Sources of Recruitment of Employees – in HRM

An organization consists of different types of jobs and employees of different categories are performing those specific jobs to achieve the organization’s set goal. So, when a position become vacant for a certain reason, someone need to fill the position for performing specified job of that position. Effective Employee Recruitment & Selection system ensure timely providing of right candidate for the right position.

Searching of potential/ suitable candidates and informing them about the job openings in the company is the most important aspect of recruitment process. The candidates may be accessible from inside or outside of the organization. Mainly there are two (2) major sources of recruitment, which are internal sources of recruitment and external sources of recruitment.

I have discussed in detail about all the possible and practiced internal sources of recruitment and external sources of recruitment. I also focused on the advantages & disadvantages of internal and external sources of recruitment.

Table of Contents

1. Internal Sources of Recruitment

To fill up an identified new or vacant position, organization may choose an existing employee if his/her qualifications (Job specification, experience, skills etc.) matches with the jobs requirement.

Employees from internal sources of recruitment may be chosen & selected in the following methods.

Transfer
Promotion
Demotion
Internal Advertisement
Employee referral
Succession Planning
Re employment of ex/retired employees
Close relative of deceased/retired employees

internal sources of recruitment

Methods of internal sources of recruitment

1. Transfer

Employees may be transferred from their present job position to perform some other job. It happens for different reasons like:

If a department consists of more manpower than its requirement, some employee(s) may be transferred to other department which has less manpower to perform their job activities.
When an organization feels that an employee who is performing successfully a specific job will contribute much more if s/he is assigned with more important jobs in another department, is transferred to attain more success for the company.
When an employee is not capable to perform assigned job responsibilities, s/he may be transferred to other department to perform the jobs with which s/he is comfortable with.
Some organizations appoint management trainee/probationary officer, engage them in a specific department’s job and after a specific period transfer their job to other departments. In this way the employees are familiar with the job activities of most of the departments of the company. It helps them in future career performance, when transferred from one department to other department.

So, Transfer is used to fill the vacancies with suitable internal candidates. It also help in employee job enrichment and reducing the job monotony of the employees.

2. Promotion

An Organization continuously evaluate performance of its existing employees. Employees who are capable to perform assigned job responsibilities successfully and with the complete satisfaction of the management, are provided additional job responsibilities.

As such when an employee of senior position leaves the organization or more job volume need to be covered by an elevated position, the best performing employee within the department/section is promoted to the vacant/created position to perform jobs of that position.

Promotion boost up employee drive and positive competition among the employees which is beneficial both for employee retention & company growth.

3. Succession Planning

Succession Planning is the systematic process of identifying and creating future leaders who are able to take the charge of vacant key positions (caused due to employee retirement, resignation, termination, transfer, promotion or death) of the organization

An organization identify its key positions. Then it calculate probable service length of the employees who are occupying the positions. For all the key positions best suited employees are identified from immediate lower positions based on their education, experience, personality, leadership quality, communication skills, intelligence, capacity etc.

Organization arrange training & development program for these employees to fill up the skill/knowledge gap of the targeted key position. This type of vacancy full filling through internal recruitment may be categorized as special promotions. Organization is highly benefitted through effective succession planning recruitment sources.

4. Demotion

An organization identify low performing employees through performance appraisal process. Through training & development process the organization try to improve performance of the identified low performers. If they can develop their performance, are retained in the present job position.

On the other hand if the poor performers can’t improve their performance are usually separated from the company. But, some company retain them by lowering their position & providing less important assignments. So, sometime poor performers are also source of internal recruitment in the lower positions.

5. Internal Advertisement

A large organization or an organization who is member of a Group of Companies, sometime provide internal advertisement in their notice boards or make e-mail notification to attract & employ existing employees in different vacant positions.

International and multinational organization practice internal advertisement process on regular basis to provide high preference to their existing employees to fill up a newly created or vacant job position.

6. Employee Referral

HR Managers sometime ask to provide referral candidates from the existing employees (to fill up a vacant position) who are performing similar types of job. The concern employees then communicate with the potential candidates (may be friend, relative, ex colleague, known from professional platform) and provide their CVs to HR department.

This way of collecting CVs is sometime very much effective & less time consuming. Often best suited candidates are found through this internal sources of recruitment. Technical positions like Engineer, Mechanic, Electrician, IT officer, Production Manager, Quality Manager etc. can be filled up effectively through this method.

7. Re employment of ex/retired employees

Organization fill up the vacant position of resigned/retired employees through internal or external sources of recruitment. If the position is vital/very important and the newly assigned employee is not capable to perform the required job activities properly, company may again engage the separated /retired employee in that position.

8. Close relative of deceased/retired employees

A close relative (like spouse, son, and daughter) of a deceased or retired employee may be appointed in the organization to fill up a vacant or newly created position.

In most of the cases when deceased /retired employee is identified as poor and the only earning source of the family, organization consider this type of recruitment on humanitarian ground to perform social responsibility. Thus organization is also benefitted by getting a loyal employee.

Benefits/Advantages of internal sources recruitment

Promotion provide scope to the existing employees to get the higher positions of the organization and thus employee morale and loyalty increases towards the organization.
Promotion method highly motivates the employees and helps in maximizing the job satisfaction.
It creates a scope to get a competitive advantage by recruiting the skilled employees for the higher positions.
Existing employees of the organization are well known about the organization culture and can adapt easily with the newly assigned position.
Internal sources of recruitment significantly reduce time, effort and cost in recruitment process.
It helps greatly in reducing employee turnover through maximizing job security and job satisfaction
Transfers from one department to another department helps in eliminating boredom and monotony in employees.
Internal sources of recruitment provide visibility of career progression to the employees & encourage them to maintain long term career in the organization.
It encourages self-development among the employees as they can look forward to occupy higher posts.
The existing employees are aware of the policies, rules & regulations of the organization. So less training is required for them which brings economy in training costs.
Error in selection is minimized through internal recruitment process.

2.
External Sources of Recruitment

Organizations use external sources of recruitment for filling up most of the required/vacant positions. From internal sources of recruitment a very small portion of employees can be engaged to fill up all the created or vacant position. Moreover, in case of business expansion more candidates from external sources are required to occupy the newly created positions.

As such an effective and highly skilled HR team is required to attract and find out the most suitable candidates from the outside world to fill up all the required positions of the organization. Employees from external sources of recruitment may be chosen & selected in the following methods.

external sources of recruitment

Methods of External Sources of Recruitment

1. Advertisement

Advertisement is the most effective method to inform/aware a large pool of candidates throughout the country or globally about the job vacancy of an organization.

Advertisements attract applicants in large number of highly variable competitive quality. To find right skilled and more efficient manpower giving advertisement for the vacant job position is the better way.

Advertisements help in attracting the right candidates with maximizing brand image. Advertisements may be given in print media, electronic media & internet. The biggest advantage of advertisement is that it covers a wide area of market and scattered applicants can get information from advertisements. It gives better results and it is much more effective than other means of external sources of recruitment.

Preparing of quality full advertisement is a very specialized task. An effective advertisement should contain detail job description & job specification for a particular vacant position to attract highly potential and target candidates.Advertisement can be given in the following mediums:

Media Advertisement :
Advertisement is placed in newspaper, television and radio. Print media (newspaper) is the main stream to circulate advertisement. It can bring attention of many potential job seekers at a time. In some special cases radio and television may be used to draw attention of highly skilled job seekers for important positions.

Online Job Portals/ Job Sites:
In the present world, with the growing technology and internet usage, online job sites/ job portals plays a very important role as external sources of recruitment. It make bridge between job seekers and employers. The tools and techniques used by the job sites/ portals highly reduce the efforts in finding the skilled candidates.
Employer publish their job vacancy in the job sites. Potential candidates apply for the vacant job. HR Managers of the organization can easily shortlist the suitable candidates from the applied job seekers and through completing recruitment & selection process appoint the right candidate. The process is less time consuming and cost effective.

Professional Forums
HR Managers often uses professional forum to get potential Candidates for some specific positions. They circulate the advertisement in the group e-mail of the professional forum and ask to send CVS of suitable candidates in their personal/company e-mail address.
Social Media /Networking sites
Advertisement of vacant positions of the organization through social media/ networking sites help in attracting the highly skilled and more efficient candidates to apply for the jobs. Many progressive companies are hiring employees through using social medias like facebook, linkedinn etc.

2. Company website

Most of the successful companies are building their own website. With the increase in business operations and globalization, the need for human resources is also increasing day by day. To ensure timely supply of effective manpower, companies are advertising their vacant position in the company website. Besides, to get a large pool of candidates, companies are providing e-mail address/contact address in the website and asking the potential candidates to send their Resumes over there.

Thus an organization maintain an internet based CV bank of potential applicants & use that applicant pool for getting right candidate for a created/vacant position.

3 .Head Hunting Company/ Placement Agency

Some organization Approaches to placement agencies for hiring employees in different positions on regular basis. On the other hand, the company who have effective HR set up may ask placement agencies to provide CVs for very special positions. Engaging head hunting companies reduces the time and efforts to find the right candidates from the pool of skilled candidates.

The placement companies use various tools and techniques to filter the resumes and send suitable CVs to the companies for further processing. If a candidate is appointed from the send CVs, then the company need to pay agreed amount to the Head Hunting company as service charge.

4. Direct Communication with potential candidates

HR Managers sometime need to hire highly performing employees of their competitor/similar nature companies. In this case they collect contact information of the target candidate and make direct communication with them. Through repeated conversation the candidates need to be convinced for appointing in the company.

5. Job Fairs

Many companies attend in job fairs to find out potential candidates for different position of their organizations. A large pool of candidates can be found through this method for filling present and future vacant positions.

6. Campus Interview

Many Organizations select reputed Universities/Institutes and conduct Campus interview in targeted department to find out best suited candidates for filling up their required positions on regular basis. Mostly Final year/semester students of reputed Universities are chosen for campus interview & final selection.

This is an innovative and economical method for finding eligible candidates. Through this method organization can find more competitive candidates for suitable vacancies and the method is beneficial for both the candidates and the companies.

7. Direct Recruitment from Universities/Institutes

Employees can be directly hired from different reputed Universities or Institutes for performing entry level Executive /Professional/Technical Jobs. Usually Management Trainee Officers, Engineers of different sectors, Merchandisers, Designers, Accountants etc. positions are directly hired by this method. . A close liaison between the organizations and educational institutions helps in getting most suitable candidates.

8. Internship Program

Many organizations offered to perform internship program to the end semester students of reputed universities/institutes. On the basis of performance of the interns, they are employed in the company against vacant/newly created positions. This method is economical for the company and beneficial for the students.

9. Web Search

Company may get potential candidates by Internet searches and it could be a good method of recruitment. For example, through resume searches for specific position in google, company may find many qualified candidates for that position.

Web searches will turn up resumes on personal websites and databases. Company can contact the candidates through provided contact info and select them if found suitable.

10. Casual Callers

In some cases potential employees drop their resumes in the company by physical appearance or through courier services/by post. Some personnel also collect contact numbers of HR Officials/ senior officials and send their CVs to them for engaging in any vacant position.

It is very economical method of recruitment. In the developed countries and even developing countries, this method of recruitment is very popular & effective.

11. Central Application File

A database containing file of past applicants who were interviewed for different positions and primarily selected, but not appointed earlier are being maintained. In order to keep tracking, these applications in the files must be checked at periodical intervals. So, sometime 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th earlier selected candidates may become best fit from the earlier interviewed position.

12. Factory Gates

This method of employee recruitment is applied to get factory workers in the manufacturing industries in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam etc.

Vacancies are displayed on bulletin boards outside the Factory or at the Factory Gate. A large number of workers present themselves at the factory gate every day for employment. Through effective recruitment & selection process best suited workers are collected from factory gate and appointed.

Benefits/Advantages of External Sources of Recruitment

External Sources of Recruitment ensures attracting of huge number of potential candidates from the market for filling up a created/vacant position of the organization.
Candidates found through external sources of recruitment can be easily short listed for interview, based on the required matched job specification, job description and experiences.
Finally selected candidates for different positions through external sources of recruitment are much more skilled and able to perform job activities efficiently within a short course of time.
Effective external sources of recruitment method build positive impression on the recruitment process in the job market
As this recruitment method follow different recruitment & selection steps, it ensures appointing of right candidate for right position in an impartial way.
This method ensure inflowing of new talents with varied experience & expertise which certainly help for organization work process development.
Some key positions may require special types of skills, knowledge & expertise which can only be full filled through choosing candidates only from external sources of recruitment.
In the recruitment & selection process through external sources of recruitment, many new ideas, modern better techniques, improved methods, inside stories of success of different ideal competitors can be collected and subsequently implemented for ensuring overall business growth.
This method provide clear idea about pay scale for different positions in the market. Accordingly, company may reform its pay structure for retaining best performing employees of different positions.
Appointed employees through this method are mostly skilled & well trained. As a result training & development related cost is minimized. Through this method, appointed employees brings new ideas, skills, knowledge etc. which they share with the existing employees. Thus overall job skills & knowledge of all the employees enhances which improve productivity.
Senior level key positions are mostly appointed through applying external sources of recruitment method. These personnel act as the change maker for a part(s) or the whole organization. They ensure achieving competitive advantage over competitors and sustaining the organization in existing & upcoming crisis period.
Fresh potential graduates are employed by using this method. Thus this method creates employment opportunity and nurture the new talents for befitting with different organizational positions.