed
and determined. Therefore, recruitment can be viewed as the process which links the employer
with prospective employees. The process of recruitment is the most cost effective way of
enhancing the pool of prospective job candidates. The recruitment process helps to diminish the
number of clearly under-qualified or over-qualified candidates and thereby enhancing the
success rate of the process of selecting candidates. Ultimately, a well-established recruitment
process reduces the chances of selected job candidates quitting the organization after a short stay
period. 3 A robust recruitment and selection process has the capacity of enhancing the legal and
social responsibility of the organization in relation to the composition of its employees. The
recruitment process begins by recognizing and preparing the potential job candidates for the job.
Ultimately, the recruitment and selection process helps to improve the effectiveness of various
recruiting techniques and sources of all types of jobs in an organization.
1.1 Importance of recruitment to an organization business
It is essential to select the most suitable candidate for the job because each employee in the
organization plays a critical role in its development and growth. As such, poor decisions made
during the recruitment of candidates could affect the business of the organization. Therefore, the
desire to develop a solid recruitment and selection process is ever-wanting in any organization.
1 Vgl. (Rozario, Venkatraman, & Abbas, 2019) S. 1
2 Vgl. (Ekwoaba, Ikeije, & Ufoma, 2015) S. 23
3 Vgl. (Buhasio, 2012) S. 2
The proper and appropriate process of recruitment and selection portrays the professionalism and
maturity of the particular organization, when it comes to attracting and engaging the necessary
talent. Moreover, an efficient and effective recruitment process enables the proactive creation of
a robust talent pool which goes a long way in ensuring that the organization meets its medium
and long-term business goals. Consequently, recruitment is no longer just a functional-
administrative task but a critical strategic business activity.
1.2 Categories of Recruitment:
There are several sources in which an organization can recruit the required talent. However,
these sources have mainly been divided into internal and external sources of recruitment.
1.2.1 Internal Recruitment:
This refers to a situation where the organization seeks to fill talent by recruiting applicants for
the required positions from people who are already employed by the organization. Some of these
sources include existing employees, employee referrals, former employees, and former
applicants. The transfer and promotion of the existing employees is a very vital source of
recruitment. In some situations, the current employees may establish positive connections for
their families whereby they acquaint them of the advantages of working in their organization.
They may start furnishing them with introduction letters and may encourage them to apply for
job openings. Similarly, former employees of the organization constitute an internal source of
recruitment for the organization. For example, those who have retired may be willing to work on
part-time basis or alternatively recommend others to work for the organization.
1.2.2 External recruitment
The external sources of recruitment could include recruiting from trade and professional
associations, employment exchanges, university recruitments, advertisements in print and
electronic media, e-recruitments, recruiting using consultants or contractors among others. In
some instances, an organization can decide to recruit candidates from a certain professional or
trade association. This is because such organizations have a complete database of bio-data of
their members which includes the professional skills and experiences. Also, organizations could
use the variety of facilities for recruiting talent which have been established by some
universities, colleges and technical institutions. In this case, the organization may get in touch
with the tertiary institution and encourage the right candidates to apply for the job opening.
However, the organizations must be careful because a wider dissemination of the information
can attract a large pool of unqualified candidates who apply for the opening. This means that a
large number of resumes and emails must be reviewed to weed out the unqualified candidates.
Moreover, a higher level of technology such as specialized applicant tracking software may be
needed to handle the huge number of applicants. Another disadvantage is that organizations
recruiting the candidates could miss out on a number of qualified and competent talents because
of lack of resources, such as internet resources. Also, organizations can engage the services of a
qualified and competent consultant to recruit talent on their behalf.
1.2 The goal of the recruitment process
The recruitment process has the goal of obtaining the desired number and quality of talent
required by the organization to achieve its objectives and mandate. The recruitment process
enables the creation of a robust pool of qualified employees within the organization and which
can be used to pick the right talent for the job. The recruitment process plays the role of linking
the employers with employees. The recruitment process ensures the deployment of the
appropriate candidate in the appropriate place and appropriate job. The organization can acquire
the best talent for the job if it ensures that the recruitment process follows a foolproof and robust
procedure.
2.0 Challenges facing the recruitment process
Many challenges are facing the recruitment process in any organization. The challenges can
range from those that occur in the short-term to the long-term.
2.1 Attracting the suitable candidates
Attracting the right candidate from a pool of talent is not an easy task. Furthermore, most of the
applicants may be qualified but are not the best fit for the job. Therefore, the recruiter may
recruit a qualified candidate who may not be the most suitable for the job. Usually, the best way
to recruit the right person for the job is to use a small pool of more qualified candidates.
2. 2. Engaging qualified candidates
It is not easy to engage qualified candidates because recruiters highly sort most good candidates.
Moreover, candidates with hard-to-find skills are often considering several jobs simultaneously,
hence diminishing chances of landing them. Therefore, recruiters must put extra effort into
persuading passive candidates to opt for their organizations instead of the competitors.
2.3. Slow pace of Recruiting
The organization must reduce the time taken to hire because vacant positions cost money and can
delay the organization's operations. In most instances, organizations may take several months to
recruit talent, putting pressure and sometimes frustrating the recruiting team. A long time to hire
maybe a byproduct of a shortage of qualified candidates. The hiring process may be too long, or
teams might struggle to reach a consensus, resulting in the best candidates finding jobs
elsewhere.
2. 4. Lack of data-driven recruitment
Organizations are encouraged to constantly improve the recruitment process and decision-
making by using recruitment data and metrics. However, collecting, processing, and interpreting
data is a difficult task for most organizations. Some organizations cannot compile, streamline
and organize data efficiently and may find it hard to track data and trends accurately.
2. 5. Lack of a strong employer brand
Qualified candidates are attracted and get engaged with employers with good brands. It has been
noted that organizations that invest in employer branding are 30% more to possibly make a
quality hire. However, building a high-quality employer brand is a complicated and expensive
process. The process is a continuous and collective effort that requires the organization to go out
of its way to guarantee an unequivocal candidate experience and promotion of the organization's
culture on social media.
2.6. Lack of an efficient recruiting process
The recruiting teams are required to communicate and evaluate candidates and are supposed to
be enlightened about every step of the process. However, these tasks are tedious and time-
consuming, making it difficult for recruiters to coordinate them at once. Furthermore,
administrative tasks such as the scheduling of interviews consume most of the valuable time of
recruiters. Recruiters would otherwise use this time to coordinate the recruiting process and
ensure a good experience.
3.0 Overcoming the recruitment challenges
Overcoming the challenges that bedevil the recruitment process is the desire of any organization.
There are several things that organizations can perform to ensure a smooth recruitment
experience. Challenges encountered in the recruitment process can be overcome if organizations
build robust talent pools. There is a need to build robust databases of candidates called talent
pipelines, which have already been engaged and can fill future vacancies in the organization.
Utilizing talent pipelines helps reduce the time and cost of recruitment because the necessary
screening of candidates has already been conducted. Integrating the job postings with the job
description will go a long way in addressing some of the challenges encountered in the
recruitment process. Integration can be achieved by creating a database of job postings and
linking it to properly defined job descriptions and skills. Integrating and linking the job postings
with the job descriptions will simplify the work of the person doing the recruitment and the
candidate being recruited. There is a need to streamline the application process because a
complex application process will put off most candidates. The application process should work
on all devices, including mobiles, to allow a seamless experience, and candidates should be able
to register once and submit their resumes to multiple positions. Publishing and displaying the job
postings on the organization's website and other social media platforms will increase the
visibility of the job posting and thus attract more candidates. It is important for the organization
to manage previously submitted resumes to build a database that will allow a less tedious tagging
and searching of prospective candidates. The database will enable the organization to keep track
of candidates and inform them of any new positions.
Streamlining the applicant tracking process will enable the people in charge of recruitment to
accept, review, and manage applicants' resumes at a single location. Moreover, it is essential to
build relationships with the job candidates by constantly keeping in touch with them. This may
reduce the time to hire for future recruitments both for the candidates and their referrals.
Although some candidates may not have been succeeded in the current job listing, they could
still be suitable for jobs that arise in the future. Maintaining the data generated during the process
of recruiting and selecting candidates will improve the recruitment and selection processes in the
future.
4.0 Conclusion
The process of recruitment and selection of the appropriate candidate is very vital because it has
a direct impact on the development and bottom line of the organization. The recruitment team
must carry out the process of recruitment in a transparent and open manner because it will
enhance the experience of the employee, the recruiter, the HR department and the team doing the
interview. Moreover, the recruitment of the right candidate will improve the effectiveness of the
organization and will go a long way in attracting the most suitable candidates to the organization.
Bibliography
Buhasio, S. A. (2012). Challenges facing employee recruitment and selection among non-
governmental organizations in Kakamega central district, Kenya (Doctoral dissertation).
PP 1-33
Ekwoaba, J. O., Ikeije, U. U., & Ufoma, N. (2015). The Impact of Recruitment and Selection
Criteria on Organizational Performance. Global Journal of Human Resource Management
3(2) 22-33
Rozario, S. D., Venkatraman, S., & Abbas, A. (2019). Challenges in recruitment and selection
process: An empirical study. Challenges,