Recruiting and selecting the right people for the relevant requirement is a crucial task for every human resource specialist. A good selection process is key to identifying talent for the ultimate business productivity.
Tough in an organization managers, supervisors, or HRs are responsible for the employee selection process for the desired profiles, the key responsibility of HRM is to define and guide managers in this process.
What is the Selection Process in HRM?
The selection process refers to the steps and methods used by organizations or individuals to choose the most suitable candidates for a job position, admission to a program or school, or any other competitive opportunity.
We can define the Employee Selection Process as shortlisting suitable candidates based on the necessary qualifications and skill set for required job vacancies in the organizations.
Often it becomes challenging for the human resource management team because if the selection gets wrong for the job, the cost acquired in the onboarding will be a huge loss to the employers in terms of money, effort, and time. It will affect the company’s future productivity as well.
In this article, we will go closer to how to design the entire hiring process so that you can easily find suitable candidates for the desired profile while enjoying the efficient candidate selection experience.
Importance of the Selection Process in HRM
A proper selection process can lead to a high employee retention rate and good company productivity. It improves the employee engagement rate as well. We are discussing the top 7 benefits of the acute selection process in HRM in detail.
➔ Identifying the right candidates
Who is the right candidate for your desired domain? Or Are you sure that the employment rate would be lessened?
The selection process helps HR professionals identify and evaluate candidates who possess the necessary skills, qualifications, and experience to perform the job effectively.
By using various assessment methods, HRM can ensure that the candidates who advance through the selection process are the most suitable for the position.
➔ Improving organizational performance
Each organization’s focus will improvise workplace performance and earn business profit. Hiring suitable candidates through a well-designed selection process can significantly improvise the overall performance and success of an organization.
Employees who are compatible with their roles are more likely to be appropriate in their responsibilities, contribute positively to the organizational culture, and achieve better results.
➔ Cost reduction
A complete selection process helps in quick onboarding. It reduces the costs associated with recruitment and employee turnover.
The selection process through HRM can easily assess candidates’ qualifications, skills, and knowledge, and detect whether they fit with the organization. The tests are increasing the chances of hiring interested individuals who are more likely to stay for the long term. It leads to higher employee retention and reduces reported recruitment.
➔ Legal compliance
The selection process plays a critical role in ensuring legal compliance in hiring practices. By following a structured and fair selection process, organizations can minimize the risk of discrimination and bias, and ensure that candidates are evaluated based on their qualifications and merit rather than personal characteristics protected by law.
➔ Employee engagement and morale
When candidates are selected based on their fit with the job and organizational culture, they are more likely to feel engaged and satisfied in their roles. A well-designed selection process that aligns candidates’ skills and motivations with the job requirements can contribute to higher levels of employee morale and motivation.
➔ Building a Diverse Workforce
The selection process provides an opportunity for HRM to promote diversity and inclusion within the organization. By adopting inclusive practices and considering a diverse pool of candidates, HRM can ensure that individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives are given equal opportunities to join the organization.
➔ Planning and talent management
The selection process also plays a role in identifying high-potential candidates for future leadership positions. By assessing candidates’ potential, HRM can identify individuals who demonstrate the necessary skills, competencies, and leadership qualities required for future leadership roles.
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Some barriers that may exist in the hiring process are:
- Human resources specialists often face challenges when creating an effective recruitment process. These are,
- In the fair interview process, the interviewers should not be biased.
- Confirm the validity of information collected from the candidate in the application form.
- Keeping the candidate warm. The candidates should be kept from other places.
- Arranging interviews efficiently. So the candidates stay energetic all the time.
What are the primary steps of the Recruitment and Selection Process in Human Resource Management?
The recruitment and selection process includes various steps, as follows
- Criteria development
- Application
- Screening and pre-selection
- Preliminary Interview
- Assessment
- Employment Interviews
- Checking references
- Medical examination
- Final Selection
Let’s discuss all the steps in detail,
1. Criteria Development
The first and most strategic step is developing the correct purpose of selection, which includes Criteria Development. Criteria development means determining the sources for a scalable hiring process. Generally, hiring criteria are based on analysis and job specifications.
However, a candidate’s personality would be crucial for roles where they must face the customer while undertaking their daily duties.
By developing the criteria before reviewing any résumés or conducting random interviews, the HR manager or manager can not only finalize their desired field but also reduce the entire hiring timing.
2. Job Posting
Once the criteria have been developed, three steps must commence the entire ‘application’ process. The steps are following,
➔ Inviting application
In this step, you can post the vacancy details through advertisement. All the job details are provided in this advertisement. Those advertisements attract candidates to apply for the desired profile.
➔ Receiving the applications
Once you can receive enough resumes for the required post, you can get a chance to go through the skills and knowledge of the applicant you can get a rough idea of the candidates. It also helps you to ask a question during the interview process.
➔ Scrutiny of Applications
Once the recruitment management system reviews the applicants, you can scrutinize their resumes for final verification. Once the candidates have the essential qualifications, you can email them and call them for an interview. Usually, the candidate selected for the interview must be three to four times the number of vacant posts.
3. Screening and Pre-selection of the Candidate
The next step of ‘Application’ is screening and pre-selection before commencing the interview process. In this phase, you must choose 3 to 10 people from the entire large group of candidates.
Suppose you hire someone with over 3 years of experience in the desired field. And more than half of the submitted resumes are from freshers’ end, and then you can quickly rule out those people and send interview invitation mail to the qualified candidates.
In the case of any big organization, when they launch bulk hiring, the screening committee faces the initial screening process, and the pre-selection process can be time-consuming.
Using the software is efficient and cost-effective for managing the entire selection process within the estimated timeline. Choosing any ATS with enabled artificial intelligence can be a good option for a fair selection process.
➔ Phone screening/chatbot
Phone screening or using of chatbots is trending now. During the phone screening process, you can ask some general queries related to the resume to the candidates for a scalable selection process. Using a chatbot for asking these questions is also an outstanding option.
4. Preliminary Interviews
The 3rd step of the selection process is conducting the round one interview. In general, HR specialists go with the interview questions and examine some insight into a person’s verbal fluency and sociability and how well-suited they are in their specific role.
During the preliminary interview, HRs ask queries related to the job, which presents the opportunity to sell the job to the candidate. The interview leads an honest and friendly communication between the candidate and the interviewer, making it easier for potential candidates to find the desired profile.
5. Assessment
Assessment is an essential step in the selection process, developing a scoring system. A common assessment is also known as the mental ability test, or you can call it a Five-Factor Model of Personality test. During this step, the interviewer understands the candidates with a higher IQ associated with faster learning and higher performance. The weightage allocated to the assessment varies from one company to another.
Let’s discuss the Five-factor Model of personality test in detail,
➔ Intelligence test
With intelligence tests, interviewers try to understand the candidates’ capacity to learn something new. This test estimates the candidates’ IQ through work sample tests, mathematical tests, jargon or written tests, and verbal familiarity. This test measures the learning and mental capabilities of the candidates.
➔ Aptitude Test
The aptitude Test helps the interviewer to understand the potentiality of acquiring the new skill of the candidates. With Aptitude tests, candidates prove to themselves how they are the potential to taking quick decisions or fast grasp new skills, etc.
➔ Personality Tests
In this phase, the hiring manager tries to talk to the candidate to understand their character qualities for future productivity execution. With this personality test, interviewers check the applicants’ motivational level, traits, sympathy, sensitivity, etc. They try to understand the applicants’ thinking by presenting some random controversial situation to the candidates.
➔ Interest Tests
Candidates’ interest in the desired field leads to business productivity and company growth. With the interest test, the interviewer can know the candidate’s interest in the chosen field. This test intends to find every individual’s field of interest to recognize the work they like to perform.
➔ Motor Test
With the motor test, the interviewer observes the hand-to-eye coordination of the candidates. They watch the candidates perform their duties and observe how well they do them.
6. Employment Interview
An employment test is one of the essential parts of the selection process. This selection process consists of an oral examination of the candidates selected through the previous assessment test.
During this employment test, the interviewers try to match the information they get from the CV. The basic queries of this selection process vary from company to company and change according to the desired profile’s needs.
Moreover, With this Employment personal interview round, the HR manager tells them their role and responsibilities and how they would have to perform. And HR tries to check their communication skill, interest in joining, etc. Based on this round, the right candidate is finally shortlisted for joining through a panel discussion.
➔ Types of Employment Interview
▸ Structured Interview
Interviewers arrange some questions before the interview, maintaining the same strategies and format.
▸ Unstructured Interview
Interviewers take job knowledge tests by questioning some random queries of the candidate. Often this process is treated as a negative process.
▸ Panel Interview
In the panel interview, the organization arranges some employment tests in front of interviewers. It is one of the challenging phases of the entire selection process. The organization plans for this round to choose the best candidates for the company. In Panel Interview, the hiring decision is undertaken by the entire panel.
▸ Stress Interview
Often interviewers create a stressful environment at the time of the interview. They take the psychological test by criticizing the candidate’s opinion, keeping silent for a long time, and creating an awkward atmosphere during the interview. This selection process varies from one company to another.
7. Reference check
After completing the entire preliminary interviews, questioners contact the references of the qualified applicants to get some vital information like a person’s capabilities, experience in previous companies, and leadership and managerial skills. This round is one of the essential phases of the employment interview.
Often, interviewers get closer to other qualities about them. In this recruitment process in HRM, organizations may reach out to prior employers or the concerned educational institutions for previous job experience.
8. Medical examination
The selection process refers to the candidates’ physical examination that ensures each qualified applicant’s physical strength. Though it is mandatory for every organization, most big companies undergo this process to hire fit candidates, as they are supposed to invest huge for them. If, in this case, the potential candidates seem unfit and fail the medical test, the job will not be given to them. In some scenarios, the candidate often has to go through drug tests to detail the candidate’s good health.
A detailed medical checkup ensures that the employees have good health standards that increase the expectation of employee engagement and company productivity.
9. Final Selection and Appointment Letter
It is the final phase of selecting the right candidate among the twenty or thirty candidates chosen in the previous employment process. The selected candidates receive an offer/appointment letter from the organization.
The appointment letter contains every detail of the job, like working hours, salary, leave allowance, loans, etc. Besides, they are asked to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) when they join.
Often in the case of experienced candidates, they are hired temporarily with an assurance of permanency on completion of 3 months of the probation period.
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At the End
Selecting and hiring the best applicants for the desired field is the key to building productivity and company growth. A proper selection process not only leads to employee engagement and increases the employee retention rate but also helps to create a competitive advantage for the organization.
