Human Resources Management Project Recruitment and Selection - AXXA Media Case Study

Academy of Economic Studies, Business Administration Faculty, English Section

Bucharest

Human Resources Management Project

Recruitment and Selection

AXXA Media Case Study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

At the end of the 80s and the beginnings of the 90s, the companies, facing higher and higher problems with the reorganization, as well as surviving on the market and surviving to increasing competitiveness, reached the conclusion that the employees are the most important asset of the company. As a consequence, they have started to emphasize more on the human resources part of the organization. This lead to developing a new branch of general management, the human resources management, which represents all the strategic and operational (planning, recruitment and training of the personnel), but also creating a good organizational environment, which allows reaching the organizational goals through the human resources.

As components of the human resources we can underline: working place analysis and evaluation, possible candidates recruitment and selection, personnel forming and improvement, payment administration, etc.

The first two stages the human resources manager has to comply with are recruitment and selection of the possible candidates. Recruitment process has dramatically changed in the last decade, but identifying, interviewing and selecting the right man/woman for the vacant position, are still the ways to recruit. The methods used were changed, in equal terms with technology, from online-recruiting (which consisted of using websites for finding the right vacant work places) even to simulations where candidates can prove themselves in real situations, to videoconferences which allow interviewing from long distances through technology.

To be part of the ones that administrate the human capital in a company is no easy job. Due to having to work with different personalities, mentalities and behaviors, some rigid rules or schematic management principles or methods cannot be applied. Thus, human resources management always has to find the best way to satisfy employees needs without neglecting the ones of the organization.

In order to obtain favorable results for both the employees and the company, it is imperative to respect some steps:

Advance Planning;

Defining vacant jobs;

Identifying multiple sources of recruitment;

Candidate analysis;

Using relevant questions;

Candidate matching with the requirements;

Creating a good first impression;

Giving interesting and attracting tasks;

Respecting the payment date and work conditions;

Permanent alignment to technological changes;

CHAPTER 2: RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION INTRODUCTIVE NOTIONS

Recruitment and selection represent two of the most important functions of an organization. Developing and good functioning of these functions relate primarily to the permanent flow of new people.

Recruiting refers to confirming the necessity of hiring personnel and identifying potential applicants capable of sustaining most of the tasks required. In this context, the needs of recruitment can be of a strategic type restructuring, replacement of technologies , can meet temporary needs like leaving the organization for different reasons, going into the army or can be related to an impersonal change promotions or transfers. Thus, personnel recruitment can have permanent and systematic characteristics and can only be used when a certain need rises. If recruitment is continuous and systematic, the organization has the advantage of being permanently in touch with the labor market.

The process of researching, localization, identification, and attraction of the potential candidates for the vacant jobs, is called Personnel RECRUITING. Recruiting is a managerial process of maintaining and developing the most suitable internal and external sources, needed for filling up with competitive people toward achieving the organizations goals. From this perspective, recruitment can be an active process. Therefore, the organization tries to sustain a network of qualified specialists or potential employees even if there are unoccupied jobs.

Selection, on the other hand, is the action of choosing from all the candidates the one that meets the standards the best for that particular job. Selecting new employees can be a costly and difficult job, which can involve:

Planning the need for new employees;

Finding the right people for the job requirements (recruitment);

Choosing the right person for the job (selection);

Integrating those people in the organization;

The purpose of recruiting and selection is to obtain with minimal costs the necessary amount of staff to satisfy the needed amount of human resources of the organization.

The process of recruiting and selection runs on three stages:

Defining the wants consists in creating the job description (the specifications and the requirements the applicant must meet) as well as fixing the terms and conditions of the labor contract.

Attracting the candidates consists of over viewing and evaluating alternative sources of candidates, from the inside and outside of the company, publishing a hiring ad, utilizing agents and consultancies.

Selecting candidates consists of sorting received CVs , inventorying, testing, evaluating applicants, proposing for employment, obtaining references, preparing labor contracts.

In conclusion, the success of the organization depends largely on the way recruitment and selection are done. Also, there can be noticed a link between the two processes, namely that recruitment is a vital part of selection, and the latter is an effect that reflects the quality of recruitment. In addition, selection is a feedback of recruitment that can start another staffing process. These two processes are preceded by other activities without which they would be difficult to realize or they would be done spontaneously.

2.1 Planning the necessary personnel

Planning the necessary personnel is a provisional activity which does not target only existing situations in an organization at a given moment in time, but of the future ones as well. The manager is practically analyzing information about the existing personnel in an organization, about the one that might be leaving the organization, and about the future personnel that can be kept in the organization. Recruitment and selection start working when provisional personnel exceed the existing one.

Planning human resources is a strategic activity, which targets filing up the resources on the long run, being closely related to quality of the hired personnel and the way it is arranged. Planning implies present needs and future organizational needs, using information from the labor market analysis, the organizations job descriptions, and permanent professional information of the present employees.

Human resources are the most flexible, valuable and volatile resources of a company, employees can leave the company anytime, for any reason, either temporary or for good. That is why a company must, at any moment, have knowledge of the labor market. Throughout its existence, the organization is dealing with numerous situations, aiming objectives changed partially or totally, modifying organizational structures, the functionality with other organizations, all these leading to personnel fluctuations.

Job Description

The job description represents a list of a jobs duties, responsibilities, reporting relationships, working conditions, and supervisory responsibilities.

The job description contains details about the position in the organizational structure of the company, the supervisory responsibilities, the competencies the person has to have, chances of promotion, salary, but also information about the working conditions. This part could be a more complex one, a more detailed one, or by opposite, it could depend on the nature, on the complexity of the job, but also on the position the person has in the company.

The job descriptions prove to be useful in the recruitment and selection process, both for the organization, but also for the individual. For the organization, they represent a way to know exactly the conditions of the activities of a specific job in the company, and they are also a useful instrument in the recruitment and selection processes. As for the individual, the job description fulfills a role on informing and stimulating in what concerns or not the recruitment and the selection of the company.

Job specifications

Known also as the psychological profile of the candidate, job specifications are a list of a jobs human requirements, the psychological profile. They, generally, have all pieces of information regarding the knowledge, the skills and the personal aptitudes necessary for the candidate in order to fulfill the acceptable standard for what the job requires from an employee.

Key components used in structured selection interviews are competencies, qualifications and experience. The job description establishes what are the expectations regarding the work outcome and the competencies that will tested in the interviews.

The biggest danger that can appear in this stage of the recruitment process and which has to be avoided is to exaggerate the competencies and the qualifications asked for a specific job. Of course every company wants to have the best employees, but this can be a bad thing for the corporation. Establishing a too high quality standard will make the recruitment process difficult, because candidates will be harder to attract and it will lead to frustration and dissatisfaction, when the employees will notice that their qualities are not appreciated. The optimal approach consists in making the difference between the essential and the optimal qualities and competencies, without the mandatory ones.
CHAPTER 3: THE RECRUITMENT

3.1 Content and importance

Recruitment is one of the most important activities that human resources specialists perform in the company and which has as an outcome to satisfy the human resources needs the company has.

The main purpose of the recruitment activities is that of attracting a sufficient number of possible candidates that want to be an employee of that company in the positions that are free.

In an organization that follows a high performing human resources department, the recruitment process is a more complex one, being strictly tied by the selection process and by the internal promotion of the personnel.

The recruitment is one of the most public activities of a company, because through it, the organization reveals a series of aspects, challenges and even some difficulties it has encountered. If some human resources activities, some pieces of information are projected, this is not happening with the recruitment process. Public data are the object of research, are opened to interpretation, speculations and even misleads. This way, the organizations need to be really careful in what regards the information the release to the media about the company itself, in order to attract competitive candidates. The public character of recruitment is referring also to the information the candidates tell about themselves at the interview, in the intimate and relaxed environment.

The bi-directional character the recruitment process has refers to the fact that both partners the organization and the individual influence one another. In this collaboration appears social perception phenomenon, of establishing common aspirations, of evaluating the relation between demand and supply, requests and offers, ideal and reality. The bi-directional character of the recruitment process is not a simple one, from the point of view of the employee that has to be satisfied with its employer, which offers the job and the rewards associated to it, and from the point of view of the employer towards the services the employee can bring for the company, because the relationship between the employees and the employers can change its meaning for at least one of the parties involved.

Personnel recruitment has a systematic, organized and planned character. Recruitment is seen as a process with phases and distinct steps which will be well though, planed and well tied between them. Thus, it is highly recommended to have certain plans for the recruitment process. These ones have to have enough information about the quality and the quantity of the work force, about the time and the cost of the recruitment process, and information about the persons which will be involved in the process. The systematic character of the process needs to be assured in any form of recruitment organized by the organization permanent recruitment of periodic one; anticipated or not predicted, realized in moments when the need for personnel appears; provoked recruitment, when the organization does specific actions to occupy a specific job; and spontaneous recruitment, when the individuals want to be hired by the company, even if no job is free.

The recruitment process in general has a flexible and adaptable character. Such characteristic is underlined from the situation economical, social, and cultural in which the recruitment is done. If the actions, processes and recruitment steps are rigid, inflexible and standard, without the possibility to change anything, at least in unpredicted situations, the recruitment will be a failure. This is why the staffing procedures are flexible, in order to permit adapting to all new demands and requests.

Recruitment is seen more often from the marketing point of view. It does not have to be looked only from the point of view of staffing, but it is also a selling activity. From this point of view, personnel that will be recruited represent a market that has to be conquered like any other market.

The recruitment is not just a simple administrative operation for filling the opened positions in the company, but it represents also activities that coordinate the individual capacities of the persons recruited and the competencies asked by the job description. This activities are referring to the professional activity, selection, and finding the suitable place for everybody, which leads to a integration in the activity of the company

3.2 Planning the recruitment process

The recruitment has to start with human resources planning. Depending on the objectives the organization has, the recruitment policy will be established: who will do it, which are the sources of the staffing, the way in which the activity will be organized, the allocated time, and the budget for the whole process.

For elaborating a recruitment plan, the general objectives of the organization have to be established. For this, the help of the managers of the company will be requested to answer a series of questions, related to:

Short term and medium term development projects

In what way the available position in the company will be occupied (internal or external recruitment)

The efficiency or the disadvantages of the methods used until that moment

Preparatory Phase

The recruitment and selection of personnel consists of applying several methods to reach the final decision of employment of the candidate considered most valuable. Regardless of the procedures used to establish the exact person involved in this activity because it is necessary to establish a plan of action.

The methodology of work:

1. The job description - should include a description of the main responsibilities assigned to the post concerned the recruitment of candidates.

2. Analysis of the tasks which they are made by the person who will be hired on the post vacant, aims to identify the skills and qualifications needed to fill the post.

3. Specifications of staff - aimed at selecting the qualities necessary person who will occupy that post.

4. Notification of the job - must be done in a clear, so that there is no doubt or misunderstanding on the content of the job, qualities and qualifications needed to fill it.

5. Application form - will be prepared by those responsible that have been designated to handle recruitment and must provide clear and necessary to determine the skills and motivation announced candidates for the post. This should be formulated to specify the time limit depundere of applications and interview date.

6. Evidence of competition - will be determined by the examiner and will be known in advance to avoid subjective feedback.

7. Taking decisions - how the final decision (by consensus, voting unanimously, etc.) will be set before the interview support for preselection or selection. It also will determine the procedure by which to resolve appeals.

3.3 Sources of recruitment

A very important stage of the process of recruitment is to identify the sources of recruitment. They can be internal or external, but most organizations use both sources of recruitment.

The security personnel inside the organization implies the existence of a dynamic staff, characterized by promotions, retraining, resignation, dismissals, deaths, while providing the staff from outside the organization include recruitment, selection and ensuring staff.

3.4 Internal Recruitment

A method for recruiting international staff is so called 'job-posting. In this context, employees can be notified of the positions vacant through display, letters, publications, radio or television, inviting employees to apply for those positions. This method should be used before external recruitment, because their employees are trained to ask for a specific post. A source of recruitment of staff may be existing employees who can make a good through their families or knowledge. Thus, it is one of the most effective ways of recruiting qualified staff with low costs. Employees can have acquaintances who have the same training as them, that they met at conferences or in various specialized courses. But the selection should not be neglected.

Promotion or transfer certain functions of the staff of people is another way of employment vacancies. But there is a shortcoming that the good performance of the individual to a job could prove lower than other positions in business, the new job asking other capacities and skills.

Another source can be the international employees in training. Some employees retired from the organization may be re-enlisted to work a part-time job or can recommend people willing to recommit the organization. Can be recruited and rehired people who previously had left the organization to carry out training courses for family satisfaction or military training.

This type of recruitment has both advantages and disadvantages. As advantages can be mentioned:

- Company, the organization has the opportunity to know better than weaknesses and the countries of the employees.

- Attracting candidates is much easier because, as well known as performance, they may be offered activities beyond the post held.

- Select the criteria is more organizational efficiency.

- The likelihood of erroneous decisions is smaller, just because of the large volume of information held by them.

- Time required orientation and guidance as new employees is reduced.

- The secret of necessary technologies and know-how necessary require the use of internal recruitment.

- Increase employee motivation and opportunities for promotion are stimulating.

- Recruitment is much faster and less expensive.

- The concrete sense of membership increase loyalty towards the organization.

There are also some negative aspects in the form of disadvantages concerning the recruitment of exclusive interior:

- Prevents the infusion of fresh blood ' the young soul ' and encourages the promotion of new ideas, avant-garde, having difficulties to avoid sometimes change or ideas.

- Promoting the only criterion of seniority and experience, neglecting competence, can damage the organization by promoting incompetent people.

- If your hope to promote is not materializing, people become apathetic, which leads to discouragement and finally decrease in performance.

- Supports the development of appropriate training programs that allow their employees to prepare for assuming new responsibilities.

3.5 External recruiting

External recruiting is made through the informal method and formal method.

The informal method is characterized by limited advertising, by talking to existing employees in the organization and asking them to provide information about people interested in employment, among family, friends or acquaintances. These personal relations will prove themselves efficient if these investigations are made in a discrete manner, in order to avoid causing problems at the present workplace to the potential new employee.

Most of the jobs available are occupied using this method, because it is inexpensive, it can be applied fast, and it is used for the employment of office and management staff from the production departments.

However, there is the risk that, due to subjectivism, the jobs will be filled by persons that will not fit the job. That is why, it is necessary that the informal method is connected with the formal one, which assumes a wider audience.

The formal method is characterized by an extensive search of persons that want to be hired, that are in search of a job on the job market, or that want to change their workplace where they are currently at. For this purpose, different forms of advertising are used, like micro advertising, specialized magazines, the Workforce Office, or by contacting the company directly.

External recruiting has the following advantages:

Encourages the contribution of new ideas, which promotes the progress of the company;

The training costs are low, because trained persons are arriving;

People coming from the exterior can be objective, because they do not have any obligations regarding the existing members of the organization;

However, there is a list of disadvantages as the following:

The evaluations of the recruited people from outside the company are based on less secure sources than references, interviews, or short meetings;

High costs in what concerns the search on the job market, which is wider than the company, less known and more diversified;

It discourages the present employees, reducing their chances of promotion;

3.6 Recruitment methods

A)    Advertising

It is the plainest method of attracting candidates. When used, this method has to take into account three criteria: cost, speed and the probability of finding the suitable candidates.

The objectives of advertising are:

Drawing attention it must compete for the attention of the potential candidates with other employers;

The creation and maintenance of interest it has to communicate in an interesting and attracting manner information about the job, company and the necessary qualifications;

The incitement of the action the message has to appeal and encourage the potential candidate to read all the information;

First, the number of available positions and the date limit for occupancy are established. Then, the job description is included along with mentioning the requiring qualifications, experience, and responsibilities from the candidates.

The second step is to analyze the sources where the candidate may come from. Finally, there must be settled the factors that could attract candidates towards the company, and also what could lead them away, for example the job location.

When an ad is launched, there are a series of factors to be considered:

The number and the place where the potential candidates are;

The cost of advertising; in order to be efficient, the advertising has to attract a sufficient number of candidates with the necessary background, at a low cost;

The frequency of the ad appearances is important in choosing the publication in which it will appear;

The theme and the area of circulation of the publication; an economic publication will be read by the ones looking for a job in this field, whereas the publications with a general interest will attract more but less prepared candidates;

B)    Agencies

Most agencies handle the recruitment of office personnel. Their work is efficient, but expensive. There is the risk that they will offer unprepared candidates, but this risk is low when the requirements are well understood.

For example, in the UK, there are several types of agencies:

Career offices, which are tax free and work with people that have quit their education, meaning unqualified workers. These offices have the role of finding jobs for young people, and do not work in order to help organizations;

Workplace centers these centers provide free consultancy for both unemployed people and organizations looking for workforce;

Recruitment agencies some have specialized on functions, others on domains, some are paying more attention to manager recruitment and others are focused on employee advising. The fees vary form 20% up to 50% of the wage plus expenses;

C)    Consultations

This method is in practice in numerous countries. The prepared consultants know where and when to find potential candidates and they manage to determine them to participate at the selection process.

The consultants offer qualified advices and reduce the workload. Optionally, the organization can remain anonymous. If it is required to find a consultant for the recruitment, the following steps have to be made:

Check the reputation of the consultant by getting in touch with former clients;

Check his specialization experience;

Arrange a meeting with the consultant to check his qualifications;

Fee comparison;

There are the following advantages:

Consultants are very well familiarized with the job market, knowing where to find a certain category of workers, which will reduce useless ads and enhance the success chances;

They make a first filtration of the candidates, absolving the company from this work task;

The consultant has an objective view when choosing the candidate;

D)    Searching the employee

This method is one of the most complex methods of recruitment. It is recommended for the management positions and the jobs that require a high level of specialization. The method consists of finding and identifying the persons with the requirements asked, as well as providing motivation for the candidates. Some entrepreneurs, when recruiting a good candidate in a specific field, propose advantageous offers, giving them very attractive wages and work conditions.

The potential candidates file. An example can be the recruitment compartment inside companies. If a permanent upgrade is provided, it assures a high level of operability.

Marketing activities. The personnel recruitment for the job filling of upper management positions can be viewed as a marketing activity, in which the positions available are presented in such a way that they are attractive for the interested candidates.

CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDY AXXA Media

Before ending our project, we will observe the recruitment and selection process at an advertising production company called AXXA Media. Due to the fact that the corporation is searching for candidates who have experience in the domain, the recruitment method that will be used is the external one. A job advertisement will be posted on one of the most notorious sites in the recruitment domain, www.ejobs.ro, as well as in Romania Libera newspaper, Monday edition.

The position the company is trying to fill is production operator.

Candidates profile:

• age: 20-40 years old
• high school degree
• at least one year of experience in advertising production
• communication abilities
• team spirit and entrepreneurial skills
• flexibility
• availability

The job advertisement on www.ejobs.ro will be:

The advertising production company AXXA Media, with its headquarters in Voluntari, 14 Raului Street, is looking to hire someone on the production operator position.

Minimum Job Requirements: high school degree, at least one year of experience, team spirit, flexibility, customer-oriented.

Benefits: fixed salary, bonuses (will be discussed during the interview).

Only the candidates that fulfill the requirements mentioned above will be contacted by our company. Thank you for your understanding. The deadline for sending the rsums is 15.01.2009.

The job advertisement in Romania Libera newspaper, Monday edition, will be:

The advertising production company AXXA Media, with its headquarters in Voluntari, 14 Raului Street, is looking to hire someone on the production operator position.

Minimum Job Requirements: high school degree, at least one year of experience, team spirit, flexibility, customer-oriented.

Benefits: fixed salary, bonuses (will be discussed during the interview).

Should you be interested, please send your rsum until 15.01.2009 at fax: 021 242 1234 or by email: mihainita@axxacompany.ro. The person is charge is Mr. Mihai Nita. Only the candidates that fulfill the requirements mentioned above will be contacted by our company. Thank you for your understanding.

Once the deadline for sending rsums has passed, the most appropriate applicants shall be selected. The latter shall be contacted in order to attend an interview at the companys headquarters, on the day and at the time specified to each candidate. The method that shall be used for interviewing the entrants will be the individual interview, semi- structured.

The interview shall take approximately 30 minutes. Each candidate will answer to a set of well-established questions. Subsequently, depending on their responses, the interviewers task will be to find out as many details as possible about the candidate in question, so as to select the best applicant for the job.

The most important document of recruitment and selection of personnel is the job description. In case of the job posted by AXXA Media, the job description will be:

Job title: Production Operator

Job summary:

- operating the cutter and handling the materials edited by it

- preparing the materials, working in Corel Draw

- car branding

Authority of incumbent:

- reports to the team leader

- subordinates: none

Personal characteristics:

- age: 20-40 years old

- sex: male

- personality: communicative, creative, innovation spirit, flexible, responsible, able to work in teams

Job specifications:

- professional experience: at least one year

- high school degree

- foreign languages: English, intermediate level

- drivers license (optional)

- PC handling: Corel Draw, WinCut, Internet surfing

Promotion: team leader

Benefits:

- salary, meal tickets

- bonuses for different projects

- health insurance

The interview of the candidates will consist of the following questions:

1. What was your position at the former work place? Describe an ordinary working day.
2. How would you describe you level of fulfilling tasks?
3. What are the domains that pose you difficulties?
4. In what circumstances were you employed at your former work place?
5. Do you enjoy working in teams?
6. Not all employees get along with others. What kind of persons do you find it hard to interact with? Example.

7. Your salary?

- current net salary

- motivating net salary

What is the reason you accepted coming to this interview?

What are your expectations regarding this job?

What is your availability level (after-work hours, unexpected traveling, loyalty, etc.)?

Why do you think you are the best for this position?

What is your biggest accomplishment so far?

What is the biggest mistake you have done in your professional life so far?

What do you enjoy most doing in your free time?

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

Following our analysis, we can conclude that the processes of recruitment and selection of personnel represent two of the most important activities of the Human Resources Department within a company. These constitute the system through which the necessary work force is ensured, the latter being crucial for any business activity of a corporation. Without these two steps, things would not function normally.

Therefore, the organization has to make great efforts in order to discover, attract, select, form, perfection and motivate the human resources who are capable of assuming responsibility and fulfilling their duties flawlessly.

The human factor has become more and more important within an organization, because it creates and handles techniques and technology and not the other way around. There will always be a problem of combining the factors of production and obtaining diverse products and services. This can only be done by man, who must not be looked upon as a simple factor of production, but rather as an extraordinary potential for the company, which is able to put the wheels into motion.

As for the case study is concerned, we must mention that this method of recruitment and selection has been used by the company before, with the help of experienced Human Resources employees and the results were according to their expectations. We are certain that they will be able to choose the appropriate candidate for the production operation position and that, short time after starting his activity, AXXA Media will benefit from the well-done work of the new employee.

References:

Viorica Ana Chisu, Manualul specialistului in resurse umane, Editura Irecson, 2002

Florence Stone, Recruiting and Retaining People, Capstone Publishing, 2002

Michael Armstrong, A Handbook of Personnel Management Practice, Kogan Page, 1996

Aurel Manolescu, Managementul Resurselor Umane, Editura Economica, 1997

- Robert Mathis, L. Panaite C. Nica, C. Rusu, Managementul Resurselor Umane, Editura Economica, 1997

- www.esnips.com

- www.axxacompany.ro