Candidate Effective Initial Scanning and Employee Selection

Abstract

Choosing an appropriate person for primary scanning was a challenging process. Thus, it is essential to establish reliable procedures and techniques for reducing and eliminating the high costs associated with re-training and re-hiring. The study aims to find a correlation between candidate effective initial scanning (CEIS) and actual processes of employment linked to the organizational techniques and procedures that possibly lead to monetary losses. The study is qualitative comparative case research. Relevant data will be collected with the use of an 8-question survey related to the general human resource processes in a specific organization.

Introduction

Employment selection refers to a set of processes associated with finding the right candidates for a particular job role, which is announced earlier for selecting those workers who are the most qualified. To do so, an organization-employer can choose between external and internal employment selection, or even try to attempt both. The preliminary process of candidate scanning is an essential tool that can be beneficial for achieving relevant results during the initial selection.

Potential employees and organizations should have some connection because a company would like to choose only those people that could bring value through applying their skills, efforts, and competencies. Thus, the process of recruiting is an essentially reciprocal election, which includes many criteria and characteristics, one of which is a successful preliminary scanning. If done correctly, preliminary scanning will not lead to issues such as re-hiring and additional training. Therefore, an organization will be able to select the most appropriate candidate for the open position, and in the course of some time, a company will acquire the best workers because the preliminary scanning has been done correctly.

Preliminary scanning is an important tool for the process of employment selection, which means that it should be developed in a way that will work effectively. Subsequently, this tool will play a crucial role in the process of hiring; to be successful, the professionals of the HR department must be trained well and possess relevant and current data for efficiently performing preliminary scanning. When speaking about the processes of selection and recruitment, both of them are imperative for the appropriate management of human resources since selecting a suitable employee fosters the development of other HR administration aspects.

Another crucial point to mention is the introduction of manual employment and hiring selection as a basis for the development of the HR department and a facilitator for the clarification of any doubts associated with procedures of employment selection. It is noteworthy that in the case of an organization not having a clearly defined process of selection, recruitment, and preliminary scanning, it will lose the chance of acquiring better outcomes regarding professional and effective staff.

Put simply, the stage of preliminary scanning refers to organizations getting relevant information for helping the HR staff understand the basic characteristics of candidates and their capacities regarding a specific job. The objective of preliminary scanning is developing a job profile that will aid in finding not the “best” candidate but the “appropriate” one. This means that preliminary scanning should be a well-designed and implemented procedure that will help HR professionals to select the appropriate candidate without excessive processes or tools.

It is important to mention that the procedure of preliminary scanning allows recruiters to have an idea about the capabilities of a specific candidate and help in acquiring general information about him or her to see whether the main criteria of selection are met. Furthermore, this procedure prevents the loss of time and resources, especially when potential candidates fit the selection criteria right away. Thus, developing a well-designed and efficient process of preliminary scanning is likely to enhance the first stage of recruitment. This means that the step of planning should begin with finding out the primary needs of the organization to determine which employees are necessary for the execution of the identified objectives.

The process of recruitment was designed to attract qualified and professional workers and selection is the procedure that allows the HR department to choose the right people. In some companies, employees are selected based on personal sympathy or simplified test without taking into consideration the key aspects that are crucial for the recruitment of a candidate. Therefore, preliminary scanning is essential for employers to select the appropriate candidate right from the start.

Research Questions and Study Objectives

The general objective of the study is finding a correlation between candidate effective initial scanning (CEIS) and existing processes of employment select.

Specific objectives of the study are the following:

1. Establishing that the existing processes of employment are identified and well-designed.
2. Finding out the reasons due to which the already established techniques and processes lead to the loss of monetary resources associated with re-hiring and re-training.
3. Improving the general practices within organizations through the introduction of CEIS.

Research questions are the following:

1. What are the existing processes of recruitment within organizations and are they defined clearly?
2. Do the existing processes contribute to the reduction or increase of costs for re-training and re-hiring?
3. What is the role of CEIS in ensuring that HR professionals interview and then hire the right candidate for the job position?

Literature Review

Procedures for recruitment and selection are essential activities for the HRM department for a business organization of any kind, size, and orientation. Both procedures are linked to the steps HR professionals take for attracting and recruiting the right candidates for a job position. It is noteworthy that the quality and effectiveness of the HR department of an organization directly relates to the success of recruitment and selection. Subsequently, choosing the unsuitable candidates that cannot fulfill the requirements of a certain job leads to increased costs that many companies cannot afford. Therefore, the general objective of recruitment and selection is developing a list of candidates that will be suitable for meeting the needs and goals of an organization without wasting valuable resources such as time and money.

It has been mentioned that the process of recruitment is similar to the starting point for a company’s path towards making sure that the right individuals are chosen for meeting the needs (both cultural and organizational) and achieving the strategic goals. The similar idea is that the process of recruitment is nothing but the steps HR takes to search for candidates that will bring value and benefit to the particular organization. It is the set of activities that creates a series of connections between employers and potential employees. Moreover, recruitment can be defined as a procedure of attracting experienced applicants for a job position or a process for discovering new sources of the workforce for meeting the needs and requirements of the organization for facilitating the efficient selection of a capable and competent workforce.

The following list of three types of recruitment needs:

1. Planned needs, which arise from shifts in the retirement policies of organizations that create open job positions.
2. Anticipated needs, which refer to the process of employee turnover that allows organizations to predict future trends associated with the internal and external corporate environment.
3. Unexpected needs, which arise from various sets of reasons such as resignations, relocations, deaths, illnesses, and others.

If to mention the employment selection myths and misconceptions, researchers pointed to the lack of validity associated with different measures of recruitment and selection, such as interviews, tests, and reference checks, as well as conditions required for maximizing the efficiency of the mentioned practices or the lack of understanding of the process of interviewing. Therefore, it can be concluded that all organizations are looking for the appropriate candidate but not many of them possess enough knowledge on how to increase the chances of choosing the right person that will bring value and help in reaching the established goals.

This conclusion points to the idea that the effective functioning of the human resource department is essential for the successful performance of an organization, namely, increasing productivity or reducing the costs linked to inefficient HR management.

Another view associated with the process of employment selection refers to the idea that the procedures of selection should determine who is hired. If developed and implemented the right way, employment selection will allow organizations to match the identified needs to the right people. As a result, this will lead to the development of a tool for increasing the probability of the right candidate being chosen for an open position. It is common knowledge that if the right people are selected for a job, their productivity will increase. Researchers have reported a positive correlation between effective recruitment processes and the profits of organizations. Similarly, procedures for recruitment and selection have shown to be positively correlated with organizational performance.

In the advanced modern environment, managers understand that the performance of their human resource team has a direct influence on the overall effectiveness. With low levels of unemployment, competition for the most appropriate employees for the highly ranked job positions is quite high. To investigate the nature of recruitment and hiring, modern researchers focused on different techniques employers either accept or reject. Methods of employee selection can be assessed in a variety of ways; among possible approaches is comparing the employment techniques based on their efficiency, cost, ways of usage, impartiality, and other characteristics.

This means that the recruitment practices and experiences differ from one organization to another, and the most effective way for determining what practices are the best is to assess the results of the past practices of recruitment, not the efforts that all organizations take. Once an organization has figured out the most appropriate metrics for measuring the effectiveness of recruitment, the next step is using the tools and channels that are more likely to work for that organization and its needs.

Human resource managers are currently challenged by hiring the right employees for open job positions. This means that modern HR professionals should come up with more innovative hiring and selection processes however complicated and challenging they may seem. There is no doubt that the general objective of the process of selection is associated with identifying employees that will be the right choice both for the open job slot as well as the general needs of the organization’s human resource plan.

Due to the fast pace of the modern business environment, organizations are trying to look for ways that will allow them to reduce the time and resources involved in the process of selection and recruitment. Nevertheless, the recruitment efforts must contribute to the competitive advantage of an organization so that the strategies of hiring should lead to the improvement of organizational outcomes. For some researchers, the introduction of a qualitative recruitment system is a beneficial strategy to aid organizations to improve and grow as they encounter more and more right people for open job positions.

In any company, selection and recruitment are serious tools that businesses can use for achieving success and increasing efficiency as well as positively influencing the quality of the workforce’s performance that has been selected through beneficial practices and exercises. While the quality of tools and exercises organizations use for hiring new employees is important, companies should also focus on acquiring a “pool” of professional and qualified candidates that will go through a valid selection process. For this reason, managers should understand the goals, practices, and various policies involved in the process of selection. Those professionals who play an important role in making decisions about employee selection should possess relevant information, on which they should ground their criteria for choosing appropriate candidates.

Methodology

It is proposed to investigate the correlation between candidate effective initial scanning (CEIS) and actual processes of employment linked to the organizational techniques and procedures that possibly lead to monetary losses with the help of the qualitative comparative case research. The case study method was chosen for its effectiveness in studying specific concepts in-depth and allowing for the use of multiple sources of data, which is especially beneficial for descriptive studies that focus on certain situations, in which generalizability is less acceptable. With regards to answering “how” or “why” questions, a case study is a method that can be used for theory development.

Research with the use of case studies may also contribute to the development of a holistic approach towards the concept of causality since it allows for the treatment of a specific case as a whole. Therefore, this research methodology focuses on the option to investigate causal relationships between specific factors based on several observations. Furthermore, case studies can be used by researchers when there are study questions about a specific process since the use of several sets of data could support the retrospective examination of events.

Study Setting

The aim of the identified method of research is associated with the analysis of the number of open positions that the HR department issues over six months during the current year. It was found that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (head office in the UAE) issued sixteen open job positions throughout 2016.

Instruments of Research

The key instrument for the current research is an 8-question survey, which included the following questions:

1. How many employees make up the Human Resource Department in the organization?
2. How many of them are involved in the process of recruitment?
3. How many and what are the channels candidates can use to apply for the open job positions?
4. Does the organization document the processes to evaluate the skills and the level of professionalism of applicants before the interview?
5. How does the organization make connections between the current requirements and resumes provided by the candidates?
6. What are the criteria for choosing or refusing an appropriate resume?
7. How many interviews did the HR department perform in 2014, 2015, and 2016 with prospective candidates (compare the number with the number of resumes the department received)?

Sample Size and Design

The sample size of the research is made up of three different TRA departments that issued eighteen open job positions. The number of open jobs in the Spectrum Department was three, the TDA department issued six positions, and the Regulatory department reported nine open positions.

Addressing Ethical Issues

The key ethical issue of the research is associated with the stereotype of finding “the appropriate candidate for the position.” Thus, the researcher needs to have an understanding that an employee should not be perceived as the best but should be looked at as the “right one.” The researcher may also confront the problem of possible personal bias, cultural preferences, and preliminary judgment. To address this problem, the team of researchers from different backgrounds and of different perspectives should be used to ensure reliable preliminary scanning. Another problem is associated with the internal selection, so it is advised to implement external selection instead so that the research will be dealing with new candidates without specific preferences and opinions.

Data Processing and Analysis

Because the research uses the case study method, a structured survey is used for the process of data collection. After relevant data is collected, the key role players in the process of employment selection will uniformly record the information to ensure that the data is reliable; moreover, a database can manage the collected information.

Proposed Research Chapters

Names of chapters proposed for the report are the following:

Introduction

• Research objectives (general and specific);
• Study questions;
• Literature review.

Methodology

• Study sample;
• Research instruments;
• Data collection;
• Method and type of research.
• Research results
• Data analysis;
• Results;
• Conclusion;
• Study limitations and recommendations.
• References.
• Appendices.

Study Limitations and Problems

The key problem associated with the current study is that the researchers are unable to determine whether the studied organization has a well-trained and skillful team of professionals who can successfully perform preliminary scanning and develop appropriate questions for interviewing potential candidates. It is essential to evaluate the processes of employment selection throughout some time to determine whether the organizational needs are met, which is another limitation since organizations will risk missing the chance of getting more reliable results. Lastly, the study is limited to the relatively small sample size for covering all HR departments and sectors in TRA as well as the time is given for the completion of the research.

Project Timeframe

The entire project is expected to take one semester due to the necessity to design a survey for collecting relevant data and developing the actual report.