Recruitment and Selection – the Great Neglected ... - Cardiff University

and 3 (Keep, 2009b). Put bluntly, the problem may not be qualification design per se,
but impoverished conceptions of occupational identity, and resultant job content and
skill levels that in some instances are so limited that there is relatively little real
learning to put inside the qualification box. There is research evidence that suggests
that, for some occupations at least, UK conceptions of the breadth, depth and type(s)
of learning required are significantly attenuated compared to continental European
norms (Brockmann et al, 2008).
This problem is liable to be all the more acute in the context of a UK labour
market that, compared to many other OECD countries, has two distinctive features.
First, it is comparatively unregulated and licence to practice regulation (outside of the
professions) remains relatively rare, with the effect that minimum qualification
requirements are often not mandated by forces external to the individual employer.
Second, it lacks the substantive forms of workplace co-determination or sectoral
bargaining between employers and unions that in other countries set minimum
qualification entry standards for jobs (Windolf and Wood, 1988). As a result of these
two factors, in many sectors and for many occupations/job types individual UK
employers have a latitude not afforded their European counterparts, and are often free
to choose to specify whatever type and level of qualification they wish as an entry
requirement, or indeed as is often the case to choose to specify no qualification at all.
Given these tensions, one of the key messages from this review is that there
are significant gaps in our knowledge, particularly in terms of issues around the how,
why or strategic intent of R&S within individual firms and sectors. We know
relatively little on a systematic basis about:
• How employers (and who within organisations) make choices about R&S,
and between R&S and other sources of skill acquisition;
• How R&S activity is conducted, by whom (personnel specialists, line
managers or outside agencies), and with what effect for wide swathes of
the economy and the occupational structure.
• The extent to which R&S preferences and patterns are tied, implicitly or
explicitly, to organisations’ product market and competitive strategies, and
to various forms of labour market and product market regulation, and why
this is or is not the case;
and we could also usefully increase the depth of our understanding concerning:
• The pattern of ‘hold’ that qualifications have over R&S decision making in
different sectors and occupations and the reasons for this;
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