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

from the global race for talent, delays in validating qualifications, difficulties withpolice vetting (where required) and difficulties arising from the policy contextparticularly with regard to the one month waiting period to employ non EEAworkers.In brief, the two parties involved – employers and job applicants – had divergentviews on most elements of the recruitment process. We need to note again herethat while substantial numbers of immigrant workers and of employers wereconsulted with for this research (and therefore we can have confidence in ourfindings), the two groups are not describing their perceptions or experiences ofthe same recruitment process. That is, employers are speaking about what theydo generally, immigrants are speaking about what they experience generally:we have no reason to assume that the specific immigrants we consulted hadinteracted with (and are therefore describing) the recruitment process ofthe specific employers involved in the research. Further, our employers weredrawn from a purposive rather than random sample and can make no claim torepresentativeness. Nonetheless, given the numbers involved and the consistencyof the findings, it is safe to conclude that the extent to which the process ofrecruitment and selection presents barriers to immigrant workers is viewed verydifferently by immigrant workers and by employers.In drawing out the conclusions of the research, it is useful to summarise thedivergent views of employers and potential employees on the different stagesof the recruitment process. In Table 4.1 below the elements of the recruitmentprocess are listed in the middle column, the views of immigrants regarding theseare listed on the left, while those of employers are on the right. This succinctlyillustrates the divergent views or understandings that were identified through ourresearch.65