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

of recruitment should be more integrally linked into the concept of managingdiversity, in both the public and private sectors.4.2 Key FindingsBy focusing specifically on the recruitment process, this research has tried toprovide some insights into the ways in which employers’ recruitment practicesimpact on foreign workers and on the ways in which potential immigrantemployees interact with those processes. It is clear from the data discussed inChapter 2 that immigrants experience difficulties across a range of headingsin relation to recruitment and selection and that these difficulties extend intodecision making and seeking support from labour market service providers. Someof these derive from their own attributes, such as a lack of proficiency in Englishor unfamiliarity with the workings of the Irish labour market. Some are the resultof labour immigration policy including delays in securing visas or the barrierto employment for non-EEA nationals in the civil service. But in the views ofimmigrants themselves, many of the barriers and challenges to their employmentarise within the recruitment process itself. This tends not to result in high levelsof unemployment amongst immigrants (with the exception of Africans), butrather to underemployment: either as an (hoped for) interim strategy prior toadvancement in the workforce or as an accommodation to a difficult reality.A significant issue moving forward is our lack of knowledge on the extent towhich underemployment is a temporary experience as immigrants find theirfeet in the labour market (NESC, 2006a). Such data as is available suggests thatthe experience of an occupation gap is an ongoing feature of the immigrantexperience in Ireland, but whether this reflects recentness of arrival or theconsolidation of labour market segmentation is unclear (FÁS, 2007). There is aclear need for research in this area to guide future interventions and policy.Chapter 3 presented the employers’ views of their own recruitment processes.Among these there is a strong view that their recruitment practices, whilenecessarily robust and frequently difficult, do not present additional barriersto immigrants seeking employment in their companies. The exception hereis the use of tests through the medium of English which are recognized byemployers as presenting specific challenges to immigrant job applicants. Noneof the organisations had audited their recruitment processes to determineif they are or are not ‘immigrant-friendly’; however, many had responded todifficulties encountered by immigrants (for example by modifying educationalrequirements on application forms) when they became aware of these. A numberof companies also introduced innovative responses to specific issues. From theemployer perspective the challenges to recruiting immigrant workers derived64Issues and Challenges in the Recruitment and Selection of Immigrant Workers in Ireland