HRM textbook

146 PART 2 RECRUITMENT, PLACEMENT, AND TALENT MANAGEMENT
staffing issues it needs to address. In Figure 5-6, the company knows it needs 50 new
entry-level accountants next year. From experience, the firm also knows the following:
* The ratio of offers made to actual new hires is 2 to 1.
* The ratio of candidates interviewed to offers made is 3 to 2.
* The ratio of candidates invited for interviews to candidates interviewed is about
4 to 3.
* Finally, the firm knows that of six leads that come in from all its recruiting
sources, it typically invites only one applicant for an interview a 6-to-1 ratio.
Given these ratios, the firm knows it must generate about 1,200 leads to be able to
invite 200 viable candidates to its offices for interviews. The firm will then interview
about 150 of those invited, and from these it will make 100 offers, and so on.
3 Explain and give examples
for the need for effective
recruiting.
THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE RECRUITING
Assuming the company authorizes you to fill a position, the next step is to build up,
through recruiting, an applicant pool. Employee recruiting means finding and/or
attracting applicants for the employer s open positions.
Why Recruiting Is Important
It s hard to overemphasize the importance of effective recruiting. If only two candidates
apply for two openings, you may have little choice but to hire them. But if 10 or 20 applicants
appear, you can use techniques like interviews and tests to screen out all but the best.
Even high unemployment doesn t necessarily mean that it is easy to find good
candidates. For example, a survey during an earlier slowdown (2003 2004) found
that about half of respondents said they had difficulty finding qualified applicants.
About 40% said it was hard to find good candidates. 23
What Makes Recruiting a Challenge?
It s easy to assume that recruiting is easy that all you need do is place a few ads on the
Web. However, several things make it more complex.
* First, some recruiting methods are superior to others, depending on the type of
job for which you are recruiting.
* Second, the success you have recruiting depends on nonrecruitment issues and
policies. For example, paying 10% more than most firms in your locale should,
other things being equal, help you build a bigger applicant pool faster. 24
* Third, employment law prescribes what you can and cannot do when recruiting.
For example, managers can t rely on word-of-mouth dissemination of information
about job opportunities when the workforce is substantially all white or all
members of some other class, such as Hispanic. 25
Organizing How You Recruit
Should you centralize your firm s recruitment efforts, or let each plant or office do their
own recruiting? For many firms, it s simply much easier to recruit centrally now that so
much recruiting is on the Internet. 26 The accountants Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu
created a global recruitment site, thus eliminating the need to maintain 35 separate
local recruiting Web sites. 27 Retailer 7-Eleven s site presents its worldwide job openings
and lets prospective employees apply online.
THE SUPERVISOR S ROLE The human resource manager charged with filling
an open position is seldom very familiar with the job itself. Someone has to tell this
person what the position really entails, and what key things to look or watch out for.
Only the position s supervisor can do this.