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Job Analysis: systematic identification of the features of the job to define the standards against which the selection of participants will be assessed
Recruitment: process of attracting a pool of candidates from which selection can take place
Selection: application of specific techniques aimed at identifying the most suitable person from the pool of candidates
Is recruitment necessary?
There are some common sense issues here, since obviously the recruitment process itself can be expensive, as is of course is the resultant additional headcount, for any organization. The resignation of an employee or an increase in workload can not be assumed to automatically trigger a recruitment process. Organizations may have a number of other avenues to explore both internally (through short term assignments or job rotation for example) and externally (via outsourcing or contracting) before a decision is taken to consider recruitment. Indeed organizations may use various combinations of these options to ‘cover’ a previous job rather than keep the job as a coherent whole.
Even if a decision is taken to recruit, the job profile of a previous incumbent may not be used as the basis for a new position. Job analysis is the process of determining the features of the new position which in turn forms the basis of the recruitment and selection processes.
Job Analysis
The purpose of job analysis is to provide a clear and objective basis for the recruitment and selection process, by determining in advance the nature of the job and from this the requirements which a new job holder must meet. A Job Description and/or Person Profile are often the outcomes of the job analysis process. Fundamentally this is based on a notion of ‘fit’ in which recruitment and selection become the means by which this fit is assessed. Job analysis may be carried out ‘from scratch’ by an organization or there may be a pre-established framework which allows managers to select and in effect build a profile of a job. There are of course many consultancy organizations The Essay is provided by UK Assignment http://www.ukassignment.org (such as the Hay Group) which offer job evaluation services which may not only support recruitment and selection but be part of an integrated HR offering linked to other activities such as performance appraisal and management development (often via the notion of a competency framework).
In the lecture I explain that job analysis may be task or behaviour focused, with the later more common in managerial or professional posts. As already mentioned above the notion of ‘competencies’ has become central to this and other HR processes, indeed some would argue that it has been adopted beyond the world of work and underpins the idea of, for example, the UK’s national curriculum for education.
For further supplementary reading you could look at: Le Deist & Winterton (2005) What is competence? in Human Resource Development International 8 (1) 27-46 (PDF available via google scholar). However, be warned you will not find a straightforward answer to the question posed as of course there is no straightforward universally accepted definition! For a critical take on the notion of competence you could try: Antonacopoulou & Fitzgerald (1996) Reframing competency in Management Development in Human Resource Management Journal 6 (1) 27-48.
Back to job analysis however! In the interview I outline a number of techniques that are used to inform the job analysis process including the Position Analysis Questionnaire. See http://www.paq.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=bulletins.job-analysis-questionnaire for
background information on this survey. It is clear from this that job analysis is big business. It is also increasingly positioned as essential to provide an objective foundation for the processes of recruitment and selection so that HR systems can be fair and non-discriminatory.
However, there are a number of difficulties with the claims made by job analysis including as discussed in the lecture:
• The job exists prior to recruitment
• The job is stableThe Essay is provided by UK Assignment http://www.ukassignment.org
• It is possible to generate an objective view of the job requirements:
– cognitive bias and distortion, social cues, framing
• The new recruit will carry out the job as intended.
Recruitment
Recruitment is a key HR process through which the organization aims to attract the ‘right’ candidates to apply for job vacancies. It involves activities targeted at filling specific vacancies and also broader activities which can involve, for example, managing relationships with recruitment agencies and evaluating recruitment effectiveness. At the same time, recruitment activities involve consideration of both the organizations and the candidate’s needs. Sometimes these needs may coincide, as in the example of the use of on-line application processes which can reduce costs from an organizational perspective and fit candidates expectations of leading companies. At the same time however, candidates and organizational members may have differing needs and requirements of the recruitment process, as discussed in the lecture.
Selection
There is a huge literature on selection and in the lecture we are only able to provide an overview of some of the key aspects. The fundamental task of selection is to identity the ‘right’ for a job candidate from the pool of applicants by assessing how these candidates match up to the job requirements.
The main focus within the lecture is the issue of applying various selection techniques, the results of which can then be used to inform the selection decision making process. The effectiveness of various selection methods is one of the main areas of concern of the literature, and there is a particular concern with their ‘predictive validity’ i.e. the extent to which these methods actually do identify relevant differences between candidates in terms of job performance. The table at the end of this document is a usefulThe Essay is provided by UK Assignment http://www.ukassignment.org summary of the different validities of common methods as related to progress during training (on the left) and job performance (based on supervisors’ ratings, on the right). This is taken from page 443 of Robertson and Smith “Personnel selection” in Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2001), 74, 441–472, and draws on a 1998 meta-analysis by Schmidt and Hunter. Of course this is not a definitive league table, but there are some interesting points to note, particularly in conjunction with the Salgado paper provided in the course reading (which has a slightly more complex but detailed summary of findings). So we can look at relative positioning and in particular at the combinations of criteria that seem to be promising in terms of predictive validity.
In the lecture we go on to explore personality tests and interviews in more detail, topics which are also extensively covered in the reading, and hence are not repeated here. I also discuss a recent (CareerBuilder, June 2009) practitioner survey on the use of social networking sites which claims 45% of employers surveyed are now scanning these sites in order to gather additional information on job candidates. Whilst the CIPD figures for this activity are somewhat lower (12% of private firms in 2008), e-recruitment and selection is a growing area of interest. Furthermore it is intriguing to note that the CareerBuilder survey suggests that organizations are claiming that scanning these sites provides insight on candidate personality and fit with organizational culture. While (as covered in the lecture) there may be academic concerns with the application of personality tests to selection, most would probably agreed that ‘scanning’ a MySpace page is likely to fall some considerable way short of the proper application of a validated personality test. Furthermore, within the UK at least, the CIPD warns organizations to be wary that this may amount to a misuse of personal data under data protection.
Obviously the selection process does not consist of the sterile application of discrete selection techniques, but takes place in the complex and often opaque context of organizational decision making. Furthermore there is another decision making process at work here – that of the candidate who may decide to reject the job even if they are perceived by the organization to be the ‘best’ candidate. As you will see in the literature, there is some criticism that academics devote too much attention to individual selection techniques, such that we have limited understanding of how selection techniques are used in ‘real life’, and indeed the impact that different techniques may have on candidates’ perception of both the job and the organization. This leads us nicely into this week’s seminar task, in which we ask you to come up with your own ‘key question’ for academic researchers in this area.
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