Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of ...

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are employed. By the end of the second quarter this was reflected in reducedrecruitment, rising unemployment, the repatriation of some immigrants andforecasts of net emigration in the coming year. Employers had views on how thecurrent downturn in the economy would affect their recruitment requirementsand / or their recruitment practices. Some, in both the public and private sectors,believed there would be little or no change in the numbers they would recruitand some organisations were involved in large scale recruiting at the time of theinterviews. Others felt their recruitment would decrease dramatically and thatthe information they provided on their recruitment practices related to theirexperience in the past number of years rather than their current or potentialfuture practice.All were of the view that their current recruitment practices were effective inso far as they enabled them to find appropriate workers and during the periodwhen the interviews took place (i.e. June to July 08), none of the employers wereexperiencing significant difficulties in finding workers. Most were also of the viewthat their recruitment practices did not disadvantage immigrant workers in anyway and many indicated they had modified their recruitment practices to makethem more accessible to immigrants although one private sector employer notedthat in the current climate, there may be few imperatives to address barriers toemployment for immigrants as unemployment levels overall increase and thenumber of immigrants coming to Ireland to seek work continues to fall.It is worth reiterating here that the employers interviewed were selected on thebasis of their experience of recruiting immigrant workers and on the basis oftheir manifest interest in the issue of diversity in the work place. The latter wasevidenced either by their participation in diversity networks or by indicating inthe survey of employers that they had recruited immigrants in the past and werewilling to provide more information on this. Consequently, we cannot assumethat the employers consulted with are typical or in any way representative of Irishemployers per se and we know with certainty that our sample excludes thoseemployers who engage in exploitative or illegal practices. The value of consultingwith the employers we engaged with is not to generate a representative overviewof the recruitment practices of Irish employers, but to explore processes ofrecruitment that are, at the very least, effective in securing immigrant workers.3.1 Entry Routes and Recruitment Mechanisms.The organisations consulted with were quite diverse regarding their occupationalstructures and the way they recruited into these and it is important in the firstinstance to differentiate between public sector organisations, large privatesector organisations and small private sector companies. In general, public sector44Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of Immigrant Workers in Ireland
organisations were somewhat more likely to undertake most of their large scalerecruitment at entry or equivalent level and promote internally, with a morelimited range of recruitment for specialist or higher level positions. Most civilservice organisations and An Garda Síochána correspond to this model. Largeprivate sector companies, local authorities and hospitals were more likely torecruit right along the occupational hierarchy, both for expansion and attritionrecruitment. Smaller private companies tended to have a less diverse occupationalstructure and consequently fewer points of entry.Mechanisms of recruitment varied very considerably across companies and withincompanies depending on the level at which positions were available. The principalmechanisms used included the following:• Informal recruitment mechanisms including on the spot interviewingof ‘cold callers’, informing the industry networks of vacancies andproviding financial incentives to existing employees to make referrals.This type of informal recruitment was a feature of smaller private sectorcompanies, although using existing employees to identify potentialrecruits was also favoured by some large companies.• Formal recruitment processes with in-company management of allstages of the recruitment and selection process, usually through acentralized and specially trained HR unit. This featured in large privateand some public sector organisations.• Outsourcing of all stages of the recruitment and selection process torecruitment agencies (including to PAS in the case of public sectoragencies).• A combination of the above two in which the earlier stages of applicationand screening may be outsourced while interviewing and selection ishandled by the company.• Graduate recruitment direct from university, usually involving a formallink between the employer and the universities, including universitiesbased abroad.• Foreign based recruitment drives: these were used by public sectororganisations and large private sector companies.The occupational levels at which recruitment takes place, and the locationfrom which workers are sourced, have a significant bearing on the mechanismsused. Generally speaking it appears that recruitment into entry level grades in45
Page 2: 2Issues and Challenges in the Recru
Page 7: Chapter 1Exploring the Recruitment
Page 10 and 11: persecution. Economic migrants enco
Page 12 and 13: • The third group is the so-calle
Page 14 and 15: • Green Cards, which have replace
Page 16 and 17: Employment Services (LES) although
Page 18 and 19: Unemployment is not the only issue
Page 20 and 21: Overall, both official statistics a
Page 22 and 23: issues from the perspective of thes
Page 24 and 25: and facilitate integration and, equ
Page 26 and 27: Chapter 2Looking for work in Irelan
Page 28 and 29: and longer term aspirations with th
Page 30 and 31: In terms of public sector 6 employm
Page 32 and 33: immigrant communities have come to
Page 34 and 35: on courses they do not want to do a
Page 36 and 37: 2.6.1 Communication issuesAmong the
Page 38 and 39: • There was also the view that Ir
Page 40 and 41: • Freedom of movement for the cit
Page 42 and 43: • what they see as the reluctance
Page 46 and 47: large organisations are more likely
Page 48 and 49: other occupations such as youth wor
Page 50 and 51: at 24 per cent (and just 22 per cen
Page 52 and 53: Other mechanisms to recruit foreign
Page 54 and 55: In large volume recruitment campaig
Page 56 and 57: Innovation in the use of testsIrish
Page 58 and 59: 3.2.7 VettingThe vetting of candida
Page 60 and 61: that considered foreign workers to
Page 62 and 63: Chapter 4Conclusions and Discussion
Page 64 and 65: of recruitment should be more integ
Page 66 and 67: Table 4.1:Divergent views of Employ
Page 68 and 69: Perceive written andlanguage based
Page 70 and 71: as either a basis for determining e
Page 72 and 73: It is reasonable to assume that in
Page 74 and 75: Of more specific relevance to the c
Page 76 and 77: public sector employers) as well as
Page 78 and 79: BibliographyBarrett, A and Y McCart
Page 80: O’Connell, P and F McGinnity (200
Page 84: Public Appointments ServiceChapter

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